24-letter words containing l, a, r, y
- involuntary manslaughter — the unlawful but unintentional killing of a human being
- irritable bowel syndrome — any combination of common disturbances of the bowel, as diarrhea or constipation, occurring with abdominal pain, sometimes accompanied by psychological stress. Abbreviation: IBS.
- kennelly-heaviside layer — E layer.
- lady washington geranium — show geranium.
- laryngotracheobronchitis — A respiratory disease, a form of croup.
- lithium aluminum hydride — a white powder, LiAlH 4 , used chiefly as a chemical reducing agent, especially in pharmaceutical and perfume manufacturing.
- magnetothermoelectricity — thermoelectricity induced or affected by a magnetic field.
- mandy rice-davis applies — (chat) (MRDA) An acronym used to imply that someone is lying to protect their own interests. During the trial of Stephen Ward (who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Rice-Davies), the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied any involvement with her and Rice-Davies replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
- mathematical probability — the probability of an event consisting of n out of m possible equally likely occurrences, defined to be n/m
- minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
- mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
- nalbuphine hydrochloride — an opiate drug used as a painkiller
- narcissistic personality — a personality disorder characterized by extreme self-centeredness and self-absorption, fantasies involving unrealistic goals, an excessive need for attention and admiration, and disturbed interpersonal relationships.
- neutrosophic probability — (logic) An extended form of probability based on Neutrosophy, in which a statement is held to be t true, i indeterminate, and f false, where t, i, f are real values from the ranges T, I, F, with no restriction on T, I, F or the sum n=t+i+f.
- non-proliferation treaty — an international agreement signed in 1968 which aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons
- object-oriented analysis — (programming) (OOA) The first phase of object-oriented design.
- 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.
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- permeability coefficient — the volume of an incompressible fluid that will flow in unit time through a unit cube of a porous substance across which a unit pressure difference is maintained
- physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
- polychlorinated biphenyl — PCB.
- polymer matrix composite — A polymer matrix composite is a material consisting of a composite made stronger by adding fibers or particles to it.
- probability distribution — a distribution of all possible values of a random variable together with an indication of their probabilities.
- programmable array logic — (hardware) (PAL) A family of fuse-programmable logic integrated circuits originally developed by MMI. Registered or combinatorial output functions are modelled in a sum of products form. Each output is a sum (logical or) of a fixed number of products (logical and) of the input signals. This structure is well suited for automatic generation of programming patterns by logic compilers. PAL devices are programmed by blowing the fuses permanently using overvoltage. Today, more complex devices based on the same original architecture are available (CPLD's for Complex PLD's) that incorporate the equivalent of several original PAL chips. PAL chips are, however, still popular due to their high speed.
- psychopathic personality — an antisocial personality characterized by the failure to develop any sense of moral responsibility and the capability of performing violent or antisocial acts
- quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
- quinacrine hydrochloride — Atabrine
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- rational-emotive therapy — a form of therapy in which a patient is asked to reject irrational attitudes and assumptions in order to deal effectively with stressful situations.
- referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
- responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
- san joaquin valley fever — coccidioidomycosis.
- secondary school teacher — a person who teaches at a secondary school
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- socialist workers' party — one of the biggest extreme left wing parties in Britain
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- tetraethyl pyrophosphate — a colorless to amber, hygroscopic, poisonous liquid, (C 2 H 5) 4 P 2 O 7 , used as an insecticide and as a rodenticide.
- the realm of possibility — If you say that something is not beyond the realms of possibility, you mean that it is possible.
- thermal neutron analyzer — a baggage-screening device that detects explosives by using low-energy neutrons to sense gamma radiation.
- to cramp someone's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behaviour in some way.
- 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 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.
- transpersonal psychology — a branch of psychology or psychotherapy that recognizes altered states of consciousness and transcendent experiences as a means to understand the human mind and treat psychological disordrs.
- tricarboxylic acid cycle — Krebs cycle.
- tricyclic antidepressant — pertaining to or embodying three cycles.
- trotskyist international — Fourth International.
- unfederated malay states — a former group of native states in the Malay Peninsula that became British protectorates between 1885 and 1909. All except Brunei joined the Malayan Union (later Federation of Malaya) in 1946. Brunei joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 but later became an independent nation
- very large crude carrier — VLCC.
- virtual software factory — (programming, tool) (VSF) A product from Systematica which allows users to develop CASE tools appropriate to any software engineering methodology.
- visual component library — (programming) VCL A application framework library for Microsoft Windows and Borland Software Corp.'s Delphi and C++Builder rapid application development software. VCL was originally designed for Delphi but is now also used for C++Builder. This replaces OWL Object Windows Library as Borland's Windows C++ framework of choice. VCL encapsulates the C-based Win32 API into a much easier to use, object-oriented form. Like its direct rival, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), VCL includes classes to create Windows programs. The VCL component class can be inherited to create new VCL components, which are the building blocks of Delphi and C++Builder applications. VCL components are somewhat in competition with ActiveX controls, though a VCL wrapper can be created to make an ActiveX control seem like a VCL component.