21-letter words containing d, o, c, m, a
- diapason normal pitch — a standard of pitch in which A above middle C is established at 435 vibrations per second.
- discriminant function — a linear function of measurements of different properties of an object or event that is used to assign the object or event to one population or another (discriminant analysis)
- draft once reuse many — (jargon) (DORUM) Reusing parts of a document to produce parts of an entirely new document. The term normally refers to text documents but the practise is equally common in programming.
- dynamic drive overlay — (storage, software) (DDO) Software to allow a system BIOS that does not support Logical Block Addressing to access drives larger than 528 MB. The alternatives are to update the system BIOS or install an EIDE controller card with a suitable on-board BIOS.
- electromagnetic field — a field of force associated with a moving electric charge equivalent to an electric field and a magnetic field at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation
- endoplasmic reticulum — an extensive intracellular membrane system whose functions include synthesis and transport of lipids and, in regions where ribosomes are attached, of proteins
- enharmonic modulation — a change of key achieved by regarding a note in one key as an equivalent note in another. Thus E flat in the key of A flat could be regarded as D sharp in the key of B major
- faculty board meeting — a meeting of the governing body of a faculty
- ferric sodium oxalate — an emerald-green, crystalline, extremely water-soluble salt, used in photography and blueprinting.
- forward compatibility — (jargon) The ability to accept input from later versions of itself. Forward compatibility is harder to achieve than backward compatibility, since, in the backward case, the input format is know whereas a forward compatible system needs to cope gracefully with unknown future features. An example of future compatibility is the stipulation that a web browser should ignore HTML tags it does not recognise. See also extensible.
- game of cat and mouse — In a fight or contest, if one person plays cat and mouse, or a game of cat and mouse, with the other, the first person tries to confuse or deceive the second in order to defeat them.
- garden of remembrance — an area of land containing cultivated plants, trees, etc, to commemorate the dead
- ground-effect machine — ACV (def 2).
- host command facility — (operating system) (HCF) Used to access IBM S/36 and AS/400 computers from a mainframe.
- hydraulic accumulator — an apparatus in which gas, usually air, is used as a cushion or shock absorber in a hydraulic system.
- immediate constituent — one of the usually two largest constituents of a construction: The immediate constituents of He ate his dinner are he and ate his dinner; of ate his dinner are ate and his dinner; etc. Abbreviation: IC.
- in good circumstances — (of a person) in a good financial situation
- in-complete dominance — the appearance in a heterozygote of a trait that is intermediate between either of the trait's homozygous phenotypes.
- industrial misconduct — behaviour by an employee that is considered to be negligent or irregular to such an extent that disciplinary action may be taken, usually by agreement between management and the employee's representatives
- joseph-marie jacquard — (person) /zhoh-zef' mah-ree' zhah-kar'/ (1752-07-07 to 1834-08-07) The inventor of the Jacquard loom.
- lady of the camellias — French La Dame aux Camélias. a novel (1848) and play (1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils.
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- light armored vehicle — an eight-wheeled armored reconnaissance car with a 25mm cannon, in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in the 1980s.
- lost-and-found column — a column in a newspaper that carries advertisements from people who have lost or found things
- magneto-optical drive — magneto-optical disk
- magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- magnetoplasmadynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- make a policy paid up — If you make a policy paid up, you stop making premium payments into a life policy but still leave the coverage in place.
- mariage de convenance — marriage entered into for a personal or family advantage, as for social, political, or economic reasons, usually without love and sometimes without the expectation of sexual relations.
- mayor of casterbridge — a novel (1886) by Thomas Hardy.
- mechanical solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on shared activities, beliefs, and experiences and is characteristic of simple traditional societies.
- medical social worker — a person who works in a hospital and is responsible for offering counselling to patients and their families and ensuring that discharged patients will receive appropriate care in the community
- medium access control — Media Access Control
- meter-kilogram-second — of or relating to the system of units in which the meter, kilogram, and second are the principal units of length, mass, and time. Abbreviation: mks, MKS.
- metropolitan district — any of the districts making up the metropolitan counties of England: since 1986 they have functioned as unitary authorities, forming the sole principal tier of local government. Each metropolitan district has an elected council responsible for education, social services, etc
- modern apprenticeship — an arrangement that allows a school leaver to gain vocational qualifications while being trained in a job
- modulus of elasticity — the ratio of the stress applied to a body or substance to the resulting strain within the elastic limit
- monochloroacetic acid — chloroacetic acid.
- mother-of-pearl cloud — nacreous cloud.
- mucopolysaccharidoses — Plural form of mucopolysaccharidosis.
- mucopolysaccharidosis — Any of a group of metabolic disorders caused by the absence or malfunction of lysosomal enzymes needed to break down glycosaminoglycans.
- munchausen's syndrome — a mental disorder in which a patient feigns illness to obtain hospital treatment
- muon-catalysed fusion — an experimental form of nuclear fusion in which hydrogen and deuterium muonic atoms are formed. Because the mass of the muon is much larger than that of the electron, the atoms are smaller, and the nuclei are close enough for fusion to occur
- myocardial infarction — heart attack. Abbreviation: MI.
- non-repeating decimal — a decimal representation of any irrational number, having the property that no sequence of digits is repeated ad infinitum.
- performance indicator — a quantitative or qualitative measurement, or any other criterion, by which the performance, efficiency, achievement, etc of a person or organization can be assessed, often by comparison with an agreed standard or target
- personalized medicine — an approach to the practice of medicine that uses information about a patient’s unique genetic makeup and environment to customize the patient's medical care to fit his or her individual requirements.
- politically motivated — If an act of violence is politically motivated, it is carried out in the interests of a particular government or political party.
- pomp and circumstance — ceremony
- portable commodore 64 — (computer) A version of the Commodore 64 modelled after the original Osborne portable PCs, with a flip-down keyboard that revealed a 5-inch colour monitor, and a built-in 1541 floppy disk drive. It is thought that few were made but that they did go on sale, at least in Canada.