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20-letter words containing m, r, s

  • mountain rescue team — a group of people who conduct search and rescue on a mountain, for example of someone who has fallen, got lost, etc
  • muller-lyer illusion — a geometric illusion in which two lines of equal length appear unequal depending on whether angular lines forming arrowheads at each end point toward or away from each other.
  • multi-user dimension — (games)   (MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-User Dungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessible via the Internet or a modem. A MUD is like a real-time chat forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" like an adventure game and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic and a simple economic system. A MUD where characters can build more structure onto the database that represents the existing world is sometimes known as a "MUSH". Most MUDs allow you to log in as a guest to look around before you create your own character. Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in 1979. It was a game similar to the classic Colossal Cave adventure, except that it allowed multiple people to play at the same time and interact with each other. Descendants of that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth that the name MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartle explicitly placed "MUD" in the PD in 1985. BT was upset at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters, which were released and created the myth. Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social interaction. Because these had an image as "research" they often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This, together with the fact that Usenet feeds have been spotty and difficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci of hackish social interaction there. AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nuclei for large hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with the growth of Usenet in the early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building as opposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over 50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesises the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue. The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month. There is now a move afoot to deprecate the term MUD itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being explored. See also bonk/oif, FOD, link-dead, mudhead, MOO, MUCK, MUG, MUSE, chat.
  • multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
  • multipart stationery — continuous stationery comprising two or more sheets, either carbonless or with carbon paper between the sheets
  • multiple personality — a rare disorder in which an individual displays several functionally dissociated personalities, each of a complexity comparable to that of a normal individual.
  • multipurpose vehicle — a large car, similar to a van, designed to carry up to eight passengers
  • multistep hydroplane — a motorship having a flat bottom built as a series of planes inclined forward, the ship planing on each from stem to stern as its speed increases.
  • multistorey car park — a car park consisting of several levels
  • mum-and-dad investor — a small-scale non-professional investor
  • music of the spheres — a music, imperceptible to human ears, formerly supposed to be produced by the movements of the spheres or heavenly bodies.
  • navigable semicircle — the less violent half of a cyclone; the half blowing in the direction opposite to that in which the cyclone is moving and in which a vessel can run before the wind.
  • near someone's heart — dear or important to someone
  • near-market research — scientific research that, while not linked to the development of a specific product, is likely to be commercially exploitable
  • net domestic product — the gross domestic product minus an allowance for the depreciation of capital goods
  • neuromusculoskeletal — (medicine) Describing the interactions between nerves, muscles and the skeleton.
  • new jerusalem church — a sect founded in 1787, based on Swedenborgianism
  • newcastle-under-lyme — a town in W central England, in Staffordshire. Pop: 74 427 (2001)
  • not mince your words — If you say that someone does not mince their words, you mean that they speak in a forceful and direct way, especially when saying something unpleasant to someone.
  • notre dame mountains — a mountain range in E Quebec, Canada, an extension of the Green Mountains in Vermont and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains: about 500 miles (800 km) long, rising about 2000 feet (610 meters).
  • objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
  • omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
  • one's spiritual home — Your spiritual home is the place where you feel that you belong, usually because your ideas or attitudes are the same as those of the people who live there.
  • orthopaedic mattress — a specially firm mattress designed to help correct or ameliorate the discomfort of disorders of the spine and joints
  • pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.
  • parametric equations — one of two or more equations expressing the location of a point on a curve or surface by determining each coordinate separately.
  • parkinson's syndrome — a complex of symptoms indistinguishable from Parkinson's disease, commonly affecting boxers or sometimes occurring as a result of substance abuse or an encephalitic infection.
  • particulars of claim — (in England) the first reading made by the claimant in a county court action, showing the facts upon which he or she relies in support of a claim and the relief asked for
  • pass in one's marble — to die
  • pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
  • permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • personnel department — business: human resources
  • personnel management — the branch of management dealing with staff recruitment and matters relating to employees
  • peruvian mastic tree — a pepper tree, Schinus molle.
  • pessimising compiler — /pes'*-mi:z"ing k*m-pi:l"r/ (Antonym of "optimising compiler") A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimise the program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.
  • physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
  • pick someone's brain — to obtain information or ideas from someone
  • pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
  • poor man's something — a (cheaper) substitute for something
  • potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
  • potassium bitartrate — cream of tartar.
  • potassium dichromate — an orange-red crystalline soluble solid substance that is a good oxidizing agent and is used in making chrome pigments and as a bleaching agent. Formula: K2Cr2O7
  • potassium-bitartrate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 4 H 5 KO 6 , used chiefly as an ingredient in baking powders and in galvanic tinning of metals. Also called potassium bitartrate, potassium acid tartrate. Compare tartar (def 3).
  • precision instrument — finely-tuned device
  • premenstrual tension — Premenstrual tension is the same as premenstrual syndrome. The abbreviation PMT is often used.
  • prescriptive grammar — an approach to grammar that is concerned with establishing norms of correct and incorrect usage and formulating rules based on these norms to be followed by users of the language.
  • presentation manager — The elephantine graphical user interface to the OS/2 operating system.
  • presidential primary — a direct primary for the selection of state delegates to a national party convention and the expression of preference for a U.S. presidential nominee.
  • price discrimination — the practice of offering identical goods to different buyers at different prices, when the goods cost the same.
  • primary spermatocyte — a male germ cell (primary spermatocyte) that gives rise by meiosis to a pair of haploid cells (secondary spermatocytes) that give rise in turn to spermatids.
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