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20-letter words containing n, o, s, e, d

  • labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
  • land-office business — a lively, booming, expanding, or very profitable business.
  • languedoc-roussillon — a region of S France, on the Gulf of Lions: consists of the departments of Lozère, Gard, Hérault, Aude, and Pyrénées-Orientales; mainly mountainous with a coastal plain
  • laugh one's head off — Phrases such as laugh your head off and scream your head off can be used to emphasize that someone is laughing or screaming a lot or very loudly.
  • law-and-order issues — issues concerning law and social conventions
  • lead someone a dance — to cause someone continued worry and exasperation; play up
  • lead with one's chin — to act so imprudently as to invite disaster
  • linearly ordered set — a set in which a relation, as “less than or equal to,” holds for all pairs of elements of the set.
  • long island iced tea — a potent cocktail consisting of equal parts of, typically, five different distilled alcoholic liquors, usually vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and triple sec, with a small amount of mixer, usually cola
  • longitudinal section — the representation of an object as it would appear if cut by the vertical plane passing through the longest axis of the object.
  • magneto-optical disk — (hardware, storage)   (MO) A plastic or glass disk coated with a compound (often TbFeCo) with special optical, magnetic and thermal properties. The disk is read by bouncing a low-intensity laser off the disk. Originally the laser was infrared, but frequencies up to blue may be possible giving higher storage density. The polarisation of the reflected light depends on the polarity of the stored magnetic field. To write, a higher intensity laser heats the coating up to its Curie point, allowing its magnetisation to be altered in a way that is retained when it has cooled. Although optical, they appear as hard drives to the operating system and do not require a special filesystem (they can be formatted as FAT, HPFS, NTFS, etc.). The initial 5.25" MO drives, introduced at the end of the 1980s, were the size of a full-height 5.25" hard drive (like in IBM PC XT) and the disks looked like a CD-ROM enclosed in an old-style cartridge In 2006, a 3.5" drive has the size of 1.44 megabyte diskette drive with disks about the size of a regular 1.44MB floppy disc but twice the thickness.
  • magnetohydrodynamics — the branch of physics that deals with the motion of electrically conductive fluids, especially plasmas, in magnetic fields. Abbreviation: MHD.
  • margaret of scotland — Saint. 1045–93, queen consort of Malcolm III of Scotland. Her piety and benefactions to the church led to her canonization (1250). Feast days: June 10, Nov 16
  • media access control — (networking)   (MAC) The lower sublayer of the OSI data link layer. The interface between a node's Logical Link Control and the network's physical layer. The MAC differs for various physical media. See also MAC Address, Ethernet, IEEE 802.3, token ring.
  • megabytes per second — (unit)   (MBps, MB/s) Millions of bytes per second. A unit of data rate. 1 MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes per second (not 1,048,576).
  • midcourse correction — a navigational correction made in the course of a ship, airplane, rocket, or space vehicle at some point between the beginning and end of the journey.
  • model-view-presenter — (programming)   (MVP) A user interface architectural pattern where functions are separated between the model, view and presenter. The model defines the data to be displayed or otherwise acted upon in the user interface. The view displays data from the model and routes user commands (events) to the presenter to act upon that data. The presenter retrieves data from the model and displays it in the view. The implementation of MVP can vary as to how much presentation logic is handled by the presenter and the view. In a web application most presentation logic is usually in the view which runs in the web browser. MVP is one of the MV* variations of the MVC pattern.
  • modify a reservation — If you modify a reservation, you change a detail of a booking because someone who has booked a room has asked you to.
  • molybdenum disulfide — a black crystalline powder, MoS 2 , insoluble in water, used as a lubricant and as a hydrogenation catalyst.
  • monosodium glutamate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 5 H 8 NNaO 4 ⋅H 2 O, used to intensify the flavor of foods.
  • motor neuron disease — Motor neuron disease is a disease which destroys the part of a person's nervous system that controls movement.
  • multi-user dimension — (games)   (MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-User Dungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessible via the Internet or a modem. A MUD is like a real-time chat forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" like an adventure game and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic and a simple economic system. A MUD where characters can build more structure onto the database that represents the existing world is sometimes known as a "MUSH". Most MUDs allow you to log in as a guest to look around before you create your own character. Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in 1979. It was a game similar to the classic Colossal Cave adventure, except that it allowed multiple people to play at the same time and interact with each other. Descendants of that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth that the name MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartle explicitly placed "MUD" in the PD in 1985. BT was upset at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters, which were released and created the myth. Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social interaction. Because these had an image as "research" they often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This, together with the fact that Usenet feeds have been spotty and difficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci of hackish social interaction there. AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nuclei for large hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with the growth of Usenet in the early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building as opposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over 50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesises the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue. The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month. There is now a move afoot to deprecate the term MUD itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being explored. See also bonk/oif, FOD, link-dead, mudhead, MOO, MUCK, MUG, MUSE, chat.
  • multimedia extension — Matrix Math eXtensions
  • multistep hydroplane — a motorship having a flat bottom built as a series of planes inclined forward, the ship planing on each from stem to stern as its speed increases.
  • mum-and-dad investor — a small-scale non-professional investor
  • net domestic product — the gross domestic product minus an allowance for the depreciation of capital goods
  • noncondensing engine — a steam engine releasing exhaust steam to the atmosphere rather than condensing it to hot feedwater.
  • noninstitutionalized — Not institutionalized.
  • nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
  • not mince your words — If you say that someone does not mince their words, you mean that they speak in a forceful and direct way, especially when saying something unpleasant to someone.
  • not out of the woods — If something or someone is not out of the woods yet, they are still having difficulties or problems.
  • not to be sneezed at — If you say that something is not to be sneezed at, you mean that it is worth having.
  • notre dame mountains — a mountain range in E Quebec, Canada, an extension of the Green Mountains in Vermont and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains: about 500 miles (800 km) long, rising about 2000 feet (610 meters).
  • obfuscated c contest — (programming)   The International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) is an annual contest run since 1984 over Usenet by Landon Curt Noll and friends. The overall winner is whoever produces the most unreadable, creative, and bizarre (but working) C program. Various other prizes are awarded at the judges' whim. C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessor facilities give contestants a lot of maneuvering room. The winning programs often manage to be simultaneously funny, breathtaking works of art and horrible examples of how *not* to code in C. This relatively short and sweet hello, world program demonstrates obfuscated C: /* HELLO WORLD program * by Jack Applin and Robert Heckendorn, 1985 */ main(v,c)char**c;{for(v[c++]="Hello, world!\n)"; (!!c)[*c]&&(v--||--c&&execlp(*c,*c,c[!!c]+!!c,!c)); **c=!c)write(!!*c,*c,!!**c);} Here's another good one: /* Program to compute an approximation of pi * by Brian Westley, 1988 */ #define _ -F<00||--F-OO--; int F=00,OO=00; main(){F_OO();printf("%1.3f\n",4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO() { _-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _-_-_-_ } Note that this program works by computing its own area. For more digits, write a bigger program.
  • occupational disease — Also called industrial disease. a disease caused by the conditions or hazards of a particular occupation.
  • ode to the west wind — a poem (1820) by Shelley.
  • old english sheepdog — one of an English breed of large working dogs having a long, shaggy, gray or blue-merle and white coat that hangs over the eyes, and a bobbed tail, originally developed to drive sheep and cattle.
  • old man of the woods — an edible, mild-tasting mushroom, Strobilomyces floccopus, occurring in coniferous woodlands of eastern North America.
  • on the shady side of — beyond (a given age); older than
  • on the starboard bow — within 45 degrees to the starboard of straight ahead
  • on the sunny side of — younger than (a specified age)
  • one's heart's desire — If you say that someone or something is your heart's desire, you mean that you want that person or thing very much.
  • operating conditions — Operating conditions are a set of conditions for operating a particular system or process.
  • operational database — (database)   A database containing up-to-date, modifiable data, in contrast to a decision support database.
  • ostensive definition — the definition of a term by pointing to one or more examples to which the term can be applied.
  • owner-occupied house — a house that is owned by the person who lives in it
  • pappus of alexandria — 3rd century bc, Greek mathematician, whose eight-volume Synagoge is a valuable source of information about Greek mathematics
  • parkinson's syndrome — a complex of symptoms indistinguishable from Parkinson's disease, commonly affecting boxers or sometimes occurring as a result of substance abuse or an encephalitic infection.
  • partitioned data set — (file format)   (PDS) A data set on an IBM mainframe that contains members, each of which acts like a separate data set. Partitioned data sets are more space-efficient than individual data sets, because they can put more than one data set on a track. They are also used to hold libraries, with one function per member. The syntax for a member is NAME.OF.PDS(MEMBER) although some systems (such as Phoenix) could use NAME.OF.PDS:MEMBER Original PDSes were of fixed size, and needed frequent compression to recover space after deleting or changing members. Newer PDS/E Extended PDSes do not have this problem.
  • pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
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