28-letter words containing m, r

shared-appreciation mortgage — a type of mortgage that carries a smaller down payment or lower interest rate than usual in return for the lender's sharing in the appreciation of the property at some future date, as at the time of its sale. Abbreviation: SAM.
simulation oriented language — (language) (SOL) An ALGOL extension for discrete simulation by Donald Knuth and McNeley.
single in-line memory module — (storage) (SIMM) A small circuit board or substrate, typically about 10cm x 2cm, with RAM integrated circuits or die on one or both sides and a single row of pins along one long edge. Several SIMMs are mounted with their substrates at right-angles to the main circuit board (the motherboard). This configuration allows greater packing density than direct mounting of, e.g. DIL (dual in-line) RAM packages on the motherboard. In 1993 one SIMM typically held one or four megabytes, by early 1997 one could hold 8, 16, or 32 MB.
single sideband transmission — a method of transmitting radio waves in which either the upper or the lower sideband is transmitted, the carrier being either wholly or partially suppressed. This reduces the required bandwidth and improves the signal-to-noise ratio
smooth endoplasmic reticulum — a network of tubular membranes within the cytoplasm of the cell, occurring either with a smooth surface (smooth endoplasmic reticulum) or studded with ribosomes (rough endoplasmic reticulum) involved in the transport of materials.
special power of appointment — authority to appoint persons from a particular class to take an estate or interest in property
spectral luminous efficiency — a measure of the efficiency of radiation of a given wavelength in producing a visual sensation. It is equal to the ratio of the radiant flux at a standard wavelength to that at the given wavelength when the standard wavelength is chosen so that the maximum value of this ratio is unity
standard normal distribution — a normal distribution with mean zero and variance 1, with probability density function [exp(–1⁄2x2)]/√2π
sudden infant death syndrome — death from the sudden cessation of breathing (apnea) of a seemingly healthy infant, almost always during sleep, sometimes traceable to a chronic oxygen deficiency. Abbreviation: SIDS.
supplemental security income — income provided by the U.S. government to needy aged, blind, and disabled persons. Abbreviation: SSI.
systemic lupus erythematosus — an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the connective tissues, occurring mainly among middle-aged women, chiefly characterized by skin eruptions, joint pain, recurrent pleurisy, and kidney disease. Abbreviation: SLE.
systems administrators guild — (body, job) (SAGE) A special technical group of the USENIX Association.
systems network architecture — (networking) (SNA) IBM's proprietary high level networking protocol standard, used by IBM and IBM compatible mainframes. Also referred to as "Blue Glue", SNA is a bletcherous protocol once widely favoured at commercial shops. The official IBM definition is "that which binds blue boxes together." It may be relevant that Blue Glue is also a 3M product commonly used to hold down carpets in dinosaur pens.
take your eyes off something — When you take your eyes off the thing you have been watching or looking at, you stop looking at it.
text reckoning and compiling — (language) (TRAC) An interactive macro generator language for string manipulation by Calvin N. Mooers and Peter Deutsch of Sun Microsystems. TAC derived ideas from Macro SAP. There are versions for PDP-1, PDP-8, PDP-10 and PDP-11. See also MINT, SAM76. E-mail: Preston Briggs <[email protected]>.
the medical research council — a government body that uses public funds to finance research in medicine
the world owes them a living — If you say that someone thinks that the world owes them a living, you are criticizing them because they think it is their right to have a comfortable life without having to make any effort at all.
throw dust in someone's eyes — earth or other matter in fine, dry particles.
tissue plasminogen activator — an anticlotting enzyme, naturally occurring in small amounts in the blood.
to be on your home territory — to be in a situation in which one is at ease
to beat someone's brains out — To beat someone's brains out or bash their brains in means to hit their head very hard, so that they are badly injured or killed.
to come to a screeching halt — (of a motor vehicle) to stop suddenly, causing the brakes or tyres to produce a high-pitched sound
to give somebody a thick ear — to hit sb on the ear or head
to know something for a fact — If you say that you know something for a fact, you are emphasizing that you are completely certain that it is true.
to make a clean breast of it — If you make a clean breast of something, you tell someone the truth about yourself or about something wrong that you have done.
to ruffle someone's feathers — To ruffle someone's feathers means to cause them to become very angry, nervous, or upset.
to set/put sb's mind at rest — To put someone's mind at rest or set their mind at rest means to stop them worrying about something.
to stand comparison with sth — If someone or something stands or bears comparison with another person or thing, they are as good, or almost as good.
to throw the book at someone — If someone in authority throws the book at someone who has committed an offence, they give the offender the greatest punishment that they are allowed to.
tree transformation language — (functional programming) (TXL) A hybrid functional language and rule-based language developed by J.R. Cordy <[email protected]> et al of Queen's University, Canada in 1988. TXL is suitable for performing source to source analysis and transformation and for rapid prototyping of new languages and language processors. It uses structural transformation based on term rewriting. TXL has been particularly successful in software engineering tasks such as design recovery, refactoring, and reengineering. Most recently it has been applied to artificial intelligence tasks such as recognition of hand-written mathematics, and to transformation of structured documents in XML. TXL takes as input an arbitrary context-free grammar in extended BNF-like notation, and a set of show-by-example transformation rules to be applied to inputs parsed using the grammar. TXL supports the notion of agile parsing, the ability to tailor the grammar to each particular task using "grammar overrides".
turn the screw(s) on someone — If you turn or tighten the screw on someone, you increase the pressure which is already on them, for example by using threats, in order to force them to do a particular thing.
vendor independent messaging — (networking) (VIM) An electronic mail API promoted by an industry group headed by Lotus Development. VIM is a competitor to Microsoft's MAPI.
very small aperture terminal — (communications) (VSAT) A kind of ground station used to contact a communications satellite such as INMARSAT.
war of american independence — American Revolution.
waveform generation language — (testing) (WGL) A data description language for test program description.
where someone is coming from — You can use expressions like I know where you're coming from or you can see where she's coming from to say that you understand someone's attitude or point of view.
windows management interface — (Microsoft, system management) (WMI) Microsoft's implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management, a DMTF initiative to establish standards for accessing and sharing system management information over an enterprise network.
work projects administration — WPA.
xerox data systems model 530 — (computer) (XDS 530) A computer from the Scientific Data Systems range, announced sometime after 1968 when Xerox bought out SDS. The XDS 530 was probably under development at SDS before the buy-out but only announced afterwards.
xerox data systems model 940 — (computer) (SDS 940, XDS 940) A time-sharing system, announced in February 1966, developed by Scientific Data Systems with help from The University of California at Berkeley and Tymshare. SDS 940 was backward compatible with SDS's previous systems (except the 12-bit SDS 92). It had monitor and user modes, dynamic program relocation, automatic memory fragmentation, and system protection. After 1968 Xerox bought out SDS and renamed the SDS machines "Xerox Data Systems" (XDS). Xerox then produced the XDS 530.
zeroth law of thermodynamics — the principle that any two systems in thermal equilibrium with a third system are in thermal equilibrium with each other. Compare law of thermodynamics (def 2).

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