26-letter words containing c, i, r, a, s
- mercalli (intensity) scale — a numerical scale for measuring the destructive power and major physical effects of an earthquake, ranging from number I (detectable only by seismographs) to number XII (causing extensive landslides, destruction of nearly all buildings, etc.)
- microcrystalline cellulose — Microcrystalline cellulose is a polymer used as a binder in tablets because it is stable, compressible, and disintegrates quickly.
- micronetics standard mumps — (MSM) A version of MUMPS for the IBM PC RT and R6000.
- minimum-access programming — a method of programming in which latency is reduced to a minimum.
- mongolian hordes technique — (programming, jargon) (Or "Chinese Army technique") Assigning a large number of inexperienced programmers to a job which would better performed by a few skilled ones. The term was first used by Dr. Fred Brooks in his book "The Mythical Man-Month", Chapter 3. According to Dr. Brooks, he had in mind the vision of the Mongol Hordes sweeping across Asia and Europe when he created the term.
- monochrome display adapter — (hardware, graphics) (MDA) One of IBM's earliest hardware video display standards for use in IBM PC. MDA can display only monochrome 80*25 text (IBM PC video mode 7). It is now obsolete.
- most-favored-nation clause — a clause in a commercial treaty or contract by which each signatory agrees to give the other the same treatment that is or will be accorded any other nation.
- multi-color graphics array — (hardware, graphics) (MCGA) One of IBM's less popular hardware video display standards for use in the IBM PS/2. MCGA can display 80*25 text in monochrome, 40*25 text in 256 colours or 320*200 pixel graphics in 256 colors. It is now obsolete.
- mushroom slab construction — beamless reinforced-concrete floor and roof construction employing columns with widely flaring heads having horizontal rings of reinforcement to support the floor or roof slab.
- mutual assured destruction — a U.S. doctrine of reciprocal deterrence resting on the U.S. and Soviet Union each being able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack.
- national merit scholarship — one of some 6000 college scholarships awarded annually since 1956, by the nonprofit, grant-supported National Merit Scholarship Corporation, to high-school students (National Merit Scholars) on the basis of scholastic record, personal character, and score on a test administered nationally.
- national rifle association — a lobbying organization which advocates the right to own and use firearms
- nature conservancy council — (in Britain) a body set up by act of parliament in 1973 to establish and manage nature reserves, identify SSSIs, and provide information and advice about nature conservation. In 1991–92 it was replaced by English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage, and the Countryside Council for Wales
- netware directory services — (networking) (NDS) Novell, Inc.'s directory services for Netware, Windows NT, and Unix. The NDS directory represents each network resource (user, hardware, or application) as an object of a certain class, where each class has certain properties. For example, User and Print Server are object classes and a user has over 80 properties such as name, login, password, department, and title. The directory is hierarchical, divided into branches by rules of containment. A given object can only belong to a given container (or branch). The rules governing classes, properties and, rules of containment are known as the schema.
- nondeterministic automaton — (theory) (Or "probabilistic automaton") An automaton in which there are several possible actions (outputs and next states) at each state of the computation such that the overall course of the computation is not completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. See also nondeterministic Turing Machine.
- nuclear magnetic resonance — the selective absorption of electromagnetic radiation by an atomic nucleus in the presence of a strong, static, magnetic field: used in research and in medicine to monitor tissue metabolism and to distinguish between normal and abnormal cells. Abbreviation: NMR.
- object constraint language — (language) (OCL) A formal specification language extension to UML. The Object Constraint Language is a precise text language that provides constraint and object query expressions on an object-oriented model that cannot otherwise be expressed by diagrammatic notation. OCL supplements UML by providing expressions that have neither the ambiguities of natural language nor the inherent difficulty of using complex mathematics. OCL is a descendent of Syntropy, a second-generation object-oriented analysis and design method. The OCL 1.4 definition specified a constraint language. In OCL 2.0, the definition has been extended to include general object query language definitions.
- official production system — (language) (OPS) The first production system (i.e. rule based) programming language, developed at CMU in 1970 and used for building expert systems. OPS was originally written in Franz Lisp and later ported to other LISP dialects.
- orthogonal instruction set — (architecture) An instruction set where all (or most) instructions have the same format and all registers and addressing modes can be used interchangeably - the choices of op code, register, and addressing mode are mutually independent (loosely speaking, the choices are "orthogonal"). This contrasts with some early Intel microprocessors where only certain registers could be used by certain instructions. Examples include the PDP-11, 680x0, ARM, VAX.
- paraconsistent probability — (logic) A notion introduced by Florentin Smarandache: The probability (T, I, F) that an event occurs is calculated from different sources which may be contradictory or may overlap information; here T, I, F are real subsets representing the truth, indeterminacy, and falsity percentages respectively, and n_sup = sup(T)+sup(I)+sup(F) > 100. See neutrosophic probability
- parent teacher association — an organization of teachers and the parents of their students, as within a public school, to promote mutual understanding and to increase the effectiveness of the educational program. Abbreviation: PTA, P.T.A.
- parent-teacher association — an organization of teachers and the parents of their students, as within a public school, to promote mutual understanding and to increase the effectiveness of the educational program. Abbreviation: PTA, P.T.A.
- people's republic of china — People's Republic of, a country in E Asia. 3,691,502 sq. mi. (9,560,990 sq. km). Capital: Beijing.
- permanent health insurance — a form of insurance that provides up to 75 per cent of a person's salary, until retirement, in case of prolonged illness or disability
- philosophical anthropology — anthropology (def 4).
- philosophical-anthropology — the science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of humankind.
- physical transport network — (communications) (PTN) The actual hardware through which data transfer devices are connected.
- physics analysis workbench — (tool) (PAW) A general purpose portable tool for analysis and presentation of physics data.
- pick up the threads of sth — If you pick up the threads of an activity, you start it again after an interruption. If you pick up the threads of your life, you become more active again after a period of failure or bad luck.
- post-and-beam construction — wall construction in which beams rather than studs are used to support heavy posts.
- primary sex characteristic — any of the body structures directly concerned in reproduction, as the testes, ovaries, and external genitalia.
- professional office system — (messaging) (PROFS) An office messaging system from IBM, used worldwide, mainly on IBM mainframes.
- psychophysical parallelism — the view that mental and bodily events occur in parallel series without causal interaction.
- public-liability insurance — insurance covering the insured against risks involving liability to the public for damages arising from negligence.
- public-service corporation — a private or quasi-private corporation chartered to provide an essential commodity or service to the public.
- quasi-stellar radio source — a quasar having detectable radio emission. Abbreviation: QSS.
- record management services — (operating system) (RMS) Procedures in the VMS operating system that programs call to process files and records within files. RMS allows programs to issue GET and PUT requests at the record level (record I/O) as well as read and write blocks (block I/O). VMS RMS is an integral part of the system software; its procedures run in executive mode.
- red-backed squirrel monkey — a related species, Saimiri oerstedi, of Central America, having a reddish coat and dark brown limbs
- remembrance of things past — a novel (1913–27) by Marcel Proust.
- replacement cost insurance — Replacement cost insurance is insurance in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- resistance transfer factor — R factor.
- reticuloendothelial system — the aggregate of the phagocytic cells, including certain cells of the bone marrow, lymphatic system, liver, and spleen, that have reticular and endothelial characteristics and function in the immune system's defense against foreign bodies. Abbreviation: RES.
- richardson ground squirrel — a ground squirrel, Citellus richardsoni, of sagebrush and grassland areas of the northwestern U.S. and adjacent regions in Canada.
- sangre de cristo mountains — a mountain range in S Colorado and N New Mexico: part of the Rocky Mountains. Highest peak: Blanca Peak, 4364 m (14 317 ft)
- santiago de los caballeros — a city in the N central Dominican Republic.
- scares the life out of you — If you want to emphasize that something scares you a lot, you can say that it scares the hell out of you or scares the life out of you.
- scintillation spectrometer — a scintillation counter adapted for measuring the energy distribution of particles emitted in radioactive processes.
- search engine optimization — the process of adjusting the content, structure, etc, of a website so that it will be displayed prominently by a search engine
- serotonin receptor agonist — A serotonin receptor agonist is any compound that activates serotonin receptors when serotonin is not present.
- shielded metal arc welding — Shielded metal arc welding is a process in which a coated wire is melted to fill spaces between parts. The molten coating floats to the surface of the molten metal to protect it from the atmosphere.