24-letter words containing g, r, a, t, i, l
- intelligent backtracking — (algorithm) An improved backtracking algorithm for Prolog interpreters, which records the point at which each logic variable becomes bound and, when a given set of bindings leads to failure, ignores any choice point which does not bind any of those variables. No choice from such a choice point can succeed since it does not change the bindings which caused the failure.
- interlocking directorate — a corporate directorate that includes one or more members who serve simultaneously in the directorates of other corporations.
- interventional radiology — an application of radiology that enables minimally invasive surgery to be performed with the aid of simultaneous radiological imaging of the field of operation within the body
- involuntary manslaughter — the unlawful but unintentional killing of a human being
- knowledge representation — The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts and rules about some subject. A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation.
- knowledge sharing effort — (project) An ARPA project developing techniques and methods for building large-scale knowledge bases which are sharable and reusable.
- lady washington geranium — show geranium.
- laryngotracheobronchitis — A respiratory disease, a form of croup.
- like a red rag to a bull — If you describe something as a red rag to a bull, you mean that it is certain to make a particular person or group very angry.
- local government officer — an employee of a local council
- long-term care insurance — Long-term care insurance is insurance for people who may require long-term health or nursing care, and pays for things such as nursing homes and adult day care.
- low voltage differential — (hardware) (LVD) A method of driving SCSI cables that will be formalised in the SCSI-3 specifications. LVD uses less power than the current differential drive (HVD), is less expensive and will allow the higher speeds of Ultra-2 SCSI. LVD requires 3.3 Volts DC instead of 5 Volts DC for HVD.
- magnetothermoelectricity — thermoelectricity induced or affected by a magnetic field.
- medium-scale integration — MSI.
- meteorological satellite — an artificial satellite that gathers data concerning the earth's atmosphere and surface in order to aid meteorologists in understanding weather patterns and producing weather forecasts.
- multiple virtual storage — (operating system) (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- pure functional language — purely functional language
- 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.
- revolving charge account — a charge plan offerring revolving credit.
- scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web) A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- 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.
- 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.
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- 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.
- teacher training college — a higher-education college that specializes in teacher training
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- to lay something to rest — If you lay something such as fears or rumours to rest or if you put them to rest, you succeed in proving that they are not true.
- to light the touch paper — if someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement
- to play your cards right — If you say that someone will achieve success if they play their cards right, you mean that they will achieve success if they act skilfully and use the advantages that they have.
- to rise to the challenge — If someone rises to the challenge, they act in response to a difficult situation which is new to them and are successful.
- transformational grammar — a system of grammatical analysis, especially a form of generative grammar, that posits the existence of deep structure and surface structure, using a set of transformational rules to derive surface structure forms from deep structure; a grammar that uses transformations to express the relations between equivalent structures.
- trip the light fantastic — a journey or voyage: to win a trip to Paris.
- ultralarge crude carrier — Nautical. ULCC.
- virtual storage extended — (operating system) (VSE, formerly DOS/VSE) is a multitasking, IBM 370-architected operating system similar to Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS). VSE run jobs in partitions rather than address spaces, and uses POWER for input/output rather than JES, but is largely similar to MVS. Subsequent VSE/ESA releases gave VSE the XA-370 channel architecture, 31-bit virtual and real storage support, and data spaces. VSE is the IBM operating system on one-third of installed IBM 4381s and a significant proportion of IBM 9370s as well. It offers transaction processing and batch processing capabilities well beyond Virtual Machine's current capabilities, and has a close affinity with MVS.