20-letter words containing c, o, u

for future reference — If you keep information for future reference, you keep it because it might be useful in the future.
for sb's consumption — If you do or say something for a particular person's or group's consumption, you do or say it especially for them, although your private thoughts or plans may be very different.
four-colour glossies — 1. Literature created by marketroids that allegedly contains technical specs but which is in fact as superficial as possible without being totally content-free. "Forget the four-colour glossies, give me the tech ref manuals." Often applied as an indication of superficiality even when the material is printed on ordinary paper in black and white. Four-colour-glossy manuals are *never* useful for finding a problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual pages that don't contain enough information to diagnose why the program doesn't produce the expected or desired output.
fractionating column — a long vertical cylinder used in fractional distillation, in which internal reflux enables separation of high and low boiling fractions to take place
frequency modulation — FM.
friar minor capuchin — capuchin (def 4).
frontenac et palluau — Comte de (Louis de Buade) 1620?–98, French governor of New France 1672–82, 1689–98.
fulminate of mercury — a gray, crystalline solid, Hg(CNO) 2 , used chiefly in the manufacture of commercial and military detonators.
fulminating compound — a fulminate.
function application — A function applied to (some of) its arguments. If it is not applied to all its argument then it is a "partial application". Application is usually written in the form f(x) but some languages such as command-line interpreters and many functional languages use juxtaposition: f x. Lisp places the parentheses around the whole application: (f x).
fundamental constant — a physical constant, such as the gravitational constant or speed of light, that plays a fundamental role in physics and chemistry and usually has an accurately known value
get a real computer! — (jargon) A typical hacker response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done on a toy system or bitty box. The threshold for "real computer" rises with time. As of mid-1993 it meant multi-tasking, with a hard disk, and an address space bigger than 16 megabytes. At this time, according to GLS, computers with character-only displays were verging on "unreal". In 2001, a real computer has a one gigahertz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 20 GB of hard disk, and runs Linux.
get one's hackles up — to become tense with anger; bristle
glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
good driver discount — A good driver discount is a discount on insurance that is available to drivers who have no at-fault accidents and no traffic offenses during a particular period.
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)
greenwich hour angle — hour angle measured from the meridian of Greenwich, England.
group code recording — (storage) (GCR) A recording method used for 6250 BPI magnetic tapes. GCR typically uses a group of five bits of code to represent four bits of data. The encoding ensures no more than two or three zeros occur in a row, and no more than eight or so ones occur in a row, where zeros represent an absense of magnetic change. GCR is also used on Commodore Business Machines diskette drives; the 4040, 8050, 154x, 157x and 158x series of 5.25" and 3.5" low and high density diskette drives used with 8-bit home computers circa 1977 to 1992. It was also supported on Amiga internal and external drives but only used for reading non-Amiga disks. Compare NRZI, PE.
group life insurance — a form of life insurance available to members of a group, typically employees of a company, under a master policy.
guarded horn clauses — (language) (GHC) A parallel dialect of Prolog by K. Ueda in which each clause has a guard. GHC is similar to Parlog. When several clauses match a goal, their guards are evaluated in parallel and the first clause whose guard is found to be true is used and others are rejected. It uses committed-choice nondeterminism. See also FGHC, KL1.
hampton court palace — a royal palace in Hampton, London, built in 1515 by Cardinal Wolsey
hierarchical routing — The complex problem of routing on large networks can be simplified by breaking a network into a hierarchy of smaller networks, where each level is responsible for its own routing. The Internet has, basically, three levels: the backbones, the mid-levels, and the stub networks. The backbones know how to route between the mid-levels, the mid-levels know how to route between the sites, and each site (being an autonomous system) knows how to route internally. See also Exterior Gateway Protocol, Interior Gateway Protocol, transit network.
hit the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
holder in due course — a person who has received a negotiable instrument in good faith and without notice that it is overdue, that there is any prior claim, or that there is a defect in the title of the person who negotiated it.
honeysuckle ornament — anthemion.
hot under the collar — the part of a shirt, coat, dress, blouse, etc., that encompasses the neckline of the garment and is sewn permanently to it, often so as to fold or roll over.
household appliances — devices or machines, usually electrical, that are in your home and which you use to do jobs such as cleaning or cooking
hudson's bay company — a company chartered in England in 1670 to carry on fur trading with the Indians in North America.
human genome project — a federally funded U.S. scientific project to identify both the genes and the entire sequence of DNA base pairs that make up the human genome.
hurricane-force wind — a wind, not necessarily a hurricane, having a speed of more than 72 miles per hour (32 m/sec): the strongest of the winds.
hydraulic suspension — a system of motor-vehicle suspension using hydraulic members, often with hydraulic compensation between front and rear systems (hydroelastic suspension)
hydrostatic pressure — Hydrostatic pressure is the pressure exerted by a liquid that depends on how deep it is.
hypophosphorous acid — a colorless or yellowish, water-soluble, liquid, monobasic acid, H 3 PO 2 , having a sour odor, and used as a reducing agent.
immunohistochemistry — the application of immunologic techniques to the chemical analysis of cells and tissues.
imported currantworm — the larva of any of several insects, as a sawfly, Nematus ribesii (imported currantworm) which infests and feeds on the leaves and fruit of currants.
in double-quick time — In double-quick time means the same as double-quick.
in the public domain — able to be discussed and examined freely by the general public
in-service education — training and education given to employed teachers throughout their career
indian cucumber root — a North American plant, Medeola virginiana, of the lily family, having whorled leaves, nodding, greenish-yellow flowers, and an edible root.
industrial democracy — control of an organization by the people who work for it, esp by workers holding positions on its board of directors
industrial sociology — the sociological study of social relationships and social structures in business settings.
infectious hepatitis — hepatitis A.
inferior conjunction — the alignment of an inferior planet between the sun and the earth.
instruction mnemonic — (programming) A word or acronym used in assembly language to represent a binary machine instruction operation code. Different processors have different instruction sets and therefore use a different set of mnemonics to represent them. E.g. ADD, B (branch), BLT (branch if less than), SVC, MOVE, LDR (load register).
instruction prefetch — (architecture) A technique which attempts to minimise the time a processor spends waiting for instructions to be fetched from memory. Instructions following the one currently being executed are loaded into a prefetch queue when the processor's external bus is otherwise idle. If the processor executes a branch instruction or receives an interrupt then the queue must be flushed and reloaded from the new address. Instruction prefetch is often combined with pipelining in an attempt to keep the pipeline busy. By 1995 most processors used prefetching, e.g. Motorola 680x0, Intel 80x86.
insulin-coma therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
iodochlorhydroxyquin — The drug clioquinol.
isochronous transfer — isochronous
jacopo della quercia — Jacopo Della [yah-kaw-paw del-lah] /ˈyɑ kɔ pɔ ˌdɛl lɑ/ (Show IPA), 1374?–1438, Italian sculptor.
james prescott joule — James Prescott, 1818–89, English physicist.

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