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16-letter words containing n, a, r, g, s, e

  • munching squares — A display hack dating back to the PDP-1 (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T for successive values of T - see HAKMEM items 146--148) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing squares that devour the screen. The initial value of T is treated as a parameter, which, when well-chosen, can produce amazing effects. Some of these, later (re)discovered on the LISP Machine, have been christened "munching triangles" (try AND for XOR and toggling points instead of plotting them), "munching w's", and "munching mazes". More generally, suppose a graphics program produces an impressive and ever-changing display of some basic form, foo, on a display terminal, and does it using a relatively simple program; then the program (or the resulting display) is likely to be referred to as "munching foos". [This is a good example of the use of the word foo as a metasyntactic variable.]
  • narcotics charge — a criminal charge or accusation concerning the use or dealing of illegal drugs
  • narragansett bay — an inlet of the Atlantic in E Rhode Island. 28 miles (45 km) long.
  • negative-raising — a rule that moves a negative element out of the complement clause of certain verbs, such as think, into the main clause, as in the derivation of He doesn't think that he'll finish
  • neuropathologies — the pathology of the nervous system.
  • neuropathologist — A specialist who practices neuropathology.
  • nitrogen mustard — any of the class of poisonous, blistering compounds, as C 5 H 1 1 Cl 2 N, analogous in composition to mustard gas but containing nitrogen instead of sulfur: used in the treatment of cancer and similar diseases; mechlorethamine.
  • no hard feelings — If you say ' no hard feelings', you are making an agreement with someone not to be angry or bitter about something.
  • nondurable goods — goods that remain usable for, or must be replaced within, a relatively short period of time, as food, apparel, or fabrics
  • odds are against — If you say that the odds are against something or someone, you mean that they are unlikely to succeed.
  • oil storage tank — a very large industrial container where petroleum is stored
  • operating system — (operating system)   (OS) The low-level software which handles the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running. The OS may be split into a kernel which is always present and various system programs which use facilities provided by the kernel to perform higher-level house-keeping tasks, often acting as servers in a client-server relationship. Some would include a graphical user interface and window system as part of the OS, others would not. The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs. Example operating systems include 386BSD, AIX, AOS, Amoeba, Angel, Artemis microkernel, BeOS, Brazil, COS, CP/M, CTSS, Chorus, DACNOS, DOSEXEC 2, GCOS, GEORGE 3, GEOS, ITS, KAOS, Linux, LynxOS, MPV, MS-DOS, MVS, Mach, Macintosh operating system, Microsoft Windows, MINIX, Multics, Multipop-68, Novell NetWare, OS-9, OS/2, Pick, Plan 9, QNX, RISC OS, STING, System V, System/360, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, TRUSIX, TWENEX, TYMCOM-X, Thoth, Unix, VM/CMS, VMS, VRTX, VSTa, VxWorks, WAITS.
  • operating-system — the collection of software that directs a computer's operations, controlling and scheduling the execution of other programs, and managing storage, input/output, and communication resources. Abbreviation: OS.
  • orange men's day — July 12, an annual celebration in Northern Ireland and certain cities having a large Irish section, especially Liverpool, to mark both the victory of William III over James II at the Battle of the Boyne, July 1, 1690, and the Battle of Augbrim, July 12, 1690.
  • organophosphates — Plural form of organophosphate.
  • overcompensating — Present participle of overcompensate.
  • pacific sturgeon — a dark gray sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus, inhabiting marine and fresh waters along the northwestern coast of North America, valued as a food and sport fish.
  • parallel sailing — sailing along a parallel of latitude.
  • parents' evening — an occasion when the parents of children at a school and their teachers come together (outside normal school hours, in the evening) in order to discuss the progress or work of the children
  • parser generator — A program which takes a formal description of a grammar (e.g. in BNF) and outputs source code for a parser which will recognise valid strings obeying that grammar and perform associated actions. Unix's yacc is a well known example.
  • passenger pigeon — an extinct pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, once found in great numbers in North America, noted for its sustained migratory flights.
  • pelican crossing — place to cross road
  • pension mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a pension fund and the interest to the mortgagee. The loan is repaid out of the tax-free lump sum proceeds of the pension plan on the borrower's retirement
  • personal hygiene — bodily cleanliness
  • personnel agency — an agency for placing employable persons in jobs; employment agency.
  • pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
  • pharmacogenomics — the study of human genetic variability in relation to drug action and its application to medical treatment
  • platoon sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer in a platoon, equivalent to sergeant first class.
  • pleasure-seeking — always looking for pleasure
  • portuguese india — a former Portuguese overseas territory on the W coast of India, consisting of the districts of Gôa, Daman, and Diu: annexed by India December 1961. Capital: Gôa.
  • pre-registration — the act of registering.
  • pressure flaking — a method of manufacturing a flint tool by pressing flakes from a stone core with a pointed implement, usually of wood tipped with antler or copper.
  • prestidigitation — sleight of hand; legerdemain.
  • preunderstanding — to perceive the meaning of; grasp the idea of; comprehend: to understand Spanish; I didn't understand your question.
  • processing plant — a factory where raw materials are treated or prepared by a special method, esp one where food is treated in order to preserve it
  • progress payment — an instalment of a larger payment made to a contractor for work carried out up to a specified stage of the job
  • provost sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer of a prison or other confinement facility whose chief duty is the supervision of prisoners and of the military police unit.
  • purchasing agent — a person who buys materials, supplies, equipment, etc., for a company.
  • purchasing power — Also called buying power. the ability to purchase goods and services.
  • quasi-managerial — pertaining to management or a manager: managerial functions; the managerial class of society.
  • quinquagenarians — Plural form of quinquagenarian.
  • radio evangelist — a Christian minister who devotes time to preaching on the radio
  • ranelagh gardens — a public garden in Chelsea opened in 1742: a centre for members of fashionable society to meet and promenade. The gardens were closed in 1804
  • rattlesnake flag — any of a number of U.S. flags that bear a picture of a rattlesnake and the motto “Don't Tread on Me,” especially those used during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.
  • regional ileitis — a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that causes scarring and thickening of the intestinal walls and frequently leads to obstruction.
  • register dancing — Many older processor architectures suffer from a serious shortage of general-purpose registers. This is especially a problem for compiler-writers, because their generated code needs places to store temporaries for things like intermediate values in expression evaluation. Some designs with this problem, like the Intel 80x86, do have a handful of special-purpose registers that can be pressed into service, providing suitable care is taken to avoid unpleasant side effects on the state of the processor: while the special-purpose register is being used to hold an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is required in which the previous value of the register is saved and then restored just before the official function (and value) of the special-purpose register is again needed.
  • register tonnage — the volume of a vessel, especially the net tonnage as measured officially and registered for purposes of taxation.
  • registration fee — a fee paid to register, enrol or sign up for (a course, etc)
  • regular gasoline — unleaded gasoline or petrol, as for fuelling a vehicle, etc
  • releasing factor — a substance usually of hypothalamic origin that triggers the release of a particular hormone from an endocrine gland.
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