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22-letter words containing i, r, e, v

  • interactive whiteboard — a smooth, glossy sheet of white plastic that can be written on with a colored pen or marker in the manner of a blackboard.
  • interpretive semantics — a school of semantic theory based on the doctrine that the rules that relate sentences to their meanings form an autonomous system, separate from the rules that determine what is grammatical in a language
  • investigative new drug — a regulatory classification assigned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to an unproven drug, allowing its use in approved studies with human patients. Abbreviation: IND.
  • java community process — (project)   (JCP) An organization controlled by Sun Microsystems to further the growth of the Java language and runtime. The JCP produces standards called Java Standard Requests, which are "requests" in the same sense as RFCs.
  • lempel-ziv compression — Substitutional compression schemes proposed by Jakob Ziv and Abraham Lempel in 1977 and 1978. There are two main schemes, LZ77 and LZ78. Lempel-Ziv Welch compression is a variant of LZ78.
  • love-hate relationship — If you have a love-hate relationship with someone or something, your feelings towards them change suddenly and often from love to hate.
  • make/prove one's point — If you make your point or prove your point, you prove that something is true, either by arguing about it or by your actions or behaviour.
  • merry wives of windsor — a comedy (1598–1602?) by Shakespeare.
  • metasyntactic variable — (grammar)   Strictly, a variable used in metasyntax, but often used for any name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example. To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use "foo" or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time. To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: bazola, ztesch: Stanford (from mid-'70s on). zxc, spqr, wombat: Cambridge University (England). shme: Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/. blarg, wibble: New Zealand Of all these, only "foo" and "bar" are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and "foobaz" also enjoy very wide currency. Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also Commonwealth Hackish for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
  • microwave spectroscopy — the determination of those frequencies of the microwave spectrum that are selectively absorbed by certain materials, providing information about atomic, molecular, and crystalline structure.
  • miguel primo de rivera — Diego [dye-gaw] /ˈdyɛ gɔ/ (Show IPA), 1886–1957, Mexican painter.
  • million electron volts — a unit of energy equal to the energy acquired by an electron in falling through a potential of 10 6 volts. Abbreviation: MeV .
  • multiplicative inverse — reciprocal (def 9).
  • name service switching — Domain Name System
  • native elm bark beetle — elm bark beetle (def 2).
  • negative reinforcement — form of conditioning
  • non-constructive proof — (logic)   (Or "existence proof") A proof that something exists that does not provide an example of that thing or a method for finding an example. (A constructive proof does provide such an example or method). For example, for any pair of finite real numbers n < 0 and p > 0 there exists a real number 0 < k < 1 such that f(k) = (1-k)*n + k*p = 0. A non-constructive proof might proceed by observing that as k changes continuously from 0 to 1, f(k) changes continuously from n to p and, since they lie either side of zero, f(k) must pass through zero for some intermediate value of k. This proof does not tell us what that value of k is, only that it exists.
  • non-restrictive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
  • nondestructive testing — any of several methods of detecting flaws in metals without causing damage. The most common techniques involve the use of X-rays, gamma rays, and ultrasonic vibrations
  • open source initiative — (body)   (OSI) An organisation dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community.
  • over-industrialization — the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity into an area, society, country, etc.
  • parallel server option — Oracle Parallel Server
  • particular affirmative — a proposition of the form “Some S is P.” Symbol: I.
  • passive matrix display — (hardware)   A type of liquid crystal display which relies on persistence to maintain the state of each display element (pixel) between refresh scans. The resolution of such displays is limited by the ratio between the time to set a pixel and the time it takes to fade. Contrast active matrix display.
  • percussive maintenance — (jargon)   The fine art of whacking a device to get it working, possibly using a fine adjuster.
  • physiographic province — a geographic region in which climate and geology have given rise to an array of landforms different from those of surrounding regions.
  • pizza delivery service — a service whereby a pizza restaurant delivers pizzas to customers who order by telephone
  • positive reinforcement — encouragement
  • preventive maintenance — (PM) To bring down a machine for inspection or test purposes. See provocative maintenance, scratch monkey.
  • price variation clause — a clause in a contract allowing the seller to vary the selling price under certain conditions
  • private-equity company — an organization that uses private equity to gain control of and manage companies
  • privileged instruction — A machine code instruction that may only be executed when the processor is running in supervisor mode. Privileged instructions include operations such as I/O and memory management.
  • productivity agreement — an agreement whereby the employees of an organization agree to changes which are intended to improve productivity in return for an increase in pay or other benefits
  • progressive participle — present participle.
  • public service vehicle — a bus or coach
  • quantitative character — a character or trait that is transmitted by quantitative inheritance.
  • reactive schizophrenia — a type of schizophrenia of rapid onset and brief duration that occurs in response to environmental factors.
  • received pronunciation — the pronunciation of British English considered to have the widest geographical distribution and the fewest regional peculiarities, originally the pronunciation of educated speakers in southern England and traditionally that used in the public schools and at Oxford and Cambridge universities, adopted by many speakers elsewhere in England and widely used in broadcasting. Abbreviation: RP.
  • reconstructive surgery — the restoration of appearance and function following injury or disease, or the correction of congenital defects, using the techniques of plastic surgery.
  • remote access services — (communications)   (RAS) A service provided by Windows NT which allows most of the services which would be available on a network to be accessed over a modem link. The service includes support for dialup and logon, and then presents the same network interface as the normal network drivers (albeit slightly slower!). It is not necessary to run Windows NT on the client - there are client versions for other Windows operating systems.
  • reproductive isolation — the conditions, as physiological or behavioral differences or geographical barriers, that prevent potentially interbreeding populations from cross-fertilization.
  • retroactive inhibition — the tendency for the retention of learned material or skills to be impaired by subsequent learning, esp by learning of a similar kind
  • reverse discrimination — the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities.
  • revolutionary calendar — the calendar of the French First Republic, adopted in 1793 and abandoned in 1805, consisting of 12 months, each of 30 days, and 5 intercalary days added at the end of the year (6 every fourth year). The months, beginning at the autumnal equinox, are Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse, Germinal, Floréal, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor.
  • revolutions per minute — (unit)   (rpm, rarely: rotations per minute) A unit of angular velocity equal to 1/60 of a revolution per second.
  • rural delivery service — mail delivery operated primarily to deliver and collect mail in rural communities with no other convenient postal facilities.
  • safety integrity level — A safety integrity level is a relative level of risk reduction.
  • save the children fund — a development agency which raises money for deprived children around the world
  • selective transmission — a transmission in which the available forward and reverse gears may be engaged in any order, without passing progressively through the different changes of gear.
  • sell sb down the river — If someone sells you down the river, they betray you for some personal profit or advantage.
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