18-letter words containing m, e, n, s
- mousseline de soie — a thin, stiff silk or rayon fabric.
- movers and shakers — a person or thing that moves.
- much of a muchness — very similar
- multi-user dungeon — Multi-User Dimension
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- multiple collision — an accident in which several cars crash into each other
- multiple ownership — ownership by several people or organizations
- musical instrument — music
- neo-pythagoreanism — a philosophical system, established in Alexandria and Rome in the second century b.c., consisting mainly of revived Pythagorean doctrines with elements of Platonism and Stoicism.
- neuropsychodynamic — Of or pertaining to neuropsychodynamics.
- neutrino astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the detection and measurement of neutrinos emitted by the sun and other celestial objects.
- new storage system — (storage) (NSS) A major Multics implementation project during the 1970s. The initial Multics file system design had evolved from the one-huge-disk world of CTSS. When multiple disk units were used they were just assigned increasing ranges of disk addresses, so a segment could have pages scattered over all disks on the system. This provided good I/O parallelism but made crash recovery expensive. NSS redesigned the lower levels of the file system, introducing the concepts of logical volume and physical volume and a mapping from a Multics directory branch to a VTOC entry for each file. The new system had much better recovery performance in exchange for a small space and performance cost.
- nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
- nike of samothrace — a Greek marble statue (c200 b.c.) of Nike found at Samothrace and now in the Louvre, Paris.
- no sign of someone — If you say that there is no sign of someone, you mean that they have not yet arrived, although you are expecting them to come.
- nocturnal emission — the release of semen during sleep, often during a sexual dream.
- nominative-address — a noun naming the person to whom one is speaking.
- non-discriminative — constituting a particular quality, trait, or difference; characteristic; notable.
- non-fundamentalist — (sometimes initial capital letter) a religious movement characterized by a strict belief in the literal interpretation of religious texts, especially within American Protestantism and Islam.
- noninterventionism — A policy of non-intervention.
- nonpreferentialism — of, relating to, or of the nature of preference: preferential policies.
- nonstriated muscle — smooth muscle
- normally aspirated — A normally aspirated or naturally aspirated engine breathes air at atmospheric pressure.
- northern cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- numerical analysis — the branch of mathematics dealing with methods for obtaining approximate numerical solutions of mathematical problems.
- offensive material — any published or broadcast content (such as articles, photographs, films, or websites) that is likely to be upsetting, insulting, or objectionable to some or most people
- oil of catechumens — holy oil used in baptism, the ordination of a cleric, the coronation of a sovereign, or in the consecration of a church.
- old man of the sea — (in The Arabian Nights' Entertainments) an old man who clung to the shoulders of Sindbad the Sailor for many days and nights.
- on one's beam-ends — out of resources; destitute
- one false move and — You use one false move to introduce the very bad or serious consequences which will result if someone makes a mistake, even a very small one.
- one of sb's number — One of your number is a member of your group.
- one's number is up — one is finished; one is ruined or about to die
- operations manager — business director
- osteitis deformans — Paget's disease.
- osteogenic sarcoma — osteosarcoma
- palm beach gardens — a city in SE Florida, near North Palm Beach.
- parliamentarianism — advocacy of a parliamentary system of government.
- particeps criminis — an accomplice in a crime.
- pathname separator — (file system) The character used to separate elements of a path or pathname. Under Unix and POSIX.1 compliant systems the pathname separator is the (forward) slash, in MS-DOS backslash serves the same purpose. For obvious reasons the no directory or file name can contain this character.
- payment by results — a system of wage payment whereby all or part of the wage varies systematically according to the level of work performance of an employee
- performance artist — an artist that is involved in a theatrical presentation that incorporates various art forms, such as dance, sculpture, music, etc
- permanent hardness — hardness of water that cannot be removed by boiling as it results mainly from the presence of calcium and magnesium chlorides and sulphates
- permanent resident — an immigrant who has been given official residential status, often prior to being granted citizenship
- pernicious anaemia — Pernicious anaemia is a very severe blood disease.
- personal exemption — Your personal exemption is the amount of money that is deducted from your gross income before you have to start paying income tax.
- phosphonium iodide — a colorless to slightly yellowish, crystalline, water-soluble solid, PH 4 I, used in chemical synthesis.
- photodecomposition — the breaking down of molecules by radiant energy.
- photoisomerization — isomerization induced by light.
- photomorphogenesis — plant development that is controlled by light.
- play cat and mouse — Also called cat and rat. a children's game in which players in a circle keep a player from moving into or out of the circle and permit a second player to move into or out of the circle to escape the pursuing first player.