26-letter words containing c, l, o, t, u, r
- multifactorial inheritance — polygenic inheritance.
- 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.
- 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
- not touch with a bargepole — to refuse to have anything to do with
- 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.
- pour encourager les autres — in order to encourage the others: often used ironically
- principle of superposition — any of several physical laws that the resultant of similar vector quantities at a point is a function of the sum of the individual quantities, especially the law that the displacement at a point in a medium undergoing simple harmonic motion is equal to the sum of the displacements of each individual wave.
- provence-alpes-côte d'azur — metropolitan region of SE France: 12,124 sq mi (31,401 sq km); pop. 4,258,000; chief city, Marseille
- public prosecutor's office — the legal department that is responsible for putting people on trial on behalf of the government and people of a particular country
- public-service corporation — a private or quasi-private corporation chartered to provide an essential commodity or service to the public.
- pulse repetition frequency — the number of pulses per second in a system of pulse transmission. Abbreviation: PRF.
- purely functional language — (language) A language that supports only functional programming and does not allow functions to have side-effects. Program execution consists of evaluation of an expression and all subexpressions are referentially transparent.
- quasi-stellar radio source — a quasar having detectable radio emission. Abbreviation: QSS.
- replacement cost insurance — Replacement cost insurance is insurance in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- 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.
- richthofen's flying circus — the German 11th Chasing Squadron of World War I, commanded by Baron Richthofen
- 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.
- string processing language — (language) (SPRING)
- strong nuclear interaction — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
- subscriber identity module — (telecommunications, wireless) (SIM or "SIM card") A component, usually in the form of a miniature smart-card, that is theoretically tamper-proof and is used to associate a mobile subscriber with a mobile network subscription. The SIM holds the subscriber's unique MSISDN along with secret information such as a private encryption key and encryption and digital signature algorithms. Most SIMs also contain non-volatile storage for network and device management, contact lists, text messages sent and received, logos and in some cases even small Java programs.
- the royal and ancient club — a golf club, headquarters of the sport's ruling body, based in St Andrews, Scotland
- to be made public property — to become known to everyone
- to call something your own — If you have something you can call your own, it belongs only to you, rather than being controlled by or shared with someone else.
- to cut a particular figure — If you say that someone cuts a particular figure, you mean that they appear to other people in the way described.
- udmurt autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 16,250 sq. mi. (42,088 sq. km). Capital: Izhevsk.
- ulster defence association — (in Northern Ireland) a Loyalist paramilitary organization
- universal communications x — (communications) (UCX) A software implementation of the ubiquitous TCP/IP suite of communications protocols for Digital Equipment Corporation's OpenVMS operating system. Users of the UCX product can connect to heterogeneous networks to access and download files, send electronic mail, run and develop applications, and monitor activity.
- universal resource locator — Uniform Resource Locator
- universal time coordinated — incorrect term for coordinated universal time.
- very long instruction word — (language, architecture) (VLIW) Used to describe a machine code instruction set implemented using horizontal microcode. A horizontally encoded instruction word which encodes four or more operations might be considered "very long". VLIW architectures are sometimes classified as a type of static superscalar architecture. They are static in the sense that which units operate in parallel is determined by the instruction rather than by dynamic scheduling at run time. Producing code for VLIW machines is difficult; trace scheduling is a helpful compiler technique. The most famous VLIW machine was built by (the late) Multiflow Computer, Inc.
- victoria and albert museum — a museum of the fine and applied arts in London, originating from 1856 and given its present name and site in 1899
- virtual local area network — (networking) (VLAN) A logical grouping of two or more nodes which are not necessarily on the same physical network segment but which share the same IP network number. This is often associated with switched Ethernet. IEEE 802.1Q is a VLAN standard.
- voluntary service overseas — an organization that sends young volunteers to use and teach their skills in developing countries