24-letter words containing n, u, r, s, i
- open system architecture — (operating system) (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- other things being equal — If you say 'other things being equal' or 'all things being equal' when talking about a possible situation, you mean if nothing unexpected happens or if there are no other factors which affect the situation.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- prairie button snakeroot — a stout composite plant, Liatris pycnostachya, of prairies in the central U.S., having showy, rose-purple flower heads in dense spikes.
- pre-emptive multitasking — (operating system, parallel) A type of multitasking where the scheduler can interrupt and suspend ("swap out") the currently running task in order to start or continue running ("swap in") another task. The tasks under pre-emptive multitasking can be written as though they were the only task and the scheduler decides when to swap them. The scheduler must ensure that when swapping tasks, sufficient state is saved and restored that tasks do not interfere. The length of time for which a process runs is known as its "time slice" and may depend on the task's priority or its use of resources such as memory and I/O. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking where each task must include calls to allow it to be descheduled periodically.
- presumption of innocence — the rebuttable presumption of the innocence of the defendant in a criminal action in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, placing upon the prosecution the burden of proof of the defendant's guilt.
- pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications) (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
- private health insurance — insurance against the need for medical treatment as a private patient
- probability distribution — a distribution of all possible values of a random variable together with an indication of their probabilities.
- public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
- put one's house in order — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
- recursive descent parser — (grammar) A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
- registered general nurse — (in Britain) a nurse who has completed a three-year training course in all aspects of nursing care to enable him or her to be registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting
- renewable term insurance — Renewable term insurance is term life insurance that may be renewed for another period without the policyholder needing to provide further evidence of their insurability.
- repetitive strain injury — overuse strain injury
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- requirements engineering — (programming) The task of capturing, structuring, and accurately representing the user's requirements so that they can be correctly embodied in systems which meet those requirements (i.e. are of good quality).
- reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
- robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
- rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
- rub someone's nose in it — to remind someone unkindly of his or her failing or error
- san bernardino mountains — mountain range in S Calif., south of the Mojave Desert: highest peak, 11,502 ft (3,506 m)
- san joaquin valley fever — coccidioidomycosis.
- scottish country dancing — a type of Scottish folk dancing, including reels, jigs, and strathspeys, in which couples are arranged in sets and perform a series of movements, esp facing one another in a line
- self-fulfilling prophecy — a prophecy that comes true because of the expectation that it will
- set one's house in order — to put one's affairs in order
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- simultaneous translation — a form of translation in which the interpreter translates into the target language as quickly as possible while the speaker is still speaking in the source language
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- single person supplement — an additional sum of money that a hotel charges for one person to stay in a room meant for two people
- single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
- southern british english — the dialect of spoken English regarded as standard in England and considered as having high social status in comparison with other British English dialects. Historically, it is derived from the S East Midland dialect of Middle English
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- student's t distribution — a bell-shaped probability distribution that is flatter or more stretched out than the normal distribution.
- subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
- succinylcholine chloride — a crystalline compound, C 1 4 H 3 0 Cl 2 N 2 O 4 , used as a skeletal muscle relaxant in surgical procedures.
- superheterodyne receiver — a radio receiver that combines two radio-frequency signals by heterodyne action, to produce a signal above the audible frequency limit. This signal is amplified and demodulated to give the desired audio-frequency signal
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
- take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- telescope user interface — (hardware, interface) (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
- thorn in your side/flesh — If you describe someone or something as a thorn in your side or a thorn in your flesh, you mean that they are a continuous problem to you or annoy you.
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.