24-letter words containing m, o, n, a, s
- make ducks and drakes of — to use recklessly; squander or waste
- make one's presence felt — If you make your presence felt, you do something which makes people notice you or pay attention to you.
- mari autonomous republic — autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 8994 sq. mi. (23,294 sq. km). Capital: Ioshkar-Ola.
- mass psychogenic illness — a condition in which a large group of people report similar physical symptoms that are traceable to psychological factors rather than environmental or physiological factors.
- master-slave manipulator — any of various devices, guided by the hand of the operator, for imitating the motions and tactile sensitivity of the human hand to a greater or lesser extent: used in situations in which direct handling of the objects or materials involved would be dangerous or impossible.
- medium-scale integration — MSI.
- minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
- motorway service station — an establishment off a motorway where drivers can refuel their vehicles, buy food, drink, etc
- multistation access unit — Media Access Unit
- mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
- network operating system — (operating system) (NOS) The operating system on Control Data Corporation's Cyber Computer.
- nonparametric statistics — the branch of statistics that studies data measurable on an ordinal or nominal scale, to which arithmetic operations cannot be applied
- northern mariana islands — a US commonwealth territory in the N Pacific, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1947–87). Capital: Saipan island (Capitol Hill). Pop: 51 170 (2013 est). Area: 477 sq km (184 sq miles)
- object management system — In an IPSE, the system which maintains information about the system under development.
- open system architecture — (operating system) (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- organization and methods — a systematic examination of an organization's structure, procedures, management and control, with a view to determining its comparative efficiency in achieving defined organizational aims
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- present company excepted — If you are making a general, unfavourable comment about a particular type of person, and you are with people of that type, you can say 'present company excepted' as a way of making your comment sound more polite.
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- read someone like a book — to understand a person, or his motives, character, etc, thoroughly and clearly
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- research and development — the part of a commercial company's activity concerned with applying the results of scientific research to develop new products and improve existing ones
- reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
- rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
- san bernardino mountains — mountain range in S Calif., south of the Mojave Desert: highest peak, 11,502 ft (3,506 m)
- san francisco de macoris — a city in the N Dominican Republic.
- santa coloma de gramanet — a city in NE Spain.
- see someone hanged first — to refuse absolutely to do what one has been asked
- senegambia confederation — an economic and political union (1982–89) between Senegal and The Gambia
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- simultaneous translation — a form of translation in which the interpreter translates into the target language as quickly as possible while the speaker is still speaking in the source language
- six nations championship — the annual competition involving national sides representing England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. Until the admission of Italy in 2000, it was known as the Five Nations Championship
- solution based modelling — (SBM) A software development process described in the book "Developing Object-Oriented Software for the Macintosh" written by Neal Goldstein and Jeff Alger, published by Addison Wesley in 1992.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- stab someone in the back — If you say that someone has stabbed you in the back, you mean that they have done something very harmful to you when you thought that you could trust them. You can refer to an action of this kind as a stab in the back.
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
- take someone at his word — to assume that someone means, or will do, what he or she says
- take someone for granted — If you say that someone takes you for granted, you are complaining that they benefit from your help, efforts, or presence without showing that they are grateful.