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17-letter words containing m, a, n, s, e

  • phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
  • physical medicine — the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury by means of physical agents, as manipulation, massage, exercise, heat, or water.
  • physical pendulum — any apparatus consisting of a body of possibly irregular shape allowed to rotate freely about a horizontal axis on which it is pivoted (distinguished from simple pendulum).
  • picture messaging — Picture messaging is the sending of photographs or pictures from one mobile phone to another.
  • poor man's orange — a grapefruit
  • postmillennialism — the doctrine or belief that the second coming of Christ will follow the millennium.
  • potassium cyanide — a white, granular, water-soluble, poisonous powder, KCN, having a faint almondlike odor, used chiefly in metallurgy and photography.
  • potassium nitrate — a crystalline compound, KNO 3 , produced by nitrification in soil, and used in gunpowders, fertilizers, and preservatives; saltpeter; niter.
  • pre-manifestation — an act of manifesting.
  • pre-modifications — an act or instance of modifying.
  • premiere danseuse — the leading female dancer in a ballet company.
  • premonstratensian — a member of a religious order founded at Prémontré in N France in 1120 by St Norbert (about 1080–1134)
  • presentationalism — a style of production in which the audience is addressed directly with songs, skits, exposition, etc., and no attempt is made at realism.
  • prima inter pares — (of a female) first among equals.
  • prime ministerial — of or relating to the head of a parliamentary government
  • professional army — an army of trained soldiers
  • program statement — a single instruction in a computer program
  • pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
  • purely and simply — You use purely and simply to emphasize that the thing you are mentioning is the only thing involved.
  • quantum chemistry — the application of quantum mechanics to the study of chemical phenomena.
  • quantum mechanics — a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle. Abbreviation: QM.
  • quasiexperimental — (medicine) Describing a trial in which the assignment to a group is based upon an experimental condition.
  • racial harassment — persecution on the basis of race
  • radioluminescence — luminescence induced by nuclear radiation.
  • recoil escapement — anchor escapement.
  • recursion formula — a formula for determining the next term of a sequence from one or more of the preceding terms.
  • recursive acronym — (convention)   A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also mung.
  • renaissance woman — a woman who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field.
  • rhodope mountains — a mountain range in SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula extending along the border between Bulgaria and Greece. Highest peak: Golyam Perelik (Bulgaria), 2191 m (7188 ft)
  • rubberman disease — Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
  • sacred roman rota — rota1 (def 3).
  • safety in numbers — If you say that there is safety in numbers, you mean that you are safer doing something if there are a lot of people doing it rather than doing it alone.
  • saint elmo's fire — corona discharge.
  • sanctimoniousness — making a hypocritical show of religious devotion, piety, righteousness, etc.: They resented his sanctimonious comments on immorality in America.
  • sandringham house — a residence of the royal family, in Sandringham, a village in E England, in Norfolk near the E shore of the Wash
  • scarlet pimpernel — a plant belonging to the genus Anagallis, of the primrose family, especially A. arvensis (scarlet pimpernel) having scarlet or white flowers that close at the approach of bad weather.
  • scentless mayweed — a similar and related plant, Matricaria maritima, with scentless leaves
  • screaming meemies — extreme nervous tension
  • screaming-meemies — extreme nervousness; hysteria (usually preceded by the).
  • seaman apprentice — a noncommissioned enlisted person ranking above seaman recruit and below seaman. Abbreviation: SA.
  • second-hand smoke — from sb else's cigarette
  • second-in-command — A second-in-command is someone who is next in rank to the leader of a group, and who has authority to give orders when the leader is not there.
  • selective amnesia — the deliberate forgetting of something
  • self-administered — to manage (affairs, a government, etc.); have executive charge of: to administer the law.
  • self-commendation — the act of commending; recommendation; praise: commendation for a job well done.
  • self-condemnation — the act of condemning.
  • self-confirmation — the act of confirming.
  • self-emancipation — the act of emancipating.
  • self-estrangement — to turn away in feeling or affection; make unfriendly or hostile; alienate the affections of: Their quarrel estranged the two friends.
  • self-impregnating — to make pregnant; get with child or young.
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