23-letter words containing n, o, u, r
- queenborough in sheppey — a town in SE England, in Kent: formed in 1968 by the amalgamation of Queenborough, Sheerness, and Sheppey. Pop: 3471 (2001)
- quod erat demonstrandum — (at the conclusion of a proof, esp of a theorem in Euclidean geometry) which was to be proved
- quota share reinsurance — Quota share reinsurance is a form of reinsurance in which the reinsurer accepts a certain percentage of all or certain parts of the business of the reinsured person or company.
- quote chapter and verse — [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate bible. "I don't care if "rn" gets it wrong; "Followup-To: poster" is explicitly permitted by RFC 1036. I'll quote chapter and verse if you don't believe me." See also legalese, language lawyer, RTFS (sense 2).
- random number generator — a piece of computer software used to create a sequence of random numbers
- rank outsider/outsiders — If one of the people in a competition is described as a rank outsider, they are considered to have very little chance of winning.
- rectangular coordinates — Usually, rectangular coordinates. either of two Cartesian coordinates in which the axes meet at right angles.
- relative sunspot number — a number indicating the degree of sunspot activity on the sun as a factor of observer idiosyncrasies, the number of sunspot groups, and the number of individual sunspots.
- rocky mountain beeplant — a rank-smelling plant, Cleome serrulata, of the caper family, native to the western U.S., having showy, dense clusters of pink or white flowers, frequented by bees.
- roentgen equivalent man — the dose of ionizing radiation that produces the same effect in man as one roentgen of x- or gamma-radiation
- route of administration — A route of administration is the means by which a drug or agent enters the body, such as by mouth or by injection.
- rub sb up the wrong way — If you rub someone up the wrong way in British English, or rub someone the wrong way in American English, you offend or annoy them without intending to.
- russian orthodox church — the national Church of Russia, constituting a branch of the Eastern Church, presided over by the Patriarch of Moscow
- saint george's mushroom — an edible whitish basidiomycetous fungus, Tricholoma gambosum, with a floury smell
- school (crossing) guard — a person, either an adult or an older student, whose duty it is to help children cross streets near schools safely
- security association id — (networking) (SAID) A 32-bit field added to packet headers for encryption and authentication in the proposed Internet Protocol Version 6.
- severinus de monzambano — Samuel von [zah-moo-uh l fuh n] /ˈzɑ mu əl fən/ (Show IPA), ("Severinus de Monzambano") 1632–94, German jurist and historian.
- social education centre — a daycentre, run by a local authority, for people with learning disabilities and sometimes also for people who have physical disabilities or are mentally ill
- social insurance number — a nine-digit number used by the federal government to identify a citizen
- social security payment — a payment of social security made to an individual
- spirit of nitrous ether — ethyl nitrite spirit.
- squamous cell carcinoma — a carcinoma that arises from squamous epithelium in the skin and sometimes in the mucous membranes.
- st. pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.
- state-trading countries — countries whose export and import trading is government controlled
- statutory maternity pay — the maternity pay a woman is legally entitled to
- steal someone's thunder — to strike, drive, inflict, give forth, etc., with loud noise or violent action.
- stimulus generalization — generalization (def 4a).
- stimulus-generalization — the act or process of generalizing.
- stream of consciousness — unpunctuated prose
- stream-of-consciousness — of, relating to, or characterized by a manner of writing in which a character's thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality, or the like: a stream-of-consciousness novel; a stream-of-consciousness technique.
- structural anthropology — a school of anthropology founded by Claude Lévi-Strauss and based loosely on the principles of structural linguistics.
- structural unemployment — unemployment caused by basic changes in the overall economy, as in demographics, technology, or industrial organization.
- subscription television — pay television.
- suit down to the ground — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
- superposition principle — principle of superposition.
- suprasegmental phonemes — phonemes or features of speech, as pitch, stress, and juncture, that may extend over and modify series of segmental phonemes
- system control language — (language) (SCL) The command language for the VME/B operating system on the ICL2900. SCL was block structured and supported strings, lists of strings ("superstrings"), integer, Boolean, and array types. You could trigger a block whenever a condition on a variable value occured. It supported macros and default arguments. Commands were treated like procedure calls.
- take sth in your stride — In British English, if you take a problem or difficulty in your stride, you deal with it calmly and easily. The American expression is take something in stride.
- text processing utility — (language) (TPU) A DEC language for creation of text-processing interfaces, used to implement DEC's Extensible VAX Editor (EVE).
- thank one's lucky stars — any of the heavenly bodies, except the moon, appearing as fixed luminous points in the sky at night.
- throw down the gauntlet — a medieval glove, as of mail or plate, worn by a knight in armor to protect the hand.
- to add insult to injury — You say to add insult to injury when mentioning an action or fact that makes an unfair or unacceptable situation even worse.
- to be at your wit's end — If you say that you are at your wits' end, you are emphasizing that you are so worried and exhausted by problems or difficulties that you do not know what to do next.
- to be in short trousers — to be a little boy
- to bring the house down — If a person or their performance or speech brings the house down, the audience claps, laughs, or shouts loudly because the performance or speech is very impressive or amusing.
- to count your blessings — If you tell someone to count their blessings, you are saying that they should think about how lucky they are instead of complaining.
- to have your hands full — If you have your hands full with something, you are very busy because of it.
- to keep your nose clean — If you keep your nose clean, you behave well and stay out of trouble.
- to make your skin crawl — If something makes your skin crawl or makes your flesh crawl, it makes you feel shocked or disgusted.
- to pay through the nose — If you say that you paid through the nose for something, you are emphasizing that you had to pay what you consider too high a price for it.