22-letter words containing d, r
- dilation and curettage — a surgical method for the removal of diseased tissue or an early embryo from the lining of the uterus by means of scraping.
- direct public offering — A direct public offering is stock offered directly for sale to investors by a company without the use of underwriters or brokers.
- directed acyclic graph — (DAG) A directed graph containing no cycles. This means that if there is a route from node A to node B then there is no way back.
- directed-energy device — beam weapon.
- directional derivative — the limit, as a function of several variables moving along a given line from one specified point to another on the line, of the difference in the functional values at the two points divided by the distance between the points.
- directional microphone — a microphone that has a greater sensitivity to sounds coming from a particular area in front of it: used to eliminate unwanted sounds.
- director of admissions — a member of a university staff who is in overall charge of admissions to the university and its courses
- directory system agent — (DSA) The software that provides the X.500 Directory Service for a portion of the directory information base. Generally, each DSA is responsible for the directory information for a single organisation or organisational unit.
- disciplinary committee — a committee charged with examining alleged breaches of discipline within an organization, profession, etc and adjudicating on them
- dishonorable discharge — the discharge of a person from military service for an offense more serious than one for which a bad-conduct discharge is given.
- disposable soma theory — the theory that ageing is caused by the body having increasingly fewer resources to allocate towards repairing wear and damage to tissues
- distributed generation — A distributed generation system involves a person or company generating some of their power requirements in different ways, such as locally, or using renewable energy, in order to avoid taking it all from the grid.
- distributed processing — a system consisting of a network of microcomputers performing certain functions and linked with a main computer used for more complex tasks
- distributive education — a special program of vocational education at the high-school level in which a student is employed part-time, receiving on-the-job training, and also attends classes, most of which pertain directly to the student's vocational field.
- do a number on someone — to manipulate or trick someone
- do sth pursuant to sth — If someone does something pursuant to a law or regulation, they obey that law or regulation.
- dog's dinner/breakfast — You describe something as a dog's breakfast or dog's dinner in order to express your disapproval of it, for example because it is very untidy, badly organized, or badly done.
- dominant seventh chord — a chord consisting of the dominant and the major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh above it. Its most natural resolution is to a chord on the tonic
- don't hold your breath — sth is unlikely to happen soon
- don't mind him/her etc — You use don't mind in expressions such as don't mind him or don't mind them to apologize for someone else's behaviour when you think it might have offended the person you are speaking to.
- don't misunderstand me — You can say don't misunderstand me when you want to correct a wrong impression that you think someone may have got about what you are saying.
- draft-quality printing — low-quality, high-speed output in printed form from a printer linked to a word processor
- dread high bit disease — (character) A condition endemic to PRIME (also known as "PR1ME") minicomputers that results in all the characters having their high bit (0x80, see meta bit) ON rather than OFF. This complicates transporting files to other systems and talking to true 8-bit devices. Folklore had it that PRIME adopted the convention in order to save 25 cents per serial line per machine; PRIME old-timers, on the other hand, claim they inherited the disease from Honeywell via customer NASA's compatibility requirements and struggled heroically to cure it. Whoever was responsible, this probably qualifies as one of the most cretinous design tradeoffs ever made. A few other machines have exhibited similar brain damage.
- drive-through delivery — childbirth after which the mother has a very brief hospital stay.
- drumhead court-martial — a court-martial held, usually on a battlefield, for the summary trial of charges of offenses committed during military operations.
- earn one's daily bread — to earn one's living
- earth inductor compass — a compass actuated by induction from the earth's magnetic field.
- east greenland current — a cold ocean current of low salinity flowing south along the east coast of Greenland.
- economy-class syndrome — Economy-class syndrome is a serious medical condition caused by blood clots in the legs moving up to the lungs; used especially in connection with long-haul flights.
- emergency road service — a form of motoring insurance that sends assistance to drivers when their vehicles break down on a journey; it is provided either by the national or regional automobile association or by a private insurance company
- enchanter's nightshade — any of several onagraceous plants of the genus Circaea, esp C. lutetiana, having small white flowers and bristly fruits
- end transmission block — (character) (ETB) The mnemonic for ASCII character 23.
- endotrophic mycorrhiza — the most widespread and common type of mycorrhiza, in which the fungus lives within the cells of the roots of the plant
- engineering industries — the industries creating engineering products
- enhanced parallel port — (hardware) (EPP) A parallel port that confirms to the IEEE's EPP standard. An EPP is actually an expansion bus that can handle 64 disk drives and other peripherals.
- entertainment industry — show business
- equal rights amendment — a proposed amendment to the US Constitution enshrining equality between the sexes
- every now and then etc — You use every in the expressions every now and then, every now and again, every once in a while, and every so often in order to indicate that something happens occasionally.
- experimental condition — one of the distinct states of affairs or values of the independent variable for which the dependent variable is measured in order to carry out statistical tests or calculations
- extended affix grammar — (language, grammar) (EAG) A formalism for describing both the context free syntax and the context sensitive syntax of languages. EAGs belong to the family of two-level grammars. They are very closely related to two-level van Wijngaarden grammars. EAG can be used as a specification formalism, specifying in relations rather than functions, or as a relational programming language like PROLOG.
- extra-mural department — a university department that offers courses for part-time students
- far-infrared radiation — the longer wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation in the infrared region of the spectrum, beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, from 50 to 1000 micrometers. Abbreviation: FIR.
- federal crop insurance — insurance against the failure of certain crops provided to farmers and producers by the Federal Government
- federal district court — district court (def 2).
- federal maritime board — the body responsible for regulating commerce by US and international shipping in US waters
- federal reserve system — a U.S. federal banking system that is under the control of a central board of governors (Federal Reserve Board) with a central bank (Federal Reserve Bank) in each of 12 districts and that has wide powers in controlling credit and the flow of money as well as in performing other functions, as regulating and supervising its member banks.
- ferdinand von zeppelin — Count Ferdinand von [fer-di-nahnt fuh n] /ˈfɛr dɪˌnɑnt fən/ (Show IPA), 1838–1917, German general and aeronaut: designer and manufacturer of the zeppelin.
- fermi-dirac statistics — the branch of quantum statistics used to calculate the permitted energy arrangements of the particles in a system in terms of the exclusion principle
- fetal alcohol syndrome — a pattern of birth defects caused by maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy: considered as one of the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Abbreviation: FAS.
- financial underwriting — Financial underwriting is the process of assessing whether the proposed sum insured and product are reasonable when considering the possible financial loss to the client.