22-letter words containing m, a, n, e, r
- message transfer agent — (messaging) (MTA, Mail Transfer Agent) Any program responsible for delivering e-mail messages. Upon receiving a message from a Mail User Agent or another MTA, often by SMTP over the Internet, it stores it temporarily locally and analyses the recipients and delivers it to any local addressees and/or forwards it to other remote MTAs (routing) for delivery to remote recipients. In either case it may edit and/or add to the message headers. The most widely used MTA for Unix is sendmail, which communicates using SMTP.
- 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.
- middle-distance runner — someone who runs races of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres
- miniature bull terrier — one of an English breed of small muscular dogs resembling a smaller version of a standard bull terrier, with a short, flat, harsh coat of glossy white or white with brindle patches.
- missing persons bureau — the part of the Police Force dealing with tracing missing people
- modified american plan — (in hotels) a system of paying a single fixed rate that covers room, breakfast, and one other meal, usually dinner. Abbreviation: MAP.
- molecular distillation — a vacuum distillation in which the molecules of the distillate reach the condenser before colliding with one another.
- monday morning disease — azoturia (def 2).
- mother carey's chicken — any of various small petrels, especially the stormy petrel, Oceanites oceanicus.
- motorcycle combination — a motorcycle with a sidecar attached
- mountain standard time — one of the standard times used in North America, seven hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
- multiplicative inverse — reciprocal (def 9).
- mutton dressed as lamb — If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb, you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive.
- name service switching — Domain Name System
- national semiconductor — (company) A semiconductor manufacturer, responsible for the SC/MP, National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000 series of microprocessors.
- native elm bark beetle — elm bark beetle (def 2).
- negative reinforcement — form of conditioning
- nickel-cadmium battery — a storage battery, with an alkaline electrolyte, having nickel oxide as the positive element and cadmium as the negative.
- nominal semidestructor — (abuse) Slang for "National Semiconductor", found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed a series of microprocessors including the National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000. At one point early in the great microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors.
- non-euclidean geometry — geometry based upon one or more postulates that differ from those of Euclid, especially from the postulate that only one line may be drawn through a given point parallel to a given line.
- non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
- nonmonetary advantages — the beneficial aspects of an employment, such as the stimulation of the work, attractiveness of the workplace, or its nearness to one's home, that do not reflect its financial remuneration
- nonrepresentationalism — not resembling or portraying any object in physical nature: a nonrepresentational painting.
- nonterminating decimal — a decimal numeral that does not end in an infinite sequence of zeros (contrasted with terminating decimal).
- normal order reduction — Under this evaluation strategy an expression is evaluated by reducing the leftmost outermost redex first. This method will terminate for any expression for which termination is possible, whereas applicative order reduction may not. This method is equivalent to passing arguments unevaluated because arguments are initially to the right of functions applied to them. See also computational adequacy theorem.
- not be sb's department — If you say that a task or area of knowledge is not your department, you mean that you are not responsible for it or do not know much about it.
- oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- ocean marine insurance — insurance covering risks involving the transporting of persons or goods on the high seas.
- of the first magnitude — of the greatest importance
- on the part of someone — as far as someone is concerned
- open-market operations — the purchase and sale on the open market of government securities by the Bank of England for the purpose of regulating the supply of money and credit to the economy
- operation desert storm — the codename for the US-led UN operation to liberate Kuwait from Iraq (1991)
- overstay one's welcome — to stay (at a party, on a visit, etc), longer than pleases the host or hostess
- para-aminobenzoic acid — part of the folic acid molecule, a white or yellowish, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 7 H 7 NO 2 , the para isomer of aminobenzoic acid: used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes and pharmaceuticals and in sunscreens to protect against ultraviolet light. Abbreviation: PABA.
- parker morris standard — (in Britain) a set of minimum criteria for good housing construction, design, and facilities, recommended by the 1961 report of the Central Housing Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Parker Morris. Subsequent governments have urged private and local authority house-builders to achieve these standards
- parliamentary election — an election to select the members of a national parliament
- percussive maintenance — (jargon) The fine art of whacking a device to get it working, possibly using a fine adjuster.
- planetary transmission — A planetary transmission is a special form of geared drive in which the input and output shafts are on the same axis.
- point of sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
- point-of-sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
- post office department — former name of United States Postal Service.
- postmortem examination — dissection and examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death
- potassium ferricyanide — a bright-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 , used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, as Prussian blue, and of paper, especially blueprint paper.
- potassium ferrocyanide — a lemon-yellow, crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in casehardening alloys having an iron base and in dyeing wool and silk.
- potassium permanganate — a very dark purple, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KMnO 4 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent, disinfectant, laboratory reagent, and in medicine as an astringent and antiseptic.
- preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
- preventive maintenance — (PM) To bring down a machine for inspection or test purposes. See provocative maintenance, scratch monkey.
- primary rate interface — (PRI) A type of ISDN connection. In North America and Japan, this consists of 24 channels, usually divided into 23 B channels and 1 D channel, and runs over the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI has 31 user channels, usually divided into 30 B channels and 1 D channel and is based on the E1 interface. PRI is typically used for connections such as one between a PBX (private branch exchange, a telephone exchange operated by the customer of a telephone company) and a CO (central office, of the telephone company) or IXC (inter exchange carrier, a long distance telephone company).
- primate of all england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
- principal ideal domain — a commutative integral domain with multiplicative identity in which every ideal is principal.