16-letter words containing n, u, g, a, c, i
- 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.]
- nonmanufacturing — (economics) Outside of the manufacturing sector.
- nucleating agent — a substance used to seed clouds to control rainfall and fog formation
- osculating plane — the plane containing the circle of curvature of a point on a given curve.
- 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.
- photocoagulation — a surgical technique using an intense beam of light from a laser or a xenon-arc bulb to seal blood vessels or coagulate tissue, used primarily in ophthalmology to repair detached retinas or to treat certain kinds of retinopathy.
- pneumatic trough — a trough filled with liquid, especially water, for collecting gases in bell jars or the like by displacement.
- pneumonic plague — a form of plague characterized by lung involvement.
- project guardian — (project, security) A project which grew out of the ARPA support for Multics and the sale of Multics systems to the US Air Force. The USAF wanted a system that could be used to handle more than one security classification of data at a time. They contracted with Honeywell and MITRE Corporation to figure out how to do this. Project Guardian led to the creation of the Access Isolation Mechanism, the forerunner of the B2 labeling and star property support in Multics. The DoD Orange Book was influenced by the experience in building secure systems gained in Project Guardian.
- publicity agency — an advertising agency; a firm that gets publicity for people or products
- puddling-furnace — the act of a person or thing that puddles.
- 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.
- rating community — an online community based around a website that allows members to rate each other's photographs, qualifications, etc, as well as those of applicants, and which only those approved by existing members are allowed to join
- rearguard action — an action fought by a rearguard
- regional council — the governing body in certain countries of a particular region or administrative division
- reporting clause — A reporting clause is a clause which indicates that you are talking about what someone said or thought. For example, in 'She said that she was hungry', 'She said' is a reporting clause.
- santiago de cuba — a region in Ecuador, E of the Andes: the border long disputed by Peru.
- security manager — The security manager of a store is the person responsible for organizing all security in the store and to whom security guards report.
- self-lubricating — to apply some oily or greasy substance to (a machine, parts of a mechanism, etc.) in order to diminish friction; oil or grease (something).
- self-vulcanizing — to treat (rubber) with sulfur and heat, thereby imparting strength, greater elasticity, durability, etc.
- single occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as at a hotel, for one person in a room.
- smelting furnace — an industrial oven used to heat ore in order to extract metal
- sounding machine — any of various machines for taking and recording soundings.
- stage production — a play or show which is performed on stage
- stinging capsule — a nematocyst.
- stomach-churning — causing nausea.
- student teaching — the act of teaching in a school for a limited period under supervision as part of a course to qualify as a teacher
- subcartilaginous — partially or incompletely cartilaginous.
- subsistence wage — the lowest wage upon which a worker and his or her family can survive
- supporting actor — performer: not lead
- surface integral — the limit, as the norm of the partition of a given surface into sections of area approaches zero, of the sum of the product of the areas times the value of a given function of three variables at some point on each section.
- surface-printing — planography.
- trailing fuchsia — a shrub, Fuchsia procumbens, of the evening primrose family, native to New Zealand, having long-stalked leaves and drooping, orange-and-purple flowers, used in hanging baskets.
- trucking company — a company that transports goods by lorry
- tungsten carbide — a very hard, black or gray compound of tungsten and carbon, used in the manufacture of cutting and abrasion tools, dies, and wear-resistant machine parts.
- unapologetically — containing an apology or excuse for a fault, failure, insult, injury, etc.: An apologetic letter to his creditors explained the delay.
- undiscriminating — differentiating; analytical.
- ventriculography — radiography of the ventricles of the heart after injection of a contrast medium
- viewing audience — the audience reached by television