18-letter words containing m, i, n, e, l
- double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
- dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
- dynamically scoped — dynamic scope
- ecma international — (body) (Formerly European Computer Manufacturers Association) An industry association founded in 1961 and dedicated to the standardisation of information and communication systems. ECMA edits standards and technical reports. All ECMA publications are available free of charge. The best known ECMA standard is ECMA 262, defining the scripting language ECMAScript.
- economies of scale — Economies of scale are the financial advantages that a company gains when it produces large quantities of products.
- ecumenical council — a solemn assembly in the Roman Catholic Church, convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.
- eighty-column mind — (abuse) The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the transition from punched card to paper tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried "face down, 9-edge first" (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This directive is inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which are as follows: He died at the console Of hunger and thirst. Next day he was buried, Face down, 9-edge first. The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base and its thinking. See fear and loathing, card walloper.
- electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
- electronic mailbox — a device used to store electronic mail
- electronic meeting — (messaging) The use of a network of personal computers to improve communication that takes place in a meeting. Electronic meetings are effective with as few as two participants and with over 100 participants. Participants can be face-to-face in a meeting room or distributed around the world. They may all be participating at the same time or different times.
- electroretinograms — Plural form of electroretinogram.
- emergent evolution — the doctrine that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as life and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities
- emotional literacy — the ability to deal with one's emotions and recognize their causes
- employment service — (in the United States) a government department established to collect and supply to the unemployed information about job vacancies and to employers information about availability of prospective workers
- entrepreneurialism — The spirit or state of acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
- erectile impotence — impotence caused by the inability of the penis to become sufficiently firm to penetrate the vagina
- establishmentarian — Adhering to, advocating, or relating to the principle of an established church.
- ethical investment — an investment in a company whose activities or products are not considered by the investor to be unethical
- ethnomethodologist — A person engaged in ethnomethodology.
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- euglenoid movement — the expansion and contraction of the cell body of various flagellates
- false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
- farmer in the dell — a game, accompanied by a song with several verses, in which one person, designated as the farmer, occupies the center of a circle of persons and is joined in the circle by other players designated as wife, child, nurse, cat, rat, and cheese, these then leaving the circle in order except for the one designated as cheese, who is left standing alone in the circle at the end.
- feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
- ferdinand magellan — Ferdinand, c1480–1521, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Straits of Magellan 1520 and the Philippines 1521.
- fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
- filename extension — (filename extension) The portion of a filename, following the final point, which indicates the kind of data stored in the file - the file type. Many operating systems use filename extensions, e.g. Unix, VMS, MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows. They are usually from one to three letters (some sad old OSes support no more than three). Examples include "c" for C source code, "ps" for PostScript, "txt" for arbitrary text. Apart from informing the user what type of content the file holds, filename extensions are typically used to decide which program to launch when a file is "run", e.g. by double-clicking it in a GUI file browser. They are also used by Unix's make to determine how to build one kind of file from another. Compare: MIME type.
- fill someone in on — to provide someone with additional facts, details, etc. about
- finite-dimensional — (of a vector space) having a basis consisting of a finite number of elements.
- formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
- fragile x syndrome — a widespread form of mental retardation caused by a faulty gene on the X chromosome.
- fragile-x syndrome — an inherited condition characterized by learning disability: affected individuals have an X-chromosome that is easily damaged under certain conditions
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
- gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- general san martin — a city in E Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
- genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
- genital mutilation — any type of cutting or removal of all or some of the genital organs, especially excision of the clitoris.
- germline insertion — the insertion of cloned genes into the egg or sperm cell of an organism, using a gene transfer technique, in order to perpetuate a desired trait in its descendants, as pest-resistance in a crop plant.
- glomerulonephritis — a kidney disease affecting the capillaries of the glomeruli, characterized by albuminuria, edema, and hypertension.
- going to jerusalem — musical chairs.
- grammatical gender — gender based on arbitrary assignment, without regard to the referent of a noun, as in French le livre (masculine), “the book,” and German das Mädchen (neuter), “the girl.”.
- grumbling appendix — a condition in which the appendix causes intermittent pain but appendicitis has not developed
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- handyman's special — fixer-upper.
- heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.
- hebdomadal council — the governing council or senate of Oxford University
- heimlich manoeuvre — a technique in first aid to dislodge a foreign body in a person's windpipe by applying sudden upward pressure on the upper abdomen
- helmholtz function — the thermodynamic function of a system that is equal to its internal energy minus the product of its absolute temperature and entropy: A decrease in the function is equal to the maximum amount of work available during a reversible isothermal process.
- high-grade mineral — a mineral fulfilling certain conditions as regards purity or other physical properties