24-letter words containing c, a, l, i, s, t
- polymer matrix composite — A polymer matrix composite is a material consisting of a composite made stronger by adding fibers or particles to it.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- private health insurance — insurance against the need for medical treatment as a private patient
- professional association — a body of persons engaged in the same profession, formed usually to control entry into the profession, maintain standards, and represent the profession in discussions with other bodies
- professional corporation — a corporation formed by one or more licensed practitioners, especially medical or legal, to operate their practices on a corporate plan. Abbreviation: PC, P.C.
- psychopathic personality — an antisocial personality characterized by the failure to develop any sense of moral responsibility and the capability of performing violent or antisocial acts
- public access television — television in which local producers or individuals can participate
- public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
- public-access television — a noncommercial system of broadcasting on television channels made available to independent or community groups for programs of general interest to the community.
- quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
- reciprocal translocation — an exchange of segments between two nonhomologous chromosomes.
- reconnaissance satellite — a military satellite designed to carry out photographic surveillance, gather electronic intelligence, detect nuclear explosions, or provide early warning of strategic-missile launchings.
- referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
- relative record data set — (database) (RRDS) One of the access methods used by IBM's VSAM.
- renewable term insurance — Renewable term insurance is term life insurance that may be renewed for another period without the policyholder needing to provide further evidence of their insurability.
- republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
- resale price maintenance — the practice by which a manufacturer establishes a fixed or minimum price for the resale of a brand product by retailers or other distributors
- responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
- robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
- scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web) A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
- scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- single connection attach — (hardware) (SCA, "Single Connector Attachment") A non-standard type of SCSI connector, used mostly by OEMs, which carries both power and data on one 80-pin connector. SCA SCSI drives tend to be cheaper but use with standard SCSI cables requires an adaptor and external termination.
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- socialist workers' party — one of the biggest extreme left wing parties in Britain
- south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
- special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- statistical independence — the condition or state of events or values of being statistically independent.
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- telescope user interface — (hardware, interface) (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
- the last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
- the least i could/can do — You use expressions like 'that's the least that I can do' to mean that you are very willing to do it, or to acknowledge someone's thanks.
- the official secrets act — an act of Parliament that covers the protection of information relating to state security
- the second international — an international association of socialist parties and trade unions that began in Paris in 1889 and collapsed during World War I. The right-wing elements reassembled at Berne in 1919
- the whole shooting match — everything; the whole lot
- three-spined stickleback — a small teleost fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, of the family Gasterosteidae, of rivers and coastal regions, having three spines along the back and occurring in cold and temperate northern regions
- to play your cards right — If you say that someone will achieve success if they play their cards right, you mean that they will achieve success if they act skilfully and use the advantages that they have.
- to rise to the challenge — If someone rises to the challenge, they act in response to a difficult situation which is new to them and are successful.
- transcendental aesthetic — (in Kantian epistemology) the study of space and time as the a priori forms of perception.
- transcendental dialectic — (in transcendental logic) the study of the fallacious attribution of objective reality to the perceptions by the mind of external objects. Compare dialectic (def 8).
- tricyclic antidepressant — pertaining to or embodying three cycles.
- trip the light fantastic — a journey or voyage: to win a trip to Paris.
- turks and caicos islands — a UK Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, southeast of the Bahamas: consists of the eight Turks Islands, separated by the Turks Island Passage from the Caicos group, which has six main islands. Capital: Grand Turk. Pop: 47 754 (2013 est). Area: 430 sq km (166 sq miles)
- tuva autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Asia: formerly an independent republic in Mongolia. 65,810 sq. mi. (170,500 sq. km). Capital: Kyzyl.
- uniform resource locater — Uniform Resource Locator