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22-letter words containing n, p, t, i, m

  • functional programming — (programming)   (FP) A program in a functional language consists of a set of (possibly recursive) function definitions and an expression whose value is output as the program's result. Functional languages are one kind of declarative language. They are mostly based on the typed lambda-calculus with constants. There are no side-effects to expression evaluation so an expression, e.g. a function applied to certain arguments, will always evaluate to the same value (if its evaluation terminates). Furthermore, an expression can always be replaced by its value without changing the overall result (referential transparency). The order of evaluation of subexpressions is determined by the language's evaluation strategy. In a strict (call-by-value) language this will specify that arguments are evaluated before applying a function whereas in a non-strict (call-by-name) language arguments are passed unevaluated. Programs written in a functional language are generally compact and elegant, but have tended, until recently, to run slowly and require a lot of memory. Examples of purely functional languages are Clean, FP, Haskell, Hope, Joy, LML, Miranda, and SML. Many other languages such as Lisp have a subset which is purely functional but also contain non-functional constructs. See also lazy evaluation, reduction.
  • garmisch-partenkirchen — a city in S Germany, in the Bavarian Alps.
  • geographic determinism — a doctrine that regards geographical conditions as the determining or molding agency of group life.
  • give it up for someone — to applaud someone
  • government corporation — a corporation set up by a national government to carry out business transactions on its behalf
  • government expenditure — the overall public spending carried out by the government
  • government osi profile — (networking, standard)   (GOSIP) A subset of OSI standards specific to US Government procurements, designed to maximize interoperability in areas where plain OSI standards are ambiguous or allow excessive options.
  • graph rewriting system — An extension of a term rewriting system which uses graph reduction on terms represented by directed graphs to avoid duplication of work by sharing expressions.
  • gross written premiums — Gross written premiums are the total revenue from a contract expected to be received by an insurer before deductions for reinsurance or ceding commissions.
  • home improvement grant — a government grant for house improvements such as insulation, adding a bathroom, or urgent repairs
  • horn-rimmed spectacles — spectacles with rims made of material resembling horn
  • hospital administrator — a person who works in the management team of a hospital
  • hybrid multiprocessing — (parallel)   (HMP) The kind of multitasking which OS/2 supports. HMP provides some elements of symmetric multiprocessing, using add-on IBM software called MP/2. OS/2 SMP was planned for release in late 1993.
  • ice-making compartment — a part of a refrigerator in which ice is made
  • immigration department — the government department responsible for laws regarding immigrants and immigration
  • imperative programming — imperative language
  • incremental repetition — repetition, with variation, of a refrain or other part of a poem, especially a ballad.
  • independent assortment — law of independent assortment.
  • information processing — processing of information, especially the handling of information by computers in accordance with strictly defined systems of procedure.
  • initial program loader — (operating system)   (IPL) A bootstrap loader which loads the part of an operating system needed to load the remainder of the operating system.
  • intermetallic compound — a compound of two or more metals.
  • interpretive semantics — a school of semantic theory based on the doctrine that the rules that relate sentences to their meanings form an autonomous system, separate from the rules that determine what is grammatical in a language
  • isthmus of tehuantepec — the narrowest part of S Mexico, with the Bay of Campeche on the north coast and the Gulf of Tehuantepec (an inlet of the Pacific) on the south coast
  • java community process — (project)   (JCP) An organization controlled by Sun Microsystems to further the growth of the Java language and runtime. The JCP produces standards called Java Standard Requests, which are "requests" in the same sense as RFCs.
  • jump in with both feet — to enter into an activity or venture wholeheartedly
  • jump out of one's skin — to be very startled
  • last call optimisation — (programming)   (Or "tail call optimisation") Discarding the immediate calling context (call stack frame) when the last action of a function or procedure, A, is to call another function or procedure, B. B will then return directly to A's caller, or possibly further up the call stack if the optimisation has been applied to several consecutive calls. Last call optimisation allows arbitrarily deep nesting of procedure calls without consuming memory to store useless environments. This is particularly useful in the special case of tail recursion optimisation, where a procedure's last action is to call itself (possibly indirectly).
  • left-handed compliment — an ambiguous compliment
  • lowest common multiple — the smallest number that is a common multiple of a given set of numbers.
  • magnetic dipole moment — a measure of the magnetic strength of a magnet or current-carrying coil, expressed as the torque per unit magnetic-flux density produced when the magnet or coil is set with its axis perpendicular to the magnetic field
  • magnetic pole strength — Electricity. a measure of the force exerted by one face of a magnet on a face of another magnet when both magnets are represented by equal and opposite poles. Symbol: m.
  • make/prove one's point — If you make your point or prove your point, you prove that something is true, either by arguing about it or by your actions or behaviour.
  • mcculloch-pitts neuron — (artificial intelligence)   The basic building block of artificial neural networks. It receives one or more inputs and produces one or more identical outputs, each of which is a simple non-linear function of the sum of the inputs to the neuron. The non-linear function is typically a threshhold or step function which is usually smoothed (i.e. a sigmoid) to facilitate learning.
  • monoammonium phosphate — a white, crystalline, moderately water-soluble compound, NH 4 H 2 PO 4 , used as fertilizer, in fire extinguishers, etc.
  • motoring correspondent — a journalist who reviews and writes about cars
  • multiplicative inverse — reciprocal (def 9).
  • myalgic encephalopathy — a condition characterized by painful muscles, extreme fatigue, and general debility, sometimes occurring as a sequel to viral illness
  • non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
  • nonrepresentationalism — not resembling or portraying any object in physical nature: a nonrepresentational painting.
  • oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • open network computing — (ONC) Sun's network protocols.
  • open-market operations — the purchase and sale on the open market of government securities by the Bank of England for the purpose of regulating the supply of money and credit to the economy
  • operation desert storm — the codename for the US-led UN operation to liberate Kuwait from Iraq (1991)
  • parker morris standard — (in Britain) a set of minimum criteria for good housing construction, design, and facilities, recommended by the 1961 report of the Central Housing Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Parker Morris. Subsequent governments have urged private and local authority house-builders to achieve these standards
  • parliamentary election — an election to select the members of a national parliament
  • percussive maintenance — (jargon)   The fine art of whacking a device to get it working, possibly using a fine adjuster.
  • philip the magnanimous — 1504–67, German prince; landgrave of Hesse (1509–67). He helped to crush (1525) the Peasants' Revolt and formed (1531) the League of Schmalkaden, an alliance of German Protestant rulers
  • planetary transmission — A planetary transmission is a special form of geared drive in which the input and output shafts are on the same axis.
  • pneumocystis pneumonia — a pulmonary infection caused by the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii, occurring as an opportunistic disease in persons with impaired immune systems, as AIDS victims. Abbreviation: PCP.
  • point of sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
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