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20-letter words containing o, a, t, l, i

  • environment variable — (programming, operating system)   A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and substituting its value. Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inheritted by a child process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the type of shell being used. These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program. To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh prompt. In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with new bindings when a function's parameters are bound to its actual arguments or when new variables are declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of activation records.
  • environmental health — the issues dealt with by the Environmental Health Department of a local authority, such as prevention of the spread of communicable diseases, food safety and hygiene, control of infestation by insects or rodents, etc
  • environmental impact — the impact on the environment created by an industry, service, plan, or project
  • epitaxial transistor — a transistor made by depositing a thin pure layer of semiconductor material (epitaxial layer) onto a crystalline support by epitaxy. The layer acts as one of the electrode regions, usually the collector
  • equalization payment — a financial grant made by the federal government to a poorer province in order to facilitate a level of services equal to that of a richer province
  • equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
  • equivalence relation — (mathematics)   A relation R on a set including elements a, b, c, which is reflexive (a R a), symmetric (a R b => b R a) and transitive (a R b R c => a R c). An equivalence relation defines an equivalence class. See also partial equivalence relation.
  • essential amino acid — an amino acid that cannot be synthesized in the body and is thus an essential component of the diet
  • essential complexity — (programming)   A measure of the "structuredness" of a program.
  • estrela mountain dog — a sturdy well-built dog of a Portuguese breed with a long thick coat and a thick tuft of hair round the neck, often used as a guard dog
  • explication de texte — a close textual analysis of a literary work
  • extensional equality — (Or extensionality). Functions, f and g are extensionally equal if and only if f x = g x for all x. where "=" means both expressions fail to terminate (under some given reduction strategy) or they both terminate with the same basic value. Two functions may be extensionally equal but not inter-convertible (neither is reducible to the other). E.g. \ x . x+x and \ x . 2*x. See also observational equivalence, referential transparency.
  • external respiration — exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across external or respiratory surfaces, as gills or lungs, in multicellular organisms
  • federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
  • federation of malaya — a federation of the nine Malay States of the Malay Peninsula and two of the Straits Settlements (Malacca and Penang): formed in 1948: became part of the British Commonwealth in 1957 and joined Malaysia in 1963
  • fermentation alcohol — alcohol (def 1).
  • fermentation-alcohol — Also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, ethanol, fermentation alcohol. a colorless, limpid, volatile, flammable, water-miscible liquid, C 2 H 5 OH, having an etherlike odor and pungent, burning taste, the intoxicating principle of fermented liquors, produced by yeast fermentation of certain carbohydrates, as grains, molasses, starch, or sugar, or obtained synthetically by hydration of ethylene or as a by-product of certain hydrocarbon syntheses: used chiefly as a solvent in the extraction of specific substances, in beverages, medicines, organic synthesis, lotions, tonics, colognes, rubbing compounds, as an automobile radiator antifreeze, and as a rocket fuel. Compare denatured alcohol, methyl alcohol.
  • fight tooth and nail — fight fiercely
  • file descriptor leak — (programming)   (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
  • financial accounting — the work of preparing financial statements showing the financial performance of an organization for the benefit of people outside the organization and not involved in its day-to-day operation
  • financial consultant — A financial consultant is the same as a financial adviser.
  • financial controller — a senior executive in usually commercial organization who is in charge of financial affairs and oversees such things as the preparation of budgets and accounts
  • first earl of cromer — 1st Earl of, Evelyn Baring.
  • five-a-side football — a version of soccer with five players in each team
  • flight data recorder — a recording device that records relevant data during an aircraft's flight
  • florence nightingale — Florence ("the Lady with the Lamp") 1820–1910, English nurse: reformer of hospital conditions and procedures; reorganizer of nurse's training programs.
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
  • for all one is worth — good or important enough to justify (what is specified): advice worth taking; a place worth visiting.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • fore-and-aft topsail — gaff topsail (def 1).
  • forty-ninth parallel — an informal name for the Canadian border with the USA, which is in part delineated by the parallel line of latitude at 49°N
  • fourth international — a loose federation of small groups of radical socialists formed in 1936 under the leadership of Leon Trotsky and hostile to the Soviet Union. Compare international (def 6).
  • fractionating column — a long vertical cylinder used in fractional distillation, in which internal reflux enables separation of high and low boiling fractions to take place
  • frankfurt horizontal — Craniometry. the plane established when right and left poria and left orbitale are in the same horizontal plane.
  • frequency modulation — FM.
  • fridtjof nansen land — Franz Josef Land.
  • front-end volatility — Front-end volatility is the ability of the fractions with lower boiling points, such as butane, to evaporate at normal temperatures.
  • fulminate of mercury — a gray, crystalline solid, Hg(CNO) 2 , used chiefly in the manufacture of commercial and military detonators.
  • fulminating compound — a fulminate.
  • function application — A function applied to (some of) its arguments. If it is not applied to all its argument then it is a "partial application". Application is usually written in the form f(x) but some languages such as command-line interpreters and many functional languages use juxtaposition: f x. Lisp places the parentheses around the whole application: (f x).
  • gaff-topsail catfish — a sea catfish, Bagre marinus, occurring in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from Cape Cod to Panama, and having the spine of the dorsal fin greatly prolonged and flattened.
  • general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
  • general practitioner — a medical practitioner whose practice is not limited to any specific branch of medicine or class of diseases. Abbreviation: G.P.
  • generative phonology — a theory of phonology that uses a set of rules to derive phonetic representations from abstract underlying forms.
  • genetically modified — biologically altered
  • geological timescale — any division of geological time into chronological units, whether relative (with units in the correct temporal sequence) or absolute (with numerical ages attached)
  • get away from it all — If you get away from it all, you have a holiday in a place that is very different from where you normally live and work.
  • glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
  • go like the clappers — to move extremely fast
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