26-letter words containing m, o, i, r, a
- minimum-access programming — a method of programming in which latency is reduced to a minimum.
- monday morning quarterback — a person who criticizes the actions or decisions of others after the fact, using hindsight to assess situations and specify alternative solutions.
- mongolian hordes technique — (programming, jargon) (Or "Chinese Army technique") Assigning a large number of inexperienced programmers to a job which would better performed by a few skilled ones. The term was first used by Dr. Fred Brooks in his book "The Mythical Man-Month", Chapter 3. According to Dr. Brooks, he had in mind the vision of the Mongol Hordes sweeping across Asia and Europe when he created the term.
- monochrome display adapter — (hardware, graphics) (MDA) One of IBM's earliest hardware video display standards for use in IBM PC. MDA can display only monochrome 80*25 text (IBM PC video mode 7). It is now obsolete.
- most-favored-nation clause — a clause in a commercial treaty or contract by which each signatory agrees to give the other the same treatment that is or will be accorded any other nation.
- multi-color graphics array — (hardware, graphics) (MCGA) One of IBM's less popular hardware video display standards for use in the IBM PS/2. MCGA can display 80*25 text in monochrome, 40*25 text in 256 colours or 320*200 pixel graphics in 256 colors. It is now obsolete.
- multifactorial inheritance — polygenic inheritance.
- mushroom slab construction — beamless reinforced-concrete floor and roof construction employing columns with widely flaring heads having horizontal rings of reinforcement to support the floor or roof slab.
- mutual assured destruction — a U.S. doctrine of reciprocal deterrence resting on the U.S. and Soviet Union each being able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack.
- national merit scholarship — one of some 6000 college scholarships awarded annually since 1956, by the nonprofit, grant-supported National Merit Scholarship Corporation, to high-school students (National Merit Scholars) on the basis of scholastic record, personal character, and score on a test administered nationally.
- neither more nor less than — simply
- network information center — (NIC) A body that provides information, assistance and services to network users. These will typically include telephone and electronic mail "help desk" type services for users and network information services such as hostnames and addresses which are accessed automatically by computers using some client-server protocol (usually Sun's NIS). See also Network Operations Center.
- network information system — (spelling) A mis-expansion of NIS.
- new business profit margin — A new business profit margin is a system used by insurers to measure the cost of and profit from writing new policies.
- newfoundland standard time — one of the standard times used in Canada, three and a half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
- nondeterministic automaton — (theory) (Or "probabilistic automaton") An automaton in which there are several possible actions (outputs and next states) at each state of the computation such that the overall course of the computation is not completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. See also nondeterministic Turing Machine.
- nuclear magnetic resonance — the selective absorption of electromagnetic radiation by an atomic nucleus in the presence of a strong, static, magnetic field: used in research and in medicine to monitor tissue metabolism and to distinguish between normal and abnormal cells. Abbreviation: NMR.
- official production system — (language) (OPS) The first production system (i.e. rule based) programming language, developed at CMU in 1970 and used for building expert systems. OPS was originally written in Franz Lisp and later ported to other LISP dialects.
- open document architecture — (standard) (ODA) ISO standard (8613) for describing documents. It allows text, graphics, and facsimile documents to be transferred between different systems.
- period-luminosity relation — the relationship between the period of light variation and of the absolute magnitude of Cepheid variable stars.
- portable forth environment — (language) (PFE) A highly portable Forth development system based on the ANSI standard for Forth, by Dirk-Uwe Zoller of FHT, Mannheim, Germany. PFE aims to be correct, complete, usable, and simple but it isn't optimised for speed. It supports all dpANS word sets. It runs on Linux, RS/6000, and HP-UX. E-mail: Guido Draheim <[email protected]>.
- post-and-beam construction — wall construction in which beams rather than studs are used to support heavy posts.
- postprandial thermogenesis — the rate at which food is broken down after a meal and used by your body
- primo de rivera y orbaneja — Miguel [mee-gel] /miˈgɛl/ (Show IPA), 1870–1930, Spanish general and dictator 1923–30.
- professional office system — (messaging) (PROFS) An office messaging system from IBM, used worldwide, mainly on IBM mainframes.
- psychophysical parallelism — the view that mental and bodily events occur in parallel series without causal interaction.
- put a bug in someone's ear — Also called true bug, hemipteran, hemipteron. a hemipterous insect.
- quite apart from something — used to indicate that you are aware of one aspect of a situation, but that you are going to focus on another aspect
- real-time operating system — (operating system) (RTOS) Any operating system where interrupts are guaranteed to be handled within a certain specified maximum time, thereby making it suitable for control of hardware in embedded systems and other time-critical applications. RTOS is not a specific product but a class of operating systems.
- recombinant dna technology — any of various techniques for separating and recombining segments of DNA or genes, often employing a restriction enzyme to cut a gene from a donor organism and inserting it into a plasmid or viral DNA for transplantation into a host organism, where the gene causes the production of a desired substance either for harvesting or for the benefit of the host organism itself.
- record management services — (operating system) (RMS) Procedures in the VMS operating system that programs call to process files and records within files. RMS allows programs to issue GET and PUT requests at the record level (record I/O) as well as read and write blocks (block I/O). VMS RMS is an integral part of the system software; its procedures run in executive mode.
- recreation room (or hall) — a room, as in a home (or a public hall), equipped for amusement and relaxation or for social activities
- red-backed squirrel monkey — a related species, Saimiri oerstedi, of Central America, having a reddish coat and dark brown limbs
- reformed church in america — a Protestant denomination having a Calvinist theology and originally called the Dutch Reformed Church.
- remembrance of things past — a novel (1913–27) by Marcel Proust.
- renegotiable-rate mortgage — a type of home mortgage for which monthly payments stay constant for a term, usually of three to five years, and the interest rate is renegotiated at the end of every such term until the loan is paid off. Abbreviation: RRM.
- replacement cost insurance — Replacement cost insurance is insurance in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- retained object complement — an object complement that is kept in its predicative position following the verb when the verb is transformed into the passive voice, as genius in He was considered a genius from (They) considered him a genius.
- reticuloendothelial system — the aggregate of the phagocytic cells, including certain cells of the bone marrow, lymphatic system, liver, and spleen, that have reticular and endothelial characteristics and function in the immune system's defense against foreign bodies. Abbreviation: RES.
- ritz combination principle — the principle that the frequencies of lines in atomic spectra can be represented as differences of a smaller number of terms, all characteristic of the emitting system, interpreted in quantum theory as the emission of exactly one photon in a transition between energy levels.
- sangre de cristo mountains — a mountain range in S Colorado and N New Mexico: part of the Rocky Mountains. Highest peak: Blanca Peak, 4364 m (14 317 ft)
- scintillation spectrometer — a scintillation counter adapted for measuring the energy distribution of particles emitted in radioactive processes.
- search engine optimization — the process of adjusting the content, structure, etc, of a website so that it will be displayed prominently by a search engine
- set someone's mind at rest — to reassure someone or settle someone's mind
- simple algebraic extension — a simple extension in which the specified element is a root of an algebraic equation in the given field.
- statistical-thermodynamics — the science that deals with average properties of the molecules, atoms, or elementary particles in random motion in a system of many such particles and relates these properties to the thermodynamic and other macroscopic properties of the system.
- straight from the shoulder — direct, honest, and forceful in expression; outspoken.
- straight-from-the-shoulder — direct, honest, and forceful in expression; outspoken.
- symbionese liberation army — a group of urban guerrillas, active in the early 1970s in the U.S.
- symbolic assembler program — (language) (SAP) The assembly language for the IBM 704, defined in the late 1950s.