20-letter words containing d, i, s, t, a
- directory assistance — a telephone company service that furnishes telephone directory information over the telephone.
- directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.
- disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
- disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
- discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
- discretionary income — money for luxuries
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.
- displacement tonnage — the number of long tons of water displaced by a vessel, light or load displacement being specified.
- disproportionateness — The state or quality of being disproportionate or out of proportion.
- disruptive discharge — the sudden, large increase in current through an insulating medium resulting from complete failure of the medium under electrostatic stress.
- distress merchandise — goods sold below the prevailing price in order to raise cash quickly or to meet some other financial emergency.
- distributed database — A collection of several different databases that looks like a single database to the user. An example is the Internet Domain Name System (DNS).
- distributed practice — learning with reasonably long intervals between separate occasions of learning
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- distributive lattice — (theory) A lattice for which the least upper bound (lub) and greatest lower bound (glb) operators distribute over one another so that a lub (b glb c) == (a lub c) glb (a lub b) and vice versa. ("lub" and "glb" are written in LateX as \sqcup and \sqcap).
- district of columbia — a federal area in the E United States, on the Potomac, coextensive with the federal capital, Washington. 69 sq. mi. (179 sq. km). Abbreviation: DC (for use with zip code), D.C.
- diverticular disease — any disease of the colon involving the presence of diverticula
- domestic heating oil — a liquid petroleum product used to fuel residential building furnaces or boilers
- duck-billed platypus — platypus.
- electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
- electrohydrodynamics — (physics) the study of the dynamics of electrically conducting fluid.
- endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
- epidural anaesthesia — numbing injection in the spine
- equivalent air speed — the speed at sea level that would produce the same Pitot-static tube reading as that measured at altitude
- essential amino acid — an amino acid that cannot be synthesized in the body and is thus an essential component of the diet
- essential fatty acid — any fatty acid required by the body in manufacturing prostaglandins, found in such foods as oily fish and nuts
- estrela mountain dog — a sturdy well-built dog of a Portuguese breed with a long thick coat and a thick tuft of hair round the neck, often used as a guard dog
- every bit as good as — You say that one thing is every bit as good, interesting, or important as another to emphasize that the first thing is just as good, interesting, or important as the second.
- federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
- file descriptor leak — (programming) (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
- fission-track dating — the dating of samples of minerals by comparing the tracks in them by fission fragments of the uranium nuclei they contain, before and after irradiation by neutrons
- five-a-side football — a version of soccer with five players in each team
- for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
- forbidden transition — an electronic transition in an atom, molecule, etc, that is not permitted by electric dipole selection rules
- fore-and-aft topsail — gaff topsail (def 1).
- fridtjof nansen land — Franz Josef Land.
- friends of the earth — an organization of environmentalists and conservationists whose aim is to promote the sustainable use of the earth's resources
- gastroduodenostomies — Plural form of gastroduodenostomy.
- gravitational radius — Schwarzschild radius.
- guided visualization — a relaxation technique in which words, sounds, etc., are used to evoke positive mental images, feelings, and thoughts.
- hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
- hawaii-standard-time — Alaska-Hawaii time.
- heat of condensation — the heat liberated by a unit mass of gas at its boiling point as it condenses to a liquid: equal to the heat of vaporization.
- heston and isleworth — a former borough, now part of Hounslow, in SE England, near London.
- heteropolysaccharide — (carbohydrate) any polysaccharide formed from two or more different kinds of monosaccharide.
- horizontally opposed — A horizontally opposed engine has the cylinders set horizontally at either side of the crankshaft.
- hospitality industry — the hotel and accommodation industry
- huntington's disease — a hereditary disease of the central nervous system characterized by brain deterioration and loss of control over voluntary movements, the symptoms usually appearing in the fourth decade of life.
- hydrodesulfurization — desulfurization by catalytic agents of the sulfur-rich hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum or the like during cracking or hydrocracking.