20-letter words containing n, u, v
- surface-active agent — any substance that when dissolved in water or an aqueous solution reduces its surface tension or the interfacial tension between it and another liquid.
- surveillance society — a society where surveillance technology is widely used to monitor people's everyday activities
- thermal conductivity — the amount of heat per unit time per unit area that can be conducted through a plate of unit thickness of a given material, the faces of the plate differing by one unit of temperature.
- travelling-wave tube — an electronic tube in which an electron beam interacts with a distributed high-frequency magnetic field so that energy is transferred from the beam to the field
- trustee savings bank — a British financial institution which offered savings facilities for small investors and was managed by unpaid trustees. Depositors had no voting rights and no say in financial or managerial matters. The bank is now a public limited company with the same rights and services as other banks and only retains the title in the abbreviated form TSB.
- turn over a new leaf — one of the expanded, usually green organs borne by the stem of a plant.
- twelve-string guitar — an acoustic guitar having twelve strings instead of six, with each pair tuned an octave apart, and more difficult to play than the standard guitar.
- universal quantifier — a quantifier indicating that the sentential function within its scope is true for all values of any variable included in the quantifier.
- universal serial bus — (hardware, standard) (USB) An external peripheral interface standard for communication between a computer and external peripherals over an inexpensive cable using biserial transmission. USB is intended to replace existing serial ports, parallel ports, keyboard, and monitor connectors and be used with keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, and possibly some low-speed scanners and removable hard drives. For faster devices existing IDE, SCSI, or emerging FC-AL or FireWire interfaces can be used. USB works at 12 Mbps with specific consideration for low cost peripherals. It supports up to 127 devices and both isochronous and asynchronous data transfers. Cables can be up to five metres long and it includes built-in power distribution for low power devices. It supports daisy chaining through a tiered star multidrop topology. A USB cable has a rectangular "Type A" plug at the computer end and a square "Type B" plug at the peripheral end. Before March 1996 Intel started to integrate the necessary logic into PC chip sets and encourage other manufacturers to do likewise. It was widely available by 1997. Later versions of Windows 95 included support for it. It was standard on Macintosh computers in 1999. The USB 2.0 specification was released in 2000 to allow USB to compete with Firewire etc. USB 2.0 is backward compatible with USB 1.1 but works at 480 Mbps.
- university education — a course of study undertaken and completed at a university
- university extension — a system by which an institution provides educational programs, as evening classes, for students otherwise unable to attend.
- university of durham — (body, education) A busy research and teaching community in the historic cathedral city of Durham, UK (population 61000). Its work covers key branches of science and technology and traditional areas of scholarship. Durham graduates are in great demand among employers and the University helps to attract investment into the region. It provides training, short courses, and expertise for industry. Through its cultural events, conferences, tourist business and as a major employer, the University contributes in a wide social and economic sense to the community. Founded in 1832, the University developed in Durham and Newcastle until 1963 when the independent University of Newcastle upon Tyne came into being. Durham is a collegiate body, with 14 Colleges or Societies which are a social and domestic focus for students. In 1992, the Universities of Durham and Teesside launched University College, Stockton-on-Tees, which has 190 students in the first year.
- university of hawaii — (body, education) A University spread over 10 campuses on 4 islands throughout the state. See also Aloha, Aloha Net.
- university of twente — (body, education) A university in the east of The Netherlands for technical and social sciences. It was founded in 1961, making it one of the youngest universities in The Netherlands. It has 7000 students studying Applied Educational Science; Applied Mathematics; Applied Physics; Chemical Technology; Computer Science; Electrical Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Philosophy of science, Technology and Society; Educational Technology.
- university professor — a professor entitled to teach courses in more than one field or discipline at a university.
- viscount northcliffe — Viscount, Alfred Charles William Harmsworth.
- visual merchandising — Visual merchandising is the use of attractive displays and floor plans to increase customer numbers and sales volumes.
- visually handicapped — unable to carry out normal activities because of defects of vision, including blindness
- vitoria de conquista — a city in Bahía state, E central Brazil.
- vocational education — educational training that provides practical experience in a particular occupational field, as agriculture, home economics, or industry.
- voluntary euthanasia — the act of killing someone painlessly, esp to relieve suffering from an incurable illness, with their consent
- voluntary redundancy — a financial package to encourage employees to voluntarily leave an organization that needs to restructure
- woman of easy virtue — a sexually available woman, esp a prostitute