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21-letter words containing f, o, s, t

  • joseph bonaparte gulf — an inlet of the Timor Sea in N Australia. Width: 360 km (225 miles)
  • just a bunch of disks — (jargon, storage)   (JBOD, or "Just a Bunch of Drives") A storage subsystems using multiple independent disk drives, as opposed to one form of RAID or another. For example, Unisys open storage provides JBOD in both SCSI and fibre channel interfaces.
  • knights of st columba — an international, semi-secret fraternal and charitable order for Catholic laymen, which originated in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882 (the Knights of Columbus)
  • lady of the camellias — French La Dame aux Camélias. a novel (1848) and play (1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils.
  • lafcadio's adventures — French Les Caves du Vatican. a novel (1914) by André Gide.
  • 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)
  • league of arab states — Arab League.
  • leaning tower of pisa — a round, marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1174 and now 17 feet (5.2 meters) out of the perpendicular in its height of 179 feet (54 meters).
  • lender of last resort — the central bank of a country with authority for controlling its banking system
  • linear transformation — linear map
  • lordship of the isles — an overlordship of the Western Isles of Scotland and adjacent lands instituted in 1266 when Magnus of Norway ceded the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Kintyre to the King of Scotland, and claimed by the chiefs of Clan Dougall and later by those of Clan Donald. The title was forfeited to James IV in 1493 and is now held by the eldest son of the sovereign
  • lost in the underflow — (jargon)   Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
  • lost-and-found column — a column in a newspaper that carries advertisements from people who have lost or found things
  • lotus of the good law — Saddharma-Pundarika.
  • lotus-of-the-true-law — a Mahayana sutra, forming with its references to Amida and the Bodhisattvas the basis for the doctrine that there is something of Buddha in everyone, so that salvation is universally available: a central text of Mahayana Buddhism.
  • lower the tone of sth — If you say that something lowers the tone of a place or event, you mean that it is not appropriate and makes the place or event seem less respectable.
  • lull before the storm — If you describe a situation as the lull before the storm, you mean that although it is calm now, there is going to be trouble in the future.
  • luminous flux density — luminous flux per unit of cross-sectional area.
  • macintosh file system — (file system)   A file on the Macintosh consists of two parts, called forks. The "data fork" contains the data which would normally be stored in the file on other operating systems. The "resource fork" contains a collection of arbitrary attribute/value pairs, including program segments, icon bitmaps, and parametric values. Yet more information regarding Macintosh files is stored by the Finder in a hidden file, called the "Desktop Database". Because of the complications in storing different parts of a Macintosh file in non-Macintosh file systems that only handle consecutive data in one part, it is common to only send the Data fork or to convert the Macintosh file into some other format before transferring it.
  • made of sterner stuff — If you say that someone is made of sterner stuff, you mean that they have a strong personality and are capable of overcoming difficulties and problems.
  • magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
  • make up for lost time — compensate for past inaction
  • make yourself at home — settle in
  • manufacturing process — chain of production
  • mayor of casterbridge — a novel (1886) by Thomas Hardy.
  • microsoft corporation — (company)   The biggest supplier of operating systems and other software for IBM PC compatibles. Software products include MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Microsoft Access, LAN Manager, MS Client, SQL Server, Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC), MS Mail, and SNA Server for Windows NT. Microsoft was founded as "Micro-soft" in 1975 by Bill Gates (now CEO) and his high school pal Paul Allen. Their first product was a version of BASIC for the new Altair computer [which one?]. In 1980, IBM chose Microsoft to supply the operating system for the IBM PC. On the UK television program "The Net" in May 1994, Bill Gates said he was betting his company on the information highway". Quarterly sales $1293M, profits $362M (Aug 1994).
  • minister of the crown — any Government minister of cabinet rank
  • mistress of the robes — (in Britain) a lady of high rank in charge of the Queen's wardrobe
  • modulus of elasticity — the ratio of the stress applied to a body or substance to the resulting strain within the elastic limit
  • mother-of-pearl glass — an American art glassware having colored glass set into indentations in a thickness of opaque glass, the whole covered with clear glass and etched slightly with acid.
  • 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
  • necrotising fasciitis — a disease caused by the bacterium streptococcus pyogenes, in which the fasciae of the muscles or other organs become inflamed, resulting in rapid destruction of overlying tissues
  • neither fish nor fowl — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
  • network filing system — (spelling)   Misnomer for Network File System.
  • 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.
  • nitrosylsulfuric acid — a clear, straw-colored, oily, corrosive liquid, HNO 5 S, used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • pathfinder prospectus — a prospectus regarding the flotation of a new company that contains only sufficient details to test the market reaction
  • 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 safety order — (in Britain) under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, an order granted by a justice to a person or agency granting authority to detain a child or young person and take him or her to a place of safety for not more than 28 days, because of the child's actual or likely ill-treatment or neglect, etc
  • 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).
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