28-letter words containing l, a, s, e
- the world owes them a living — If you say that someone thinks that the world owes them a living, you are criticizing them because they think it is their right to have a comfortable life without having to make any effort at all.
- through rose-colored glasses — with optimism, esp. undue optimism
- tissue plasminogen activator — an anticlotting enzyme, naturally occurring in small amounts in the blood.
- to come to a screeching halt — (of a motor vehicle) to stop suddenly, causing the brakes or tyres to produce a high-pitched sound
- to get off to a flying start — If someone or something gets off to a flying start, or makes a flying start, they start very well, for example in a race or a new job.
- to handle sb with kid gloves — to treat someone with great tact or caution
- to leave a lot to be desired — If you say that something leaves a lot to be desired, you mean that it is not as good as it should be.
- to make a clean breast of it — If you make a clean breast of something, you tell someone the truth about yourself or about something wrong that you have done.
- to make someone's blood boil — If you say that something makes your blood boil, you are emphasizing that it makes you very angry.
- to play into someone's hands — If you play into someone's hands, you do something which they want you to do and which places you in their power.
- to ruffle someone's feathers — To ruffle someone's feathers means to cause them to become very angry, nervous, or upset.
- to take something lying down — If someone takes an insult or attack lying down, they accept it without protesting.
- to throw the rule book at sb — to inflict the most severe punishment on someone
- tree transformation language — (functional programming) (TXL) A hybrid functional language and rule-based language developed by J.R. Cordy <[email protected]> et al of Queen's University, Canada in 1988. TXL is suitable for performing source to source analysis and transformation and for rapid prototyping of new languages and language processors. It uses structural transformation based on term rewriting. TXL has been particularly successful in software engineering tasks such as design recovery, refactoring, and reengineering. Most recently it has been applied to artificial intelligence tasks such as recognition of hand-written mathematics, and to transformation of structured documents in XML. TXL takes as input an arbitrary context-free grammar in extended BNF-like notation, and a set of show-by-example transformation rules to be applied to inputs parsed using the grammar. TXL supports the notion of agile parsing, the ability to tailor the grammar to each particular task using "grammar overrides".
- united states postal service — an independent federal agency created in 1971 to replace the Post Office Department as the division of the federal government responsible for postal services. Abbreviation: USPS.
- until sb is blue in the face — If you say that someone can do something until they are blue in the face, you are emphasizing that however much they do it, it will not make any difference.
- variable-density wind tunnel — a closed-circuit wind tunnel entirely contained in a casing in which the pressure and therefore the density of the working fluid can be maintained at a preselected value
- very large scale integration — VLSI.
- very large-scale integration — the process of fabricating a few thousand logic gates or more in a single integrated circuit
- very small aperture terminal — (communications) (VSAT) A kind of ground station used to contact a communications satellite such as INMARSAT.
- wake up and smell the coffee — to face up to reality, especially in an unpleasant situation
- walden, or life in the woods — a book of philosophical observations (1854) by Thoreau.
- waterton lakes national park — a national park in W Canada, in S Alberta. 220 sq. mi. (570 sq. km).
- within an inch of one's life — almost to the point of death
- would not say boo to a goose — is extremely timid or diffident
- wouldn't be seen/caught dead — If you say that you wouldn't be seen dead or be caught dead in particular clothes, places, or situations, you are expressing strong dislike or disapproval of them.
- xerox data systems model 530 — (computer) (XDS 530) A computer from the Scientific Data Systems range, announced sometime after 1968 when Xerox bought out SDS. The XDS 530 was probably under development at SDS before the buy-out but only announced afterwards.
- xerox data systems model 940 — (computer) (SDS 940, XDS 940) A time-sharing system, announced in February 1966, developed by Scientific Data Systems with help from The University of California at Berkeley and Tymshare. SDS 940 was backward compatible with SDS's previous systems (except the 12-bit SDS 92). It had monitor and user modes, dynamic program relocation, automatic memory fragmentation, and system protection. After 1968 Xerox bought out SDS and renamed the SDS machines "Xerox Data Systems" (XDS). Xerox then produced the XDS 530.
- zeroth law of thermodynamics — the principle that any two systems in thermal equilibrium with a third system are in thermal equilibrium with each other. Compare law of thermodynamics (def 2).