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16-letter words containing e, n, c, h, a

  • munching squares — A display hack dating back to the PDP-1 (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T for successive values of T - see HAKMEM items 146--148) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing squares that devour the screen. The initial value of T is treated as a parameter, which, when well-chosen, can produce amazing effects. Some of these, later (re)discovered on the LISP Machine, have been christened "munching triangles" (try AND for XOR and toggling points instead of plotting them), "munching w's", and "munching mazes". More generally, suppose a graphics program produces an impressive and ever-changing display of some basic form, foo, on a display terminal, and does it using a relatively simple program; then the program (or the resulting display) is likely to be referred to as "munching foos". [This is a good example of the use of the word foo as a metasyntactic variable.]
  • nanotechnologies — Plural form of nanotechnology.
  • nanotechnologist — Someone who does research into nanotechnology; someone studying things on the scale of nanometers.
  • narcotics charge — a criminal charge or accusation concerning the use or dealing of illegal drugs
  • national charter — the principles or movement of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, in England from 1838 to 1848: so called from the document (People's Charter or National Charter) that contained a statement of their principles and demands.
  • near the knuckle — risqué
  • neo-christianity — any interpretation of Christianity based on the prevalent philosophy of a given period.
  • nephrocalcinosis — (medicine) The deposition of calcium salts in the renal parenchyma due to hyperparathyroidism.
  • neurasthenically — In a neurasthenic way.
  • neuropsychiatric — Of or pertaining to neuropsychiatry; simultaneously neurological and psychiatric.
  • new commonwealth — a term used esp in the latter part of the 20th century in Britain to describe countries in the British Commonwealth that became independent after World War II
  • new haven colony — a settlement founded in 1638 by John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton at Quinnipiac (now New Haven, Conn.).
  • new smyrna beach — a town in NE Florida.
  • non-alphabetical — in the order of the letters of the alphabet: alphabetical arrangement.
  • non-carbohydrate — any of a class of organic compounds that are polyhydroxy aldehydes or polyhydroxy ketones, or change to such substances on simple chemical transformations, as hydrolysis, oxidation, or reduction, and that form the supporting tissues of plants and are important food for animals and people.
  • non-geographical — of or relating to geography.
  • non-hierarchical — of, belonging to, or characteristic of a hierarchy.
  • non-metaphysical — pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics.
  • nonarchitectural — Not architectural.
  • nonharmonic tone — a tone sounding with a chord of which it is not a chord tone.
  • north charleston — a city in SE South Carolina.
  • north palm beach — a town in E Florida.
  • nubuck (leather) — tanned leather similar to suede, but with the nap on the grain side
  • nucleophilically — In a nucleophilic manner.
  • ohmic resistance — resistance (def 3a).
  • on the back foot — at a disadvantage; outmanoeuvred or outclassed by an opponent
  • on the scrapheap — (of people or things) having outlived their usefulness
  • open scholarship — a scholarship which anyone can apply for
  • overenthusiastic — full of or characterized by enthusiasm; ardent: He seems very enthusiastic about his role in the play.
  • packet switching — a method of efficient data transmission whereby the initial message is broken into relatively small units, or packets, that are routed independently and subsequently reassembled.
  • packet-switching — a method of efficient data transmission whereby the initial message is broken into relatively small units, or packets, that are routed independently and subsequently reassembled.
  • pain in the neck — source of annoyance
  • palaeolithic man — any of various primitive types of man, such as Neanderthal man and Java man, who lived in the Palaeolithic
  • pantothenic acid — a hydroxy acid, C 9 H 1 7 O 5 N, found in plant and animal tissues, rice, bran, etc., that is part of the B complex of vitamins and is essential for cell growth.
  • pattern matching — 1. A function is defined to take arguments of a particular type, form or value. When applying the function to its actual arguments it is necessary to match the type, form or value of the actual arguments against the formal arguments in some definition. For example, the function length [] = 0 length (x:xs) = 1 + length xs uses pattern matching in its argument to distinguish a null list from a non-null one. There are well known algorithm for translating pattern matching into conditional expressions such as "if" or "case". E.g. the above function could be transformed to 2. Descriptive of a type of language or utility such as awk or Perl which is suited to searching for strings or patterns in input data, usually using some kind of regular expression.
  • peano arithmetic — (mathematics)   Giuseppe Peano's system for representing natural numbers inductively using only two symbols, "0" (zero) and "S" (successor). This system could be expressed as a recursive data type with the following Haskell definition: data Peano = Zero | Succ Peano The number three, usually written "SSS0", would be Succ (Succ (Succ Zero)). Addition of Peano numbers can be expressed as a simple syntactic transformation: plus Zero n = n plus (Succ m) n = Succ (plus m n) (1995-03-28)
  • pencil sharpener — tool for sharpening pencils to a point
  • perchloromethane — carbon tetrachloride.
  • phagocytic index — the average number of bacteria ingested per phagocyte in an incubated mixture of bacteria, phagocytes, and blood serum: used in determining the opsonic index.
  • pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
  • pharmacogenomics — the study of human genetic variability in relation to drug action and its application to medical treatment
  • pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
  • phase difference — the difference between two sinusoidally varying quantities that have the same frequency, measured either as an angle or a time
  • phenomenological — the study of phenomena.
  • phylogenetically — the development or evolution of a particular group of organisms.
  • physical fitness — good physical condition
  • physical science — any of the natural sciences dealing with inanimate matter or with energy, as physics, chemistry, and astronomy.
  • pitch-cone angle — (in a bevel gear) the apex angle of the truncated cone (pitch cone) which forms the reference surface on which the teeth of a bevel gear are cut
  • pithecanthropine — of, belonging to, or resembling a former genus (Pithecanthropus, now classified as Homo erectus) of extinct early humans, who lived in Java, China, Europe, and Africa
  • pithecanthropoid — of, relating to, or resembling the former genus Pithecanthropus or one of its members.
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