20-letter words containing m, a, s, c, r
- newcastle-under-lyme — a town in W central England, in Staffordshire. Pop: 74 427 (2001)
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
- orthopaedic mattress — a specially firm mattress designed to help correct or ameliorate the discomfort of disorders of the spine and joints
- pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.
- parametric equations — one of two or more equations expressing the location of a point on a curve or surface by determining each coordinate separately.
- particulars of claim — (in England) the first reading made by the claimant in a county court action, showing the facts upon which he or she relies in support of a claim and the relief asked for
- permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- peruvian mastic tree — a pepper tree, Schinus molle.
- physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
- pick someone's brain — to obtain information or ideas from someone
- pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
- potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
- potassium dichromate — an orange-red crystalline soluble solid substance that is a good oxidizing agent and is used in making chrome pigments and as a bleaching agent. Formula: K2Cr2O7
- prescriptive grammar — an approach to grammar that is concerned with establishing norms of correct and incorrect usage and formulating rules based on these norms to be followed by users of the language.
- price discrimination — the practice of offering identical goods to different buyers at different prices, when the goods cost the same.
- primary spermatocyte — a male germ cell (primary spermatocyte) that gives rise by meiosis to a pair of haploid cells (secondary spermatocytes) that give rise in turn to spermatids.
- prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
- pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
- public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
- pure lambda-calculus — Lambda-calculus with no constants, only functions expressed as lambda abstractions.
- queen's remembrancer — (in Great Britain) a judiciary official who collects debts owed to the king.
- random access memory — RAM.
- random-access memory — RAM.
- real-time processing — data-processing by a computer which receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
- recommended standard — (standard) (RS) A series of EIA standards including EIA-232.
- reductio ad absurdum — a reduction to an absurdity; the refutation of a proposition by demonstrating the inevitably absurd conclusion to which it would logically lead.
- relative atomic mass — the ratio of the average mass per atom of the naturally occurring form of an element to one-twelfth the mass of an atom of carbon-12
- republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
- repurchase agreement — a contract between a dealer, as a bank, and an investor, whereby the investor purchases securities with the promise that they will be bought back by the dealer on a designated date, for which the investor receives a fixed return.
- restriction fragment — a length of DNA cut from the strand by a restriction enzyme.
- rocky mountain basic — (language) The BASIC language used by Hewlett Packard on their 680x0-based computers. Rocky Mountain Basic is good for interfaces to IEEE 488 controls and contains many mathematical and matrix functions. It has about 600 commands. Typical applications include automatic test stations.
- rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
- satellite chromosome — a type of densely staining chromosome of uncertain biological function, found in many plant and animal species.
- saxe-weimar-eisenach — a former grand duchy in Thuringia in central Germany.
- scream bloody murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
- secure accommodation — an institution where young offenders are kept in custody
- semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
- senior aircraftwoman — a rank in the Royal Air Force comparable to that of a private in the army, though not the lowest rank in the Royal Air Force
- server message block — (protocol) (SMB) A client/server protocol that provides file and printer sharing between computers. In addition SMB can share serial ports and communications abstractions such as named pipes and mail slots. SMB is similar to remote procedure call (RPC) specialised for file system access. SMB was developed by Intel, Microsoft, and IBM in the early 1980s. It has also had input from Xerox and 3Com. It is the native method of file and print sharing for Microsoft operating systems; where it is called Microsoft Networking. Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, and Windows NT all include SMB clients and servers. SMB is also used by OS/2, Lan Manager and Banyan Vines. There are SMB servers and clients for Unix, for example Samba and smbclient. SMB is a presentation layer protocol structured as a large set of commands (Server Message Blocks). There are commands to support file sharing, printer sharing, user authentication, resource browsing, and other miscellaneous functions. As clients and servers may implement different versions ("dialects") of the protocol they negotiate before starting a session. The redirector packages SMB requests into a network control block (NBC) structure that can be sent across the network to a remote device. SMB originally ran on top of the lower level protocols NetBEUI and NetBIOS, but now typically runs over TCP/IP. Microsoft have developed an extended version of SMB for the Internet, the Common Internet File System (CIFS), which in most cases replaces SMB. CIFS runs only runs over TCP/IP.
- small craft advisory — a U.S. National Weather Service advisory of sustained winds, over coastal and inland waters, with speeds of 20–33 knots (23–38 mph, 10–17 m/sec). Regional NWS offices have discretion over the choice of the lower limit.
- sodium fluoroacetate — a white, amorphous, water-soluble, poisonous powder, C 2 H 2 FO 2 Na, used as a rodenticide.
- solitary confinement — the confinement of a prisoner in a cell or other place in which he or she is completely isolated from others.
- south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
- spanish-american war — the war between the U.S. and Spain in 1898.
- specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
- spiral of archimedes — a curve that is the locus of a point that moves outward with uniform speed along a vector, beginning at the origin, while the vector rotates about the origin with uniform angular velocity. Equation (in polar coordinates): r = aθ.
- splice the mainbrace — to issue and partake of an extra allocation of alcoholic spirits
- stallman, richard m. — Richard Stallman
- stochastic terrorism — the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted: The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.