25-letter words containing l, i, t, h
- petropavlovsk-kamchatskiy — seaport in E Asian Russia, on Kamchatka Peninsula: pop. 210,000
- pick/take up the gauntlet — If you pick up the gauntlet or take up the gauntlet, you accept the challenge that someone has made.
- play into someone's hands — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- polymerase chain reaction — a technique in which a known DNA sequence is synthesized at high temperatures by means of a polymerase, producing millions of copies for statistical analysis: used in DNA fingerprinting, in detecting minute quantities of cancer cells, etc.
- polynomial-time algorithm — (complexity) A known algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a polynomial function of the size of the problem. See also computational complexity, exponential time, nondeterministic polynomial-time (NP), NP-complete.
- portable network graphics — (file format) /ping/ (PNG) An extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of TIFF. Indexed-colour, greyscale and truecolour images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits. PNG is designed for on-line viewing applications, such as the World Wide Web, so it is fully streamable with a progressive display option. PNG is robust, providing both full file integrity checking and simple detection of common transmission errors. Also, PNG can store gamma correction and chromaticity data for improved colour matching on heterogeneous platforms.
- psychiatric social worker — (in Britain) a qualified person who works with mentally-ill people and their families, based in a psychiatric hospital, child guidance clinic, or social services department area team, and who may also be an approved social worker
- raise (or lower) the bar — raise (or lower) the standard of judgment
- rate monotonic scheduling — (algorithm) A means of scheduling the time allocated to periodic hard-deadline real-time users of a resource. The users are assigned priorities such that a shorter fixed period between deadlines is associated with a higher priority. Rate monotonic scheduling provides a low-overhead, reasonably resource-efficient means of guaranteeing that all users will meet their deadlines provided that certain analytical equations are satisfied during the system design. It avoids the design complexity of time-line scheduling and the overhead of dynamic approaches such as earliest-deadline scheduling.
- rehabilitation department — a government department set up after World War II to assist ex-servicemen
- saddle block (anesthesia) — a method of spinal anesthesia, often used during obstetric delivery, that produces anesthesia in that area of the body that would be in contact with a saddle during horseback riding
- selective synchronization — a sound-recording process that facilitates overdubs by feeding the recorded track to the performer straight from the recording head
- sequential parlog machine — (SPM) The virtual machine (and its machine code) for the Parlog logic programming language.
- shoot oneself in the foot — to damage one's own cause inadvertently
- slip/fall through the net — You use slip through the net or fall through the net to describe a situation where people are not properly cared for by the system that is intended to help them.
- stand in a person's light — to stand so as to obscure a person's vision
- sulphate-resisting cement — a type of Portland cement that resists normal concentrations of sulphates: used in concrete for flues and underwater work
- take the queen's shilling — to enlist in the army
- tess of the d'urbervilles — a novel (1891) by Thomas Hardy.
- tetragonal trisoctahedron — Geometry. a trisoctahedron the faces of which are quadrilaterals; trapezohedron.
- the ball is in sb's court — If you say that the ball is in someone's court, you mean that it is his or her responsibility to take the next action or decision in a situation.
- the ball is in your court — you are obliged to make the next move
- the empire state building — a very high skyscraper in New York City
- the first epistle of john — an epistle attributed to the apostle John which counters claims that Jesus Christ came only in spirit and not in the flesh
- the industrial revolution — the transformation in the 18th and 19th centuries of first Britain and then other W European countries and the US into industrial nations
- the leaning tower of pisa — the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral
- the meteorological office — a British Government department supplying weather forecasts
- the mother of parliaments — the British Parliament: the model and creator of many other Parliaments
- the politically incorrect — politically incorrect people considered collectively
- the scholastic profession — the profession of teaching
- the third epistle of john — an epistle attributed to the apostle John and addressed to a man called Gaius, who is praised in the letter
- there are no flies on him — he is no fool
- thermal imaging equipment — heat-sensitive devices that can detect or provide images of people or things
- thermodynamic equilibrium — the condition of an isolated system in which the quantities that specify its properties, such as pressure, temperature, etc, all remain unchanged
- thermoelectromotive force — the electromotive force developed by the thermoelectric effect.
- thermoluminescence dating — a method of dating archaeological specimens, chiefly pottery, by measuring the radiation given off by ceramic materials as they are heated.
- thin-layer chromatography — chromatography in which glass plates coated with thin layers of alumina, silica gel, or cellulose are used as an adsorbent.
- through the looking-glass — a story for children (1871) by Lewis Carroll: the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- to be living proof that … — to show that
- to call something to mind — If something brings another thing to mind or calls another thing to mind, it makes you think of that other thing, usually because it is similar in some way.
- to drink someone's health — When you drink to someone's health or drink their health, you have a drink as a sign of wishing them health and happiness.
- to lay claim to something — If you lay claim to something you do not have, you say that it belongs to you.
- to lay siege to something — If police, soldiers, or journalists lay siege to a place, they surround it in order to force the people there to come out or give up control of the place.
- to read between the lines — If you read between the lines, you understand what someone really means, or what is really happening in a situation, even though it is not said openly.
- to sail close to the wind — If you sail close to the wind, you take a risk by doing or saying something that may get you into trouble.
- track and field athletics — a collection of sporting events that involve running, sprinting, throwing, jumping and walking
- transcendental-philosophy — transcendental character, thought, or language.
- undisputed world champion — a boxer who holds the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council, the World Boxing Organization, and the International Boxing Federation world championship titles simultaneously
- vertical redundancy check — (storage, communications) (VRC) An error checking method performed on one 8-bit ASCII character, where the 8th bit is used as the parity bit. The resulting parity bit is constructed by XORing the word. The result is a "1" if there is an odd number of 1s, and a "0" if there is an even number of 1s in the word. This method is unreliable because if an odd number of bits are distorted, the check will not detect the error. The Longitudinal Redundancy Check is an improvement.
- vienna development method — (programming, specification) (VDM) A program development method based on formal specification using the Vienna Development Method Specification Language (VDM-SL).