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20-letter words containing b, a, l, e, o

  • environment variable — (programming, operating system)   A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and substituting its value. Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inheritted by a child process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the type of shell being used. These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program. To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh prompt. In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with new bindings when a function's parameters are bound to its actual arguments or when new variables are declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of activation records.
  • equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
  • feast of tabernacles — Sukkoth.
  • five-a-side football — a version of soccer with five players in each team
  • fold-and-thrust belt — a linear or arcuate region of the earth's surface that has been subjected to severe folding and thrust faulting
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • good loser/bad loser — If someone is a good loser, they accept that they have lost a game or contest without complaining. If someone is a bad loser, they hate losing and complain about it.
  • gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)
  • greatest lower bound — a lower bound that is greater than or equal to all the lower bounds of a given set: 1 is the greatest lower bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbreviation: glb.
  • grey-crowned babbler — an insect-eating Australian bird, Pomatostomus temporalis of the family Timaliidae
  • grievous bodily harm — law: serious injury
  • hildegard von bingen — Hildegard von (Hildegard of Bingen"Sibyl of the Rhine") 1098–1178, German nun, healer, writer, and composer.
  • hudson's bay blanket — a woollen blanket with wide stripes
  • hyperbolic cotangent — a hyperbolic function that is the ratio of cosh to sinh, being the reciprocal of tanh; coth
  • in the public domain — able to be discussed and examined freely by the general public
  • information builders — Distributors of LEVEL5 OBJECT. Telephone +1 800 969 INFO.
  • job control language — a language used to construct statements that identify a particular job to be run and specify the job's requirements to the operating system under which it will run. Abbreviation: JCL.
  • justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
  • laboratory equipment — apparatus for scientific research and experiments
  • labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
  • lampbrush chromosome — a chromosome with looped projections resembling a brush
  • land-office business — a lively, booming, expanding, or very profitable business.
  • law of large numbers — the theorem in probability theory that the number of successes increases as the number of experiments increases and approximates the probability times the number of experiments for a large number of experiments.
  • like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
  • longitude by account — the longitude of the position of a vessel as estimated by dead reckoning.
  • look before you leap — be aware of the risks involved in sth
  • love's labour's lost — a comedy (1594–95?) by Shakespeare.
  • massachusetts ballot — a ballot on which the candidates, with their party designations, are listed alphabetically in columns under the office for which they were nominated.
  • member of parliament — A Member of Parliament is a person who has been elected by the people in a particular area to represent them in a country's parliament. The abbreviation MP is often used.
  • membranous labyrinth — an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit. Synonyms: maze, network, web.
  • meta-dichlorobenzene — a colorless liquid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , soluble in alcohol and ether: used as a fumigant and insecticide.
  • miliary tuberculosis — tuberculosis in which the bacilli are spread by the blood from one point of infection, producing small tubercles in other parts of the body.
  • multiplication table — Arithmetic. a tabular listing of the products of any two numbers of a set, usually of the integers 1 through 10 or 1 through 12.
  • neon lamp (or tube) — a discharge lamp containing neon, that ionizes and glows with a red light (neon light) when an electric current is sent through it: used esp. in advertising signs
  • nickel tetracarbonyl — nickel carbonyl.
  • northern leaf blight — a disease of corn caused by the fungus Exsherohilum turcicum, characterized by elongate tan-gray elliptical spots with subsequent blighting and necrosis of leaves.
  • nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
  • objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
  • operational database — (database)   A database containing up-to-date, modifiable data, in contrast to a decision support database.
  • order bill of lading — a bill of lading that is issued to the order of a shipper or consignee for delivery of the goods and that can be transferred by endorsement to third parties.
  • para-dichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
  • particle beam weapon — a weapon that fires particle beams into the atmosphere or space
  • pass in one's marble — to die
  • peasecod breastplate — a breastplate having a long central ridge terminating in a raised area overhanging the waistline.
  • pedro juan caballero — a city in E central Paraguay.
  • pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
  • periodontal membrane — the collagenous, fibrous connective tissue between the cementum of the tooth and the alveolus.
  • physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
  • planned obsolescence — a method of stimulating consumer demand by designing products that wear out or become outmoded after limited use.
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