17-letter words containing e, p, i, t
- interrelationship — reciprocal relation.
- interrupt handler — (software) A routine which is executed when an interrupt occurs. Interrupt handlers typically deal with low-level events in the hardware of a computer system such as a character arriving at a serial port or a tick of a real-time clock. Special care is required when writing an interrupt handler to ensure that either the interrupt which triggered the handler's execution is masked out (inhibitted) until the handler exits, or the handler is re-entrant so that multiple concurrent invocations will not interfere with each other. If interrupts are masked then the handler must execute as quickly as possible so that important events are not missed. This is often arranged by splitting the processing associated with the event into "upper" and "lower" halves. The lower part is the interrupt handler which masks out further interrupts as required, checks that the appropriate event has occurred (this may be necessary if several events share the same interrupt), services the interrupt, e.g. by reading a character from a UART and writing it to a queue, and re-enabling interrupts. The upper half executes as part of a user process. It waits until the interrupt handler has run. Normally the operating system is responsible for reactivating a process which is waiting for some low-level event. It detects this by a shared flag or by inspecting a shared queue or by some other synchronisation mechanism. It is important that the upper and lower halves do not interfere if an interrupt occurs during the execution of upper half code. This is usually ensured by disabling interrupts during critical sections of code such as removing a character from a queue.
- interrupt request — (IRQ) The name of an input found on many processors which causes the processor to suspend normal instruction execution temporarily and to start executing an interrupt handler routine. Such an input may be either "level sensitive" - the interrupt condition will persist as long as the input is active or "edge triggered" - an interrupt is signalled by a low-to-high or high-to-low transition on the input. Some processors have several interrupt request inputs allowing different priority interrupts.
- interrupted screw — a screw having the thread interrupted in one or more places by longitudinal channels, as in the breech of a cannon or the lead screw of a lathe.
- intestinal bypass — the surgical circumvention, by anastomosis, of a diseased portion of the intestine; also sometimes used to reduce nutrient absorption in morbidly obese patients.
- intradepartmental — Within a department.
- intraspecifically — Between individuals of the same species.
- introspectiveness — characterized by introspection, the act or process of looking into oneself.
- inversion therapy — a method used to stretch and align the body, especially the lower back, by suspending the entire body upside down from an apparatus that grips or supports the feet or knees.
- invisible exports — services sold to a foreign country or countries
- invisible imports — imports of services rather than goods
- iontophoretically — By means of iontophoresis.
- irreproducibility — The quality of not being reproducible.
- isoelectric point — the pH at which a substance is electrically neutral or at which it is at its minimum ionization.
- japanese clematis — a Japanese woody vine, Clematis paniculata, of the buttercup family, having dense clusters of fragrant, white flowers and plumed fruit.
- japanese wisteria — a wisteria, Wisteria floribunda, of Japan, having violet, violet-blue, pink, red, or white flowers, grown in the U.S. as an ornamental.
- job specification — a detailed description of the qualifications, skills, and experience required for a particular post of employment
- joined at the hip — friends: inseparable
- judgment of paris — the decision by Paris to award Aphrodite the golden apple of discord competed for by Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera.
- jurisprudentially — In terms of jurisprudence.
- jus primae noctis — droit du seigneur.
- karitane hospital — a hospital for young babies and their mothers
- kensington palace — a royal residence in Kensington Gardens, in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea; dating from the 17th century, it was improved and extended by Sir Cristopher Wren
- kick in the pants — a reprimand or scolding designed to produce greater effort, enthusiasm, etc, in the person receiving it
- kidney transplant — surgery to replace a kidney
- kinetic potential — the kinetic energy minus the potential energy in a system obeying the principle of conservation of energy. Symbol: L.
- kitchen appliance — a machine intended for use in the kitchen, such as a fridge or a food processor
- l'hospital's rule — the theorem that for the quotient of two functions satisfying certain conditions on a given closed interval, each having infinite limit or zero as limit at a given point, the limit of the quotient at the given point is equal to the limit of the quotient of the derivatives of each function.
- la perouse strait — a strait between S Sakhalin Island, Russia and N Hokkaido Island, Japan connecting the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan. 25 miles (40 km) wide.
- landscape painter — artist who depicts natural scenery
- least fixed point — (mathematics) A function f may have many fixed points (x such that f x = x). For example, any value is a fixed point of the identity function, (\ x . x). If f is recursive, we can represent it as f = fix F where F is some higher-order function and fix F = F (fix F). The standard denotational semantics of f is then given by the least fixed point of F. This is the least upper bound of the infinite sequence (the ascending Kleene chain) obtained by repeatedly applying F to the totally undefined value, bottom. I.e. fix F = LUB {bottom, F bottom, F (F bottom), ...}. The least fixed point is guaranteed to exist for a continuous function over a cpo.
- lempert operation — fenestration (def 3c).
- lepidopterologist — One who studies lepidopterology.
- let something rip — If you let something rip, you do it as quickly or as forcefully as possible. You can say 'let it rip' or 'let her rip' to someone when you want them to make a vehicle go as fast as it possibly can.
- liberty of speech — freedom of speech.
- life imprisonment — long-term prison sentence
- life of the party — most lively, outgoing person
- lighthouse keeper — a person who mans a lighthouse and makes sure that the light is working properly
- liquid petrolatum — mineral oil.
- liquid propellant — a rocket propellant in liquid form.
- literacy campaign — a campaign designed to reduce illiteracy and promote literacy in a country, area, etc
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.
- logical operation — Boolean operation.
- lower paleolithic — See under Paleolithic.
- lumpenproletariat — the lowest level of the proletariat comprising unskilled workers, vagrants, and criminals and characterized by a lack of class identification and solidarity.
- lymphadenopathies — Plural form of lymphadenopathy.
- lymphocytopoiesis — Lymphopoiesis.
- magnetic monopole — a hypothetical very heavy particle with an isolated magnetic north pole or magnetic south pole.
- maintainer script — (Debian) One of the scripts (preinst, prerm, postinst, postrm) that may be included in a Debian binary package. These scripts may create and/or remove symlinks, files or directories that, for some reason, could not be done directly by dpkg. Maintainer scripts frequently create or update the symlinks in the /etc/rc?.d directories and start, stop, or restart daemons.
- manual typewriter — a keyboard machine, operated entirely by hand, for writing mechanically in characters resembling print