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24-letter words containing d, e, p, r

  • finger-pointing syndrome — (programming)   All-too-frequent result of bugs, especially in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware. All the poor users get is the finger.
  • floating point underflow — underflow
  • free and accepted masons — a member of a widely distributed secret order (Free and Accepted Masons) having for its object mutual assistance and the promotion of brotherly love among its members.
  • geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
  • graduated pension scheme — (between 1961 and 1975) an earnings-related pension scheme which was based on the amount of an employee's National Insurance contributions
  • great saint bernard pass — St. Bernard, Great.
  • ground-fault interrupter — a circuit breaker that senses currents caused by ground faults and quickly shuts off power before damage can occur to generating equipment.
  • hairdressing appointment — an appointment to have your hair cut, styled, coloured, etc, at a hairdresser
  • have had a drop too much — to be drunk
  • have the drop on someone — to have the advantage over someone
  • high-density lipoprotein — a blood constituent involved in the transport of cholesterol and associated with a decreased risk of atherosclerosis and heart attack. Abbreviation: HDL .
  • ichthyophthirius-disease — ich.
  • implicit differentiation — a method of finding the derivative of an implicit function by taking the derivative of each term with respect to the independent variable while keeping the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable in symbolic form and then solving for that derivative.
  • industrial correspondent — a journalist who specializes in reporting the industrial news
  • internet access provider — (networking, company)   (IAP) A company or other origanisation which provides access to the Internet to businesses and/or consumers. An IAP purchases an Internet link from another company that has a direct link to the Internet and resells portions of that bandwidth to the general public. For example, an IAP may purchase a T1 link (1.544Mb/s) and resell that bandwidth in chunks consisting of ISDN (64Kb/s, 128Kb/s) and analog modems (14.4Kb/s, 28.8Kb/s). The IAP's customer base is likely to include both businesses and individuals. Individual customers usually connect to the IAP via a modem and telephone line to a (preferably local) point of presence. An IAP may also be an Internet Service Provider.
  • knowledge representation — The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts and rules about some subject. A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation.
  • licensed practical nurse — a person who has graduated from an accredited school of nursing and has become licensed to provide basic nursing care under the supervision of a physician or registered nurse. Abbreviation: LPN.
  • local loopback addresses — The special Internet address, 127.0.0.1, defined by the Internet Protocol. A host can use local the loopback address to send messages to itself.
  • long-spined sea scorpion — Cottus bubalis or Taurulus bubalis
  • make a production out of — to make an unnecessary fuss about
  • mandy rice-davis applies — (chat)   (MRDA) An acronym used to imply that someone is lying to protect their own interests. During the trial of Stephen Ward (who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Rice-Davies), the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied any involvement with her and Rice-Davies replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
  • manic-depressive illness — bipolar disorder.
  • nalbuphine hydrochloride — an opiate drug used as a painkiller
  • not ready for prime time — Usable, but only just so; not very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device. Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid Real Soon Now. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players". It has extra flavour for hackers because of the special (though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of prime time. Compare beta.
  • open data-link interface — (networking, standard)   (ODI) A Novell-developed network card API that provides media and protocol independence. It allows the sharing of a single card by multiple transport layer protocols and resolves conflicts.
  • open software foundation — (body)   (OSF) A foundation created by nine computer vendors, (Apollo, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Bull, Nixdorf, Philips, Siemens and Hitachi) to promote "Open Computing". It is planned that common operating systems and interfaces, based on developments of Unix and the X Window System will be forthcoming for a wide range of different hardware architectures. OSF announced the release of the industry's first open operating system - OSF/1 on 23 October 1990.
  • optical character reader — the process or technology of reading data in printed form by a device (optical character reader) that scans and identifies characters. Abbreviation: OCR.
  • particulate fluidization — Particulate fluidization is a condition when particles in a fluidized bed are individually suspended.
  • passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
  • phosphorus sesquisulfide — (not in scientific use) a yellow, crystalline, flammable substance, P 4 S 3 , insoluble in cold water and decomposed by hot water: used chiefly in organic synthesis and in the manufacture of matches.
  • polychlorinated biphenyl — PCB.
  • port address translation — (networking)   (PAT) A function provided by some routers which allows hosts on a LAN to communicate with the rest of a network (such as the Internet) without revealing their own private IP address. All outbound packets have their IP address translated to the routers external IP address. Replies come back to the router which then translates them back into the private IP address of the original host for final delivery. Compare SOCKS.
  • portable document format — (file format)   (PDF) The native file format for Adobe Systems' Acrobat. PDF is the file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, colour, and images.
  • portable scheme debugger — (PSD) A package for source code debugging of R4RS-compliant Scheme under GNU Emacs by Kellom ?ki Pertti <[email protected]>. Version 1.1. Distributed under GNU GPL. It works with scm, Elk and Scheme->C.
  • preparatory to doing sth — If one action is done preparatory to another, it is done before the other action, usually as preparation for it.
  • present company excepted — If you are making a general, unfavourable comment about a particular type of person, and you are with people of that type, you can say 'present company excepted' as a way of making your comment sound more polite.
  • privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
  • put one's house in order — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
  • put the fear of god into — a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
  • put the show on the road — to set things in operation; start an activity, venture, etc.
  • put their heads together — to consult together
  • put two and two together — a cardinal number, 1 plus 1.
  • pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
  • rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
  • rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
  • recommended retail price — the selling price of a product officially suggested by a manufacturer to a retailer
  • recursive descent parser — (grammar)   A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
  • repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
  • representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
  • reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
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