21-letter words containing e, f, t, n
- nine times out of ten — If you say that something happens or is the case nine times out of ten or ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you mean that it happens on nearly every occasion or is almost always the case.
- no smoke without fire — the evidence strongly suggests something has indeed happened
- nominative of address — a noun naming the person to whom one is speaking.
- north pacific current — a warm current flowing eastward across the Pacific Ocean.
- not for love or money — impossible to obtain by any means
- of one's own volition — If you do something of your own volition, you do it because you have decided for yourself that you will do it and not because someone else has told you to do it.
- of time and the river — a novel (1935) by Thomas Wolfe.
- one foot in the grave — near to death
- one-way hash function — (algorithm) (Or "message digest function") A one-way function which takes a variable-length message and produces a fixed-length hash. Given the hash it is computationally infeasible to find a message with that hash; in fact one can't determine any usable information about a message with that hash, not even a single bit. For some one-way hash functions it's also computationally impossible to determine two messages which produce the same hash. A one-way hash function can be private or public, just like an encryption function. MD5, SHA and Snefru are examples of public one-way hash functions. A public one-way hash function can be used to speed up a public-key digital signature system. Rather than sign a long message, which can take a long time, compute the one-way hash of the message, and sign the hash.
- open telecom platform — (communications, library) (OTP) A set of standard, open source libraries and tools for use with Erlang.
- operational amplifier — a high-gain, high-input impedance amplifier, usually an integrated circuit, that can perform mathematical operations when suitably wired.
- pacific standard time — See under standard time.
- part of the furniture — If you describe someone or something as part of the furniture, you are suggesting that they have been somewhere such as their place of work for such a long time that it is hard to imagine that place without them.
- partial reinforcement — the process of randomly rewarding an organism for making a response on only some of the occasions it makes it
- partition coefficient — the ratio of the concentrations of a substance in two heterogenous phases in equilibrium with each other
- pathfinder prospectus — a prospectus regarding the flotation of a new company that contains only sufficient details to test the market reaction
- 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
- persistence of memory — a painting (1931) by Salvador Dali.
- persistence of vision — the retention of a visual image for a short period of time after the removal of the stimulus that produced it: the phenomenon that produces the illusion of movement when viewing motion pictures.
- place of articulation — the location at which two speech organs approach or come together in producing a speech sound, as in the contact of the tongue and the teeth to form a dental sound. Also called point of articulation. Compare articulator (def 2).
- portuguese man-of-war — any of several large, oceanic hydrozoans of the genus Physalia, having a large, bladderlike structure with a saillike crest by which they are buoyed up and from which dangle tentacles with stinging cells.
- powersoft corporation — (company) A leading vendor of client/server application development tools. In February 1994, Watcom became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Powersoft Corporation which merged with Sybase on 13 February 1995. In April 1995, the new company is the fastest growing top-ten software company and the seventh largest software company in the world. Headquarters: Concord, Massachusetts, USA.
- preacquisition profit — the retained profit of a company earned before a takeover and therefore not eligible for distribution as a dividend to the shareholders of the acquiring company
- prefect of discipline — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
- pseudo-cleft sentence — cleft sentence (def 2).
- pull oneself together — to draw or haul toward oneself or itself, in a particular direction, or into a particular position: to pull a sled up a hill.
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- record of achievement — a statement of the personal and educational development of each pupil
- referential integrity — (database) A collection of properties which should be possessed by data in a relational database. For example, in a database of family members, if we enter A as a spouse of B, we should also enter B as a spouse of A. Similarly, if we remove one end of the relationship we should also remove the other.
- reinforcement therapy — a behavior modification technique in which appropriate behavior is strengthened through systematic reinforcement.
- return from interrupt — (programming) (RTI) An instruction mnemonic on many computers including the 6502 and 6800. The variant "RETI" is found among former Zilog Z80 hackers (almost nobody programs these things in assembly code anymore). The Intel 80x86 equivalent is "IRET".
- reverberatory furnace — See at reverberatory (def 2).
- road traffic accident — an accident involving vehicles
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- safe in the knowledge — If you do something safe in the knowledge that something else is the case, you do the first thing confidently because you are sure of the second thing.
- saint-maur-des-fosses — a town in N central France, near Paris, on the Marne River.
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
- schema definition set — (SDS) Something in Portable Common Tool Environment.
- scientific empiricism — the philosophy that there are no real differences between the sciences.
- self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
- semantic differential — a technique for measuring the connotative meaning of concepts by having an individual rate each concept on a series of graduated scales, each scale defined by a pair of polar adjectives, as good–bad or strong–weak.
- set the scene for sth — Something that sets the scene for a particular event creates the conditions in which the event is likely to happen.
- set the world on fire — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
- shoot off one's mouth — to hit, wound, damage, kill, or destroy with a missile discharged from a weapon.
- shoot one's mouth off — to talk indiscreetly
- siamese fighting fish — a labyrinth fish, Betta splendens, that has been bred for centuries to develop brilliant coloration, very long fins, and pugnacity.
- sieve of eratosthenes — a method of obtaining prime numbers by sifting out the composite numbers from the set of natural numbers so that only prime numbers remain.