18-letter words containing m, o, a, n, s
- 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.
- 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-circumstantial — of pertaining to, or derived from circumstances: a circumstantial result.
- 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.
- 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.
- nova scotia salmon — an Atlantic salmon, especially from the waters off Nova Scotia, cured in the local manner.
- 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.
- operations manager — business director
- osteitis deformans — Paget's disease.
- osteogenic sarcoma — osteosarcoma
- pairs championship — an event in a sport such as tennis or darts open to pairs of competitors
- passing modulation — a modulation of a temporary nature.
- 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.
- performance artist — an artist that is involved in a theatrical presentation that incorporates various art forms, such as dance, sculpture, music, etc
- 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.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- photoisomerization — isomerization induced 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.
- play someone false — to deceive, cheat, hoodwink, or betray someone
- policeman's helmet — a Himalayan balsaminaceous plant, Impatiens glandulifera, with large purplish-pink flowers, introduced into Britain
- postmaster general — the executive head of the postal system of a country.
- postmillenarianism — postmillennialism.
- postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
- potassium myronate — sinigrin.
- pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
- prayer of manasses — a book of the Apocrypha.
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- prisoner's dilemma — (in game theory) a scenario in which the outcome of one person's decision is determined by the simultaneous decisions of the other participants, resulting in a bad outcome for all of them if all act in their own self-interest.
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- programming skills — the skills required to write a program so that data may be processed by a computer
- provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
- psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
- ptomaine poisoning — (erroneously) food poisoning thought to be caused by ptomaine.
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- pulmonary embolism — the blockage of a pulmonary artery, often by a blood clot, that stops the flow of blood to the lungs and which can result in death if untreated