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14-letter words containing n, o, r, m, a

  • scratch monkey — (humour)   As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
  • second chamber — the parliament of the Netherlands, consisting of an upper chamber (First Chamber) and a lower chamber (Second Chamber)
  • secondary beam — a beam of particles of one kind selected from the group of particles produced when a beam of particles from an accelerator (primary beam) strikes a target.
  • self-adornment — something that adds attractiveness; ornament; accessory: the adornments and furnishings of a room.
  • self-formation — the act or process of forming or the state of being formed: the formation of ice.
  • self-important — having or showing an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance; pompously conceited or haughty.
  • semi-nocturnal — active at night (opposed to diurnal): nocturnal animals.
  • semilunar bone — lunate (def 2).
  • semimembranous — consisting of, of the nature of, or resembling membrane.
  • semiminor axis — Geometry. one half the minor axis of an ellipse.
  • semipolar bond — type of chemical bond
  • semistarvation — the state of being nearly starved.
  • sergeant major — U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps. a noncommissioned officer serving as chief administrative assistant in a unit headquarters.
  • servomechanism — an electronic control system in which a hydraulic, pneumatic, or other type of controlling mechanism is actuated and controlled by a low-energy signal.
  • shaving mirror — small adjustable mirror
  • sidereal month — Also called calendar month. any of the twelve parts, as January or February, into which the calendar year is divided.
  • simone martini — Simone [see-maw-ne] /siˈmɔ nɛ/ (Show IPA), 1283–1344, Italian painter.
  • situation room — a room at a military or political headquarters where the latest information on a military or political situation is channeled.
  • smart sanction — a sanction intended to affect only a particular area of a country's activities or economy
  • sodium nitrate — a crystalline, water-soluble compound, NaNO 3 , that occurs naturally as soda niter: used in fertilizers, explosives, and glass, and as a color fixative in processed meats.
  • soft margarine — a soft, spreadable margarine that is made with more liquid oils and less hydrogenated oils than hard, block margarine
  • somali current — a current of the Indian Ocean, flowing northward along the coast of Somalia in summer and southwestward the rest of the year.
  • sonderkommando — a group of prisoners assigned to collect belongings and dispose of the bodies of other prisoners who had died or been killed.
  • south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
  • spermatogenous — producing spermatozoa.
  • spermatogonium — one of the undifferentiated germ cells giving rise to spermatocytes.
  • sportfisherman — a motorboat fitted out for sportfishing.
  • springform pan — a metal cake pan with sides that can be unfastened to facilitate releasing the cake when done.
  • st. marylebone — former metropolitan borough of London: since 1965, part of Westminster
  • staghorn sumac — a sumac, Rhus typhina, of eastern North America, having leaves that turn scarlet, orange, and purple in the autumn.
  • standard model — a mathematical description of the elementary particles of matter and the fundamental forces by which they interact and behave; a model combining electromagnetic and weak forces.
  • standard money — money made of a metal that has utility and value apart from its use as a unit of monetary exchange.
  • start-up money — money that is spent on setting up a new business or other project
  • stocking frame — a type of knitting machine
  • storming party — a group deployed to make the first assault on a position or building
  • sugared almond — Sugared almonds are nuts which have been covered with a hard sweet coating.
  • sunday morning — a poem (1923) by Wallace Stevens.
  • superimportant — extremely important
  • tam-o'-shanter — a cap of Scottish origin, usually made of wool, having a round, flat top that projects all around the head and has a pompon at its center.
  • tatterdemalion — a person in tattered clothing; a shabby person.
  • telejournalism — the writing and broadcasting of journalism for television
  • telomerization — polymerization in the presence of a chain transfer agent to yield a series of products of low molecular weight
  • temperate zone — the part of the earth's surface lying between the tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle in the Northern Hemisphere or between the tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle in the Southern Hemisphere, and characterized by having a climate that is warm in the summer, cold in the winter, and moderate in the spring and fall.
  • terminal bonus — a bonus paid on a life insurance policy when the holder reaches a certain age or dies
  • terminal point — the final destination or station of a bus or rail journey
  • terminological — the system of terms belonging or peculiar to a science, art, or specialized subject; nomenclature: the terminology of botany.
  • terminus a quo — the end from which; beginning; starting point; earliest limiting point.
  • tetragrammaton — the Hebrew word for God, consisting of the four letters yod, he, vav, and he, transliterated consonantally usually as YHVH, now pronounced as Adonai or Elohim in substitution for the original pronunciation forbidden since the 2nd or 3rd century b.c.
  • the hexaemeron — the six-day period of the Creation
  • the long march — a journey of about 10 000 km (6000 miles) undertaken (1934–35) by some 100 000 Chinese Communists when they were forced out of their base in Kiangsi in SE China. They made their way to Shensi in NW China; only about 8000 survived the rigours of the journey
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