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24-letter words containing g, e, r, i, a, t

  • nongonococcal urethritis — a widespread sexually transmitted infection of the urethra, caused by the parasite Chlamydia trachomatis, or the mycoplasm Ureaplasma urealyticum, characterized in males by painful urination and discharge from the penis and in females by frequent, painful urination and cervical erosion. Abbreviation: NGU.
  • object-oriented language — object-oriented programming
  • officers' training corps — part of the British Army which provides military leadership training to students at UK universities
  • on the right/wrong track — If you are on the right track, you are acting or progressing in a way that is likely to result in success. If you are on the wrong track, you are acting or progressing in a way that is likely to result in failure.
  • one thing led to another — You say one thing led to another when you are explaining how something happened, but you do not really want to give the details or you think people will be able to imagine the details.
  • optical signal processor — optical computing
  • orbital angular momentum — the component of angular momentum of an electron in an atom or a nucleon in a nucleus, arising from its orbital motion rather than from its spin.
  • organization and methods — a systematic examination of an organization's structure, procedures, management and control, with a view to determining its comparative efficiency in achieving defined organizational aims
  • orographic precipitation — precipitation caused by the lifting of moist air over a mountain barrier.
  • other things being equal — If you say 'other things being equal' or 'all things being equal' when talking about a possible situation, you mean if nothing unexpected happens or if there are no other factors which affect the situation.
  • parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
  • physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
  • plantation walking horse — one of a breed of saddle horses developed largely from Standardbred and Morgan stock.
  • pre-emptive multitasking — (operating system, parallel)   A type of multitasking where the scheduler can interrupt and suspend ("swap out") the currently running task in order to start or continue running ("swap in") another task. The tasks under pre-emptive multitasking can be written as though they were the only task and the scheduler decides when to swap them. The scheduler must ensure that when swapping tasks, sufficient state is saved and restored that tasks do not interfere. The length of time for which a process runs is known as its "time slice" and may depend on the task's priority or its use of resources such as memory and I/O. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking where each task must include calls to allow it to be descheduled periodically.
  • preparatory to doing sth — If one action is done preparatory to another, it is done before the other action, usually as preparation for it.
  • pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications)   (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
  • private-key cryptography — (cryptography)   As opposed to public-key cryptography, a cryptographic method in which the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt the message. Private-key algorithms include the obsolescent Data Encryption Standard (DES), triple-DES (3DES), the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known as Rijndael, Blowfish, Twofish RC2, RC4, RC5 and RC6. A problem with private-key cryptography is that the sender and the recipient of the message must agree on a common key via some alternative secure channel.
  • privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
  • program information file — (file format)   Under Windows, a file providing information on how a non-Windows application program should be run, including how much memory should be allocated to it and what graphics interface it requires.
  • progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
  • progressive conservative — a member of the Progressive Conservative party of Canada.
  • pure functional language — purely functional language
  • put the fear of god into — a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
  • put their heads together — to consult together
  • recharge one's batteries — If you recharge a battery, you put an electrical charge back into the battery by connecting it to a machine that draws power from another source of electricity.
  • registered general nurse — (in Britain) a nurse who has completed a three-year training course in all aspects of nursing care to enable him or her to be registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting
  • regular checking account — a checking account for which the monthly fee is usually based on the average balance maintained and the number of transactions recorded.
  • reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
  • reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
  • revolving charge account — a charge plan offerring revolving credit.
  • ring down the curtain on — to give forth a clear resonant sound, as a bell when struck: The doorbell rang twice.
  • scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web)   A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
  • see someone hanged first — to refuse absolutely to do what one has been asked
  • senegambia confederation — an economic and political union (1982–89) between Senegal and The Gambia
  • shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
  • sign one's death warrant — to cause one's own destruction
  • single transferable vote — of or relating to a system of voting in which voters list the candidates in order of preference. Any candidate achieving a predetermined proportion of the votes in a constituency is elected. Votes exceeding this amount and those cast for the bottom candidate are redistributed according to the stated preferences. Redistribution continues until all the seats are filled
  • split image range finder — a range finder in which opposing halves of a split field move relative to each other and coincide when the object centered in the field is in focus.
  • staggered pin grid array — (hardware)   (SPGA) A style of integrated circuit socket or pin-out with a staggered grid of pins around the edge of the socket, positioned as several squares, one inside the other. SPGA is commonly used on motherboards for processors, e.g. Socket 5, Socket 7 and Socket 8. See also PGA.
  • standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
  • stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
  • sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
  • stratified charge engine — an internal-combustion engine in which a small charge of a rich fuel mixture is ignited first and used to improve combustion of a larger charge of a lean fuel mixture.
  • tagged image file format — (file format, graphics)   (TIFF) A file format used for still-image bitmaps, stored in tagged fields. Application programs can use the tags to accept or ignore fields, depending on their capabilities. While TIFF was designed to be extensible, it lacked a core of useful functionality, so that most useful functions (e.g. lossless 24-bit colour) requires nonstandard, often redundant, extensions. The incompatibility of extensions has led some to expand "TIFF" as "Thousands of Incompatible File Formats". Compare GIF, PNG, JPEG.
  • take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
  • teacher training college — a higher-education college that specializes in teacher training
  • the ravages of something — the destructive effects of something
  • the way things are going — You can use the way things are going to indicate that you expect something to happen because of the way the present situation is developing.
  • thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
  • throw one's weight about — to act in an authoritarian or aggressive manner
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