22-letter words containing m, c, s
- miscellaneous expenses — small expenses of various kinds
- mistress of ceremonies — a woman who directs the entertainment at a party, dinner, or the like.
- molecular distillation — a vacuum distillation in which the molecules of the distillate reach the condenser before colliding with one another.
- most significant digit — the digit farthest to the left in a number. Abbreviation: MSD.
- mother carey's chicken — any of various small petrels, especially the stormy petrel, Oceanites oceanicus.
- motoring correspondent — a journalist who reviews and writes about cars
- mozilla public license — Open source license
- multiplicative inverse — reciprocal (def 9).
- 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.
- no room to swing a cat — If you say 'There's no room to swing a cat' or 'You can't swing a cat', you mean that the place you are talking about is very small or crowded.
- nodal switching system — (NSS) Main routing nodes in the NSFnet backbone.
- 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.
- 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.
- on someone's coattails — the back of the skirt on a man's coat or jacket.
- ousterhout's dichotomy — (language) John Ousterhout's division of high-level languages into "system programming languages" and "scripting languages". This distinction underlies the design of his language Tcl. System programming languages (or "applications languages") are strongly typed, allow arbitrarily complex data structures, and programs in them are compiled, and are meant to operate largely independently of other programs. Prototypical system programming languages are C and Modula-2. By contrast, scripting languages (or "glue languages") are weakly typed or untyped, have little or no provision for complex data structures, and programs in them ("scripts") are interpreted. Scripts need to interact either with other programs (often as glue) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the file system functions provided in a UNIX shell and with Tcl's GUI functions. Prototypical scripting languages are AppleScript, C Shell, MS-DOS batch files and Tcl. Many believe that this is a highly arbitrary dichotomy, and refer to it as "Ousterhout's fallacy" or "Ousterhout's false dichotomy". While strong-versus-weak typing, data structure complexity, and independent versus stand-alone might be said to be unrelated features, the usual critique of Ousterhout's dichotomy is of its distinction of compilation versus interpretation, since neither semantics nor syntax depend significantly on whether code is compiled into machine-language, interpreted, tokenized, or byte-compiled at the start of each run, or any mixture of these. Many languages fall between being interpreted or compiled (e.g. Lisp, Forth, UCSD Pascal, Perl, and Java). This makes compilation versus interpretation a dubious parameter in a taxonomy of programming languages.
- overstay one's welcome — to stay (at a party, on a visit, etc), longer than pleases the host or hostess
- paracoccidioidomycosis — a chronic infection caused by the fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis, occurring in Mexico and in Central and South America, characterized by mouth and throat ulcers, weight loss, and lesions on the skin, intestines, and genitals.
- paroxysmal tachycardia — tachycardia that begins and subsides suddenly.
- percussive maintenance — (jargon) The fine art of whacking a device to get it working, possibly using a fine adjuster.
- pneumocystis pneumonia — a pulmonary infection caused by the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii, occurring as an opportunistic disease in persons with impaired immune systems, as AIDS victims. Abbreviation: PCP.
- poor richard's almanac — an almanac (1732–58) written and published by Benjamin Franklin.
- positive reinforcement — encouragement
- post office department — former name of United States Postal Service.
- 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.
- practice makes perfect — If you say 'practice makes perfect', you mean that it is possible to learn something or develop a skill if you practise enough. People often say this to encourage someone to keep practising.
- process cinematography — cinematography in which the main or foreground action or scene is superimposed on or combined with simulated or separately filmed background action or scenery to produce special visual effects.
- programmed instruction — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
- public domain software — public domain
- pulmonary tuberculosis — tuberculosis of the lungs.
- quantum chromodynamics — a quantum field theory that describes quarks and gluons and their interactions, with the color of the quarks playing a role analogous to that of electric charge. Abbreviation: QCD. Also called chromodynamics. Compare color (def 18).
- raster image processor — (application, printer) (RIP) A device (usually hardware but can be software) that takes a Page Description Language description of a page and converts it into a bitmap for printing.
- read someone a lecture — to scold or reprimand someone
- recruitment consultant — A recruitment consultant is a person or service that helps professional people to find work by introducing them to potential employers.
- remote access services — (communications) (RAS) A service provided by Windows NT which allows most of the services which would be available on a network to be accessed over a modem link. The service includes support for dialup and logon, and then presents the same network interface as the normal network drivers (albeit slightly slower!). It is not necessary to run Windows NT on the client - there are client versions for other Windows operating systems.
- remote database access — (database, standard) (RDBA) A standard permitting the exchange of information between different DBMS systems.
- replacement cost basis — Replacement cost basis is a method of valuing insured property in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- research establishment — an establishment or institution where research or investigation into a subject, topic, etc, can be conducted
- research systems, inc. — (RSI) Distributors of Interactive Data Language (IDL).
- resistance thermometer — an instrument for measuring the temperature of a metal, utilizing the principle that the electrical resistance of the metal varies with the temperature.
- respond to a complaint — If you respond to a complaint, you answer a customer who expressed their dissatisfaction with something.
- reverse discrimination — the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities.
- rocky mountain oysters — mountain oyster.
- safety-critical system — A computer, electronic or electromechanical system whose failure may cause injury or death to human beings. E.g. an aircraft or nuclear power station control system. Common tools used in the design of safety-critical systems are redundancy and formal methods. See also aeroplane rule.
- sales force automation — (business) (Sales Automation, SFA, SFFA, Sales & Field Force Automation) Software to support sales reps. The software gives sales representitives access to contacts, appointments and e-mail. It is likely to be integrated with Customer Relationship Management systems and Opportunity Management Systems.
- salt-marsh caterpillar — the fuzzy larva of a moth, Estigmene acrea, of North America, destructive to various crops.
- santiago de compostela — a city in and the capital of Chile, in the central part.
- sarcoplasmic reticulum — a system of membrane-bound tubules that surrounds muscle fibrils, releasing calcium ions during contraction and absorbing them during relaxation.