21-letter words containing o, c, t, a
- to change the subject — When someone involved in a conversation changes the subject, they start talking about something else, often because the previous subject was embarrassing.
- to fly in the face of — If an action or belief flies in the face of accepted ideas or rules, it seems to completely oppose or contradict them.
- to get back to basics — to revert to a simpler method, eg of living or doing business
- to kick someone's ass — To kick ass or to kick someone's ass means to show them that you are angry with them, either by telling them or by using physical force.
- to kill a mockingbird — a novel (1960) by Harper Lee.
- to play second fiddle — If you play second fiddle to someone, your position is less important than theirs in something that you are doing together.
- to play the race card — if someone plays the race card they bring up the issue of race in a discussion, perhaps for sympathy or to seek popularity by appealing to racist sentiment
- to sink without trace — If you say that someone or something sinks without trace or sinks without a trace, you mean that they stop existing or stop being successful very suddenly and completely.
- tool command language — (language) /tik*l/ (Tcl) An interpreted string processing language for issuing commands to interactive programs, developed by John Ousterhout at UCB. Each application program can extend tcl with its own set of commands. Tcl is like a text-oriented Lisp, but lets you write algebraic expressions for simplicity and to avoid scaring people away. Though originally designed to be a "scripting language" rather than for serious programming, Tcl has been used successfully for programs with hundreds of thousands of lines. It has a peculiar but simple syntax. It may be used as an embedded interpreter in application programs. It has exceptions and packages (called libraries), name-spaces for procedures and variables, and provide/require. It supports dynamic loading of object code. It is eight-bit clean. It has only three variable types: strings, lists and associative arrays but no structures. Tcl and its associated GUI toolkit, Tk run on all flavors of Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and VMS. Tcl runs on the Amiga and many other platforms. See also expect (control interactive programs and pattern match on their output), Cygnus Tcl Tools, [incr Tcl] (adds classes and inheritence to Tcl), Scriptics (John Ousterhout's company that is the home of Tcl development and the TclPro tool suite), Tcl Consortium (a non-profit agency dedicated to promoting Tcl), tclhttpd (an embeddable Tcl-based web server), tclx (adds many commands to Tcl), tcl-debug.
- topgallant forecastle — a partial weather deck on top of a forecastle superstructure; forecastle deck.
- topological invariant — a property of a topological space that is a property of every space related to the given space by a homeomorphism.
- total recoverable gas — Total recoverable gas is the amount of gas which is still left in the ground in gas fields that have already been worked.
- total recoverable oil — Total recoverable oil is the amount of oil which is still left in the ground in oilfields that have already been worked.
- trades union congress — The Trades Union Congress in Britain is the same as the TUC.
- traffic control tower — an elevated structure for the visual observation and control of the air and ground traffic at an airport
- trichloroacetaldehyde — chloral (def 1).
- trichloronitromethane — chloropicrin.
- tumor necrosis factor — a protein, produced in humans and other animals, that is destructive to cells showing abnormally rapid growth: identical with cachectin. Abbreviation: TNF.
- union of south africa — former name for South Africa, Republic of.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- vacation bible school — a religious school conducted by some churches during the summer for students on vacation.
- voice-stress analyzer — a machine purported to detect stress in a human voice and to ascertain a person's truthfulness.
- voluntary association — a group of individuals joined together on the basis of mutual interest or common objectives, especially a business group that is not organized or constituted as a legal entity.
- volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.
- warm silence software — A small company run by(?) Robin Watts, producing software for the Acorn Archimedes.
- water of constitution — water present in a molecule that cannot be removed without disrupting the molecule.
- what price something? — what are the chances of something happening now?
- white-crowned sparrow — a North American sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys, having black and white stripes on the head.
- william the conqueror — ("the Conqueror") 1027–87, duke of Normandy 1035–87; king of England 1066–87 (son of Robert I, duke of Normandy).
- without qualification — If something is stated or accepted without qualification, it is stated or accepted as it is, without the need for any changes.
- word association test — a technique for determining a subject's associative pattern by providing a verbal stimulus to which a verbal response is required.
- word-association test — a psychological test in which the person being tested responds to a given word with the first word (or the first word in a specified category, such as an antonym) brought to mind
- workers' compensation — a government-sponsored insurance system, funded by contributions from employers, for compensating employees for injury or occupational disease suffered in connection with their employment
- writ of habeas corpus — law: petition for hearing
- x-ray crystallography — the determination of the structure of a crystal by the use of x-ray diffraction.
- youth training scheme — (formerly, in Britain) a scheme, run by the Training Agency, to provide vocational training for unemployed 16–17-year-olds