21-letter words containing n, a, g, o
- suction and curettage — a technique involving extraction of the fetus through a suction tube, used to perform abortions during the early stages of pregnancy.
- supergranulation cell — one of a number of large convection cells in the photosphere and chromosphere of the sun, each having a diameter of 10,000–20,000 miles (16,000–32,000 km) and lasting longer than a day.
- surface friction drag — the part of the drag on a body moving through a fluid that is dependent on the nature of the surface of the body
- take one's finger out — stop delaying or procrastinating
- tape operating system — (operating system) (TOS) An IBM operating system for System 360, used in the early days around 1965 to support the IBM 360 model 30 et al. TOS was a predecessor to IBM's Disk Operating System. TOS died out really early as disks such as the 2311 and 2314 became common with the IBM 360 whereas thet had been a real luxury on the IBM 7090.
- teleological argument — the argument purporting to prove the existence of God from empirical facts, the premise being that the universe shows evidence of order and hence design
- television evangelist — a Christian minister who devotes time to preaching on television
- the acting profession — actors considered as a group
- the icing on the cake — If you describe something as the icing on the cake, you mean that it makes a good thing even better, but it is not essential.
- the moral high ground — If you say that someone has taken the moral high ground, you mean that they consider that their policies and actions are morally superior to the policies and actions of their rivals.
- the shipping forecast — a radio broadcast made by the BBC of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles
- threatening behaviour — intimidation or intentional behaviour that causes another person to fear injury or harm
- tide-generating force — the difference between the force of gravity exerted by the moon or the sun on a particle of water in the ocean and that exerted on an equal mass of matter at the centre of the earth. The lunar tide-generating forces are about 2.2 times greater than are the solar ones
- to be arrayed against — to be opposed to
- to change the subject — When someone involved in a conversation changes the subject, they start talking about something else, often because the previous subject was embarrassing.
- to get into high gear — if people or an activity go into high gear, moves into high gear, etc, people do what they were doing more intensely, or the activity becomes more intense
- to have green fingers — If someone has green fingers, they are very good at gardening and their plants grow well.
- to kill a mockingbird — a novel (1960) by Harper Lee.
- to lay something bare — If you lay something bare, you uncover it completely so that it can then be seen.
- to my way of thinking — You add to my way of thinking to a statement in order to indicate that you are giving your opinion.
- to take the long view — If you take the long view, you consider what is likely to happen in the future over a long period, rather than thinking only about things that are going to happen soon.
- tool command language — (language) /tik*l/ (Tcl) An interpreted string processing language for issuing commands to interactive programs, developed by John Ousterhout at UCB. Each application program can extend tcl with its own set of commands. Tcl is like a text-oriented Lisp, but lets you write algebraic expressions for simplicity and to avoid scaring people away. Though originally designed to be a "scripting language" rather than for serious programming, Tcl has been used successfully for programs with hundreds of thousands of lines. It has a peculiar but simple syntax. It may be used as an embedded interpreter in application programs. It has exceptions and packages (called libraries), name-spaces for procedures and variables, and provide/require. It supports dynamic loading of object code. It is eight-bit clean. It has only three variable types: strings, lists and associative arrays but no structures. Tcl and its associated GUI toolkit, Tk run on all flavors of Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and VMS. Tcl runs on the Amiga and many other platforms. See also expect (control interactive programs and pattern match on their output), Cygnus Tcl Tools, [incr Tcl] (adds classes and inheritence to Tcl), Scriptics (John Ousterhout's company that is the home of Tcl development and the TclPro tool suite), Tcl Consortium (a non-profit agency dedicated to promoting Tcl), tclhttpd (an embeddable Tcl-based web server), tclx (adds many commands to Tcl), tcl-debug.
- topgallant forecastle — a partial weather deck on top of a forecastle superstructure; forecastle deck.
- topological invariant — a property of a topological space that is a property of every space related to the given space by a homeomorphism.
- trades union congress — The Trades Union Congress in Britain is the same as the TUC.
- transport segregation — Transport segregation is when particles from a mixture separate because the mixture vibrates while it is being moved.
- traveling salesperson — a representative of a business firm who travels in an assigned territory soliciting orders for a company's services.
- triangulation station — a point used in triangulation as a basis for making maps. Triangulation stations are marked in a number of ways, such as by a tapering stone pillar on a hilltop
- venus's looking glass — a purple-flowered campanulaceous plant, Legousia hybrida, of Europe, W Asia, and N Africa
- vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
- voluntary arrangement — a procedure enabling an insolvent company to come to an arrangement with its creditors and resolve its financial problems, often in compliance with a court order
- washington's birthday — February 22, formerly observed as a legal holiday in most states of the U.S. in honor of the birth of George Washington.
- weinberg-salam theory — electroweak theory.
- what price something? — what are the chances of something happening now?
- whip-and-tongue graft — a graft prepared by cutting both the scion and the stock in a sloping direction and inserting a tongue in the scion into a slit in the stock.
- xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare inherited disease characterized by sensitivity to ultraviolet light, exposure resulting in lesions and tumors of the skin and eyes.
- youth training scheme — (formerly, in Britain) a scheme, run by the Training Agency, to provide vocational training for unemployed 16–17-year-olds