22-letter words containing i, s
- automatic send receive — (hardware) (ASR) Part of a designation for a hard-copy terminal, manufactured by Teletype Corporation, which could be commanded remotely to send the contents of its paper tape reader. The ASR-33 was the most common minicomputer terminal in the early 1970s.
- automatic transmission — A car that is fitted with automatic transmission has a gear system in which the gears change automatically.
- axiom of comprehension — (logic) An axiom schema of set theory which states: if P(x) is a property then {x : P} is a set. I.e. all the things with some property form a set. Acceptance of this axiom leads to Russell's Paradox which is why Zermelo set theory replaces it with a restricted form.
- bacillus thuringiensis — a bacterium used in genetically altered form in the biological control of budworms, gypsy moth larvae, Japanese beetles, and other insect pests. Abbreviation: B.t.
- bacterial endocarditis — a bacterial infection of the inner lining of the heart, most often of the heart valves, characterized by fever, enlarged spleen, and heart murmur.
- badlands national park — a national park in SW South Dakota: rock formations and animal fossils. 380 sq. mi. (985 sq. km).
- balance sheet equation — A balance sheet equation is a basic accounting equation that states that assets equal liabilities plus equity.
- baldassare castiglione — Baldassare [bahl-dahs-sah-re] /ˌbɑl dɑsˈsɑ rɛ/ (Show IPA), 1478–1529, Italian diplomat and author.
- ballistic galvanometer — a type of galvanometer for measuring surges of current. After deflection the instrument returns slowly to its original reading
- bank deposit insurance — the protection of bank deposits against the insolvency of banks in the U.S., up to a specified maximum per account that is revised periodically, under special insurance through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
- bankrupt's certificate — a document given to a bankrupt with the consent of their creditors, stating that the bankrupt has disclosed and surrendered all his property
- bankruptcy proceedings — the legal business of a bankruptcy case
- baptismal regeneration — the doctrine that regeneration and sanctification are received in and through baptism.
- barra de sao francisco — a city in SE Brazil, on the São Francisco River.
- basic operating system — (operating system) (BOS) An early [when?] IBM operating system. According to folklore, BOS was the predecessor to TOS on the IBM 360 and it was IPL'd from a card reader. It may have been intended for very small 360's with no disks and limited tape drives. BOS died out really early [when?] as disks such as the 2311 and 2314 became common with the IBM 360, whereas disks had been a real luxury on the IBM 7090.
- be in a person's shoes — to be in another person's situation
- be in one's right mind — to be mentally well; be sane
- be on one's high horse — to be disdainfully aloof
- beats the shit outa me — (exclamation) (BSOM) "I don't understand it". The last thing you say as you walk out on someone whose system you can't fix.
- being from outer space — a monster; an imaginary creature
- beltsville small white — a small domestic turkey developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fit small ovens when being cooked.
- benoit de sainte-maure — 12th-century French trouvère: author of the Roman de Troie, which contains the episode of Troilus and Cressida
- bernoulli distribution — binomial distribution.
- bernoulli's lemniscate — Analytic Geometry. lemniscate.
- better business bureau — any of a nationwide system of local organizations, supported by business, whose function is to receive and investigate customer complaints of dishonest business practices. Abbreviation: BBB.
- birthright citizenship — the practice of automatically granting citizenship to a child born in a particular country, regardless of the citizenship status of the parent or parents: an end to birthright citizenship.
- black mercuric sulfide — a crystalline, water-insoluble, poisonous compound, HgS, occurring as a coarse, black powder (black mercuric sulfide) or as a fine, bright-scarlet powder (red mercuric sulfide) used chiefly as a pigment and as a source of the free metal.
- black-scholes equation — a partial differential equation used to estimate the changing value of an option over time
- board of commissioners — the administrative body of a county in many U.S. states, especially in the South and the West, having from two to seven elected members.
- borderline personality — Psychiatry. a personality disorder characterized by instability in many areas, as mood, identity, self-image, and behavior, and often manifested by impulsive actions, suicide attempts, inappropriate anger, or depression.
- bosnia and herzegovina — country in SE Europe: it came under Turkish rule in the 15th cent. and under Austro-Hungarian control in 1878: it was part of Yugoslavia (1918-91): 19,741 sq mi (51,129 sq km); pop. 4,366,000; cap. Sarajevo
- bridge of san luis rey — a novel (1927) by Thornton Wilder.
- bristle-thighed curlew — an Alaskan curlew, Numenius tahitiensis, that winters in Polynesia, having bristlelike feathers on its thighs.
- british library method — (algorithm) Brute force searching. According to legends circulating in the 1970s, in the British Library books are searched for by examining each book sequentially in the first shelf, then the next shelf, continuing until the book is found or the entire library has been searched. The term was referred to in a Dutch coursebook, "Inleiding In De Informatica" (Introduction to Informatics) from a course given by C.H.A. Koster and Th.A. Zoethout. This was based on a course given at the TU Berlin.
- british national party — a far-right political party
- british virgin islands — a UK Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, consisting of 36 islands in the E Virgin Islands: formerly part of the Federation of the Leeward Islands (1871–1956). Capital: Road Town, on Tortola. Pop: 31 912 (2013 est). Area: 153 sq km (59 sq miles)
- business reply service — a service involving reply-paid envelopes
- c programmer's disease — (programming) The tendency of the undisciplined C programmer to set arbitrary but supposedly generous static limits on table sizes (defined, if you're lucky, by constants in header files) rather than taking the trouble to do proper dynamic storage allocation. If an application user later needs to put 68 elements into a table of size 50, the afflicted programmer reasons that he or she can easily reset the table size to 68 (or even as much as 70, to allow for future expansion) and recompile. This gives the programmer the comfortable feeling of having made the effort to satisfy the user's (unreasonable) demands, and often affords the user multiple opportunities to explore the marvellous consequences of fandango on core. In severe cases of the disease, the programmer cannot comprehend why each fix of this kind seems only to further disgruntle the user.
- cadence design systems — (company) A company that sells electronic design automation software and services. See also Verilog.
- calculus of variations — a branch of calculus concerned with maxima and minima of definite integrals
- cascading style sheets — (web) (CSS) An extension to HTML to allow styles, e.g. colour, font, size to be specified for certain elements of a hypertext document. Style information can be included in-line in the HTML file or in a separate CSS file (which can then be easily shared by multiple HTML files). Multiple levels of CSS can be used to allow selective overriding of styles.
- cast in one's lot with — to share in the activities or fortunes of (someone else)
- catalyst transfer line — A catalyst transfer line is equipment which provides a smooth and constant catalyst flow.
- catch sight of someone — If you catch sight of someone, you suddenly see them, often briefly.
- cavity wall insulation — insulation injected into the space between cavity walls
- cease-and-desist order — an order by a government agency to a person or corporation to terminate a business practice found by the agency to be illegal or unfair.
- centimeter-gram-second — designating or of a system of measurement in which the centimeter, gram, and second are the units of length, mass, and time, respectively
- certificate of deposit — a negotiable certificate issued by a bank in return for a deposit of money for a term of up to five years
- charity begins at home — If you say charity begins at home, you mean that people should deal with the needs of people close to them before they think about helping others.
- chebyshev's inequality — the fundamental theorem that the probability that a random variable differs from its mean by more than k standard deviations is less than or equal to 1/k2