21-letter words containing a, v, i, g
- light armored vehicle — an eight-wheeled armored reconnaissance car with a 25mm cannon, in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in the 1980s.
- magneto-optical drive — magneto-optical disk
- mariage de convenance — marriage entered into for a personal or family advantage, as for social, political, or economic reasons, usually without love and sometimes without the expectation of sexual relations.
- multi-level marketing — Multi-level marketing is a marketing technique which involves people buying a product, then earning a commission by selling it to their friends. The abbreviation MLM is also used.
- national savings bank — (in Britain) a government savings bank, run through the post office, esp for small savers
- negative amortization — the increase of the principal of a loan by the amount by which periodic loan payments fall short of the interest due, usually as a result of an increase in the interest rate after the loan has begun.
- negative prescription — the barring of adverse claims to property, etc, after a specified period of time has elapsed, allowing the possessor to acquire title
- one foot in the grave — near to death
- over and over (again) — repeatedly; time after time
- overhead-valve engine — I-head engine.
- path coverage testing — (testing) Testing a program by examining which lines of executable code are visited (as in code coverage testing) and also the ways of getting to each line of code and the subsequent sequence of execution. Path coverage testing is the most comprehensive type of testing that a test suite can provide. It can find more bugs, especially those that are caused by data coupling. However, path coverage is hard and usually only used for small and/or critical sections of code.
- premium savings bonds — (in Britain) bonds issued by the Treasury since 1956 for purchase by the public. No interest is paid but there is a monthly draw for cash prizes of various sums
- progressive education — any of various reformist educational philosophies and methodologies since the late 1800s, applied especially to elementary schools, that reject the rote recitation and strict discipline of traditional, single-classroom teaching, favoring instead more stimulation of the individual pupil as well as group discussion, more informality in the classroom, a broader curriculum, and use of laboratories, gymnasiums, kitchens, etc., in the school.
- quality point average — grade point average.
- quantitative genetics — population genetics.
- radius of convergence — a positive number so related to a given power series that the power series converges for every number whose absolute value is less than this particular number.
- revillagigedo islands — an uninhabited island group belonging to Mexico, in the Pacific Ocean, SSW of the Baja California peninsula: Socorro is the largest island. 320 sq. mi. (830 sq. km).
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- saving your reverence — a form of apology for using an obscene or taboo expression
- seven-segment display — (electronics) (SSD) A kind of display element consisting of seven independently controllable lines arranged as a rectangular figure eight. A seven-segment display is the simplest device that can display any of the digits zero to nine (and some other characters) by lighting different combinations of lines. They are often seen in electronic calculators or measuring equipment.
- short message service — (messaging) (SMS) A message service offered by the GSM digital mobile telephone system. Using SMS, a short alphanumeric message (160 alphanumeric characters) can be sent to a mobile phone to be displayed there, much like in an alphanumeric pager system. The message is buffered by the GSM network until the phone becomes active.
- sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
- television evangelist — a Christian minister who devotes time to preaching on television
- threatening behaviour — intimidation or intentional behaviour that causes another person to fear injury or harm
- to give the game away — If someone or something gives the game away, they reveal a secret or reveal their feelings, and this puts them at a disadvantage.
- to have green fingers — If someone has green fingers, they are very good at gardening and their plants grow well.
- to take the long view — If you take the long view, you consider what is likely to happen in the future over a long period, rather than thinking only about things that are going to happen soon.
- topological invariant — a property of a topological space that is a property of every space related to the given space by a homeomorphism.
- traveling salesperson — a representative of a business firm who travels in an assigned territory soliciting orders for a company's services.
- venus's looking glass — a purple-flowered campanulaceous plant, Legousia hybrida, of Europe, W Asia, and N Africa
- vertically challenged — short in stature.
- virginia (rail) fence — a zigzag fence made of rails laid across one another at the ends
- vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
- your mileage may vary — (jargon) (YMMV) The disclaimer American car manufacturers attached to EPA mileage ratings. A humourous way of saying that the thing under discussion will not necessarily give you the same results as the author. Often used to convey the hardware dependence of Unix freeware distributions.