17-letter words containing m, u, s, i, c
- mountain viscacha — the mountain chinchilla
- multidisciplinary — composed of or combining several usually separate branches of learning or fields of expertise: a multidisciplinary study of the 18th century.
- munitions factory — a factory where munitions are made
- muscae volitantes — floater (def 6).
- muscle dysmorphia — a mental disorder primarily affecting males, characterized by obsessions about a perceived lack of muscularity, leading to compulsive exercising, use of anabolic steroids, etc. Compare body dysmorphic disorder.
- musical interlude — an interval in a play, event or occasion during which music is played
- nasolacrimal duct — a membranous canal extending from the lacrimal sac to the nasal cavity, through which tears are discharged into the nose.
- natural harmonics — harmonics of a note produced on a stringed instrument by lightly touching an open or unstopped sounded string.
- nichiren buddhism — a doctrine of salvation based on the Lotus Sutra.
- nuclear chemistry — the branch of chemistry concerned with nuclear reactions
- nuclear isomerism — isomerism (def 2).
- nuclear submarine — undersea vessel powered by atomic energy
- nuclear-isomerism — Chemistry. the relation of two or more compounds, radicals, or ions that are composed of the same kinds and numbers of atoms but differ from each other in structural arrangement (structural isomerism) as CH 3 OCH 3 and CH 3 CH 2 OH, or in the arrangement of their atoms in space and therefore in one or more properties. Compare optical isomerism, stereoisomerism.
- olympic mountains — a mountain range in NW Washington: part of the Coast Range. Highest peak: Mount Olympus, 2427 m (7965 ft)
- olympic peninsula — a large peninsula of W Washington
- out of commission — the act of committing or entrusting a person, group, etc., with supervisory power or authority.
- pernicious anemia — Pernicious anemia is a very severe blood disease.
- photoluminescence — luminescence induced by the absorption of infrared radiation, visible light, or ultraviolet radiation.
- physical pendulum — any apparatus consisting of a body of possibly irregular shape allowed to rotate freely about a horizontal axis on which it is pivoted (distinguished from simple pendulum).
- picture messaging — Picture messaging is the sending of photographs or pictures from one mobile phone to another.
- poststructuralism — a variation of structuralism, often seen as a critique, emphasizing plurality of meaning and instability of concepts that structuralism uses to define society, language, etc.
- potassium acetate — a white, crystalline, deliquescent, water-soluble powder, KC 2 H 3 O 2 , used chiefly as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- potassium cyanide — a white, granular, water-soluble, poisonous powder, KCN, having a faint almondlike odor, used chiefly in metallurgy and photography.
- primary structure — Biochemistry. the basic sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide or protein.
- production system — (programming) A production system consists of a collection of productions (rules), a working memory of facts and an algorithm, known as forward chaining, for producing new facts from old. A rule becomes eligible to "fire" when its conditions match some set of elements currently in working memory. A conflict resolution strategy determines which of several eligible rules (the conflict set) fires next. A condition is a list of symbols which represent constants, which must be matched exactly; variables which bind to the thing they match and "<> symbol" which matches a field not equal to symbol. Example production systems are OPS5, CLIPS, flex.
- pseudo-democratic — pertaining to or of the nature of democracy or a democracy.
- pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
- pseudo-moralistic — a person who teaches or inculcates morality.
- quantum chemistry — the application of quantum mechanics to the study of chemical phenomena.
- quantum mechanics — a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle. Abbreviation: QM.
- quasi-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
- radioluminescence — luminescence induced by nuclear radiation.
- reconstructionism — a 20th-century movement among U.S. Jews, founded by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, advocating that Judaism, being a culture and way of life as well as a religion, is in sum a religious civilization requiring constant adaptation to contemporary conditions so that Jews can identify more readily and meaningfully with the Jewish community.
- recursion formula — a formula for determining the next term of a sequence from one or more of the preceding terms.
- recursive acronym — (convention) A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also mung.
- rheumatic disease — any of a group of diseases of the connective tissue, of uncertain causes, including rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and rheumatic fever
- rich site summary — (web, standard) (RSS, blog, feed) A family of standard web document types containing regularly updated, short articles or news items. RSS documents (generally called "RSS feeds", "news feeds" or just "feeds") can be read with an RSS reader like BottomFeeder or Feedly. These are sometimes called "aggregators" because they combine multiple RSS feeds which the user can browse as a single list. The RSS reader tracks which articles the use has read, and is typically set to show only new articles, hence the idea of a "feed" or flow of new items. Most RSS feeds are based on RDF. RDF is a structured document format for describing textual resources such as news articles available on the web. RSS originally stood for "RDF Site Summary" as it was designed to provide short descriptions of (changes to) a website. Because it provides a standard way to deliver, or "syndicate", news or updates from one site to another, RSS is sometimes expanded as "Really Simple Syndication". It is closely associated with blogs, most of which provide an RSS feed of articles.
- sanctimoniousness — making a hypocritical show of religious devotion, piety, righteousness, etc.: They resented his sanctimonious comments on immorality in America.
- sandwich compound — any of a class of organometallic compounds whose molecules have a metal atom or ion bound between two plane parallel organic rings
- sawatch mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains, in central Colo.: highest peak, Elbert
- schematic capture — The process of entering the logical design of an electronic circuit into a CAE system by creating a schematic representation of components and interconnections.
- securities market — the market in stocks, shares, bonds and other securities
- semi-manufactured — the making of goods or wares by manual labor or by machinery, especially on a large scale: the manufacture of television sets.
- septicemic plague — an especially dangerous form of plague in which the infecting organisms invade the bloodstream. Compare plague (def 2).
- shuttle diplomacy — diplomatic negotiations carried out by a mediator who travels back and forth between the negotiating parties.
- silk manufacturer — a person or business that is involved in the manufacture of silk thread and fabric
- smoothing circuit — a circuit used to remove ripple from the output of a direct current power supply
- sodium bichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
- sodium dichromate — a red or orange crystalline, water-soluble solid, Na 2 Cr 2 O 7 ⋅2H 2 O, used as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of dyes and inks, as a corrosion inhibitor, a mordant, a laboratory reagent, in the tanning of leather, and in electroplating.
- sodium salicylate — a white, crystalline compound, C 7 H 5 NaO 3 , soluble in water, alcohol, and glycerol: used in medicine as an analgesic, antipyretic, and anti-inflammatory, and as a preservative.