27-letter words containing o, d, b, a
- keep body and soul together — the physical structure and material substance of an animal or plant, living or dead.
- keep one's head above water — If you keep your head above water, you just avoid getting into difficulties; used especially to talk about business.
- know (or read) like a book — to know well or fully
- laban dance notation system — a system of movement notation, using symbols on a staff, that records the parts of a dancer's body, direction inspace, dynamics, and tempo for all kinds of movement: used to record and reconstruct forms of dance and movement.
- metallic wood-boring beetle — any of numerous metallic green, blue, copper, or black beetles of the family Buprestidae, the larvae of which bore into the wood of trees.
- monoamine oxidase inhibitor — any of various substances, as isocarboxazid and phenelzine, that block enzymatic breakdown of certain monoamine neurotransmitters: used to treat severe depression. Abbreviation: MAOI.
- object relational modelling — object relational mapping
- object-oriented programming — (programming) (OOP) The use of a class of programming languages and techniques based on the concept of an "object" which is a data structure (abstract data type) encapsulated with a set of routines, called "methods", which operate on the data. Operations on the data can only be performed via these methods, which are common to all objects that are instances of a particular "class". Thus the interface to objects is well defined, and allows the code implementing the methods to be changed so long as the interface remains the same. Each class is a separate module and has a position in a "class hierarchy". Methods or code in one class can be passed down the hierarchy to a subclass or inherited from a superclass. This is called "inheritance". A procedure call is described as invoking a method on an object (which effectively becomes the procedure's first argument), and may optionally include other arguments. The method name is looked up in the object's class to find out how to perform that operation on the given object. If the method is not defined for the object's class, it is looked for in its superclass and so on up the class hierarchy until it is found or there is no higher superclass. OOP started with SIMULA-67 around 1970 and became all-pervasive with the advent of C++, and later Java. Another popular object-oriented programming language (OOPL) is Smalltalk, a seminal example from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Others include Ada, Object Pascal, Objective C, DRAGOON, BETA, Emerald, POOL, Eiffel, Self, Oblog, ESP, LOOPS, POLKA, and Python. Other languages, such as Perl and VB, permit, but do not enforce OOP.
- one's (own) flesh and blood — one's close relatives
- polymorphic lambda-calculus — (language, types) (Or "second order typed lambda-calculus", "System F", "Lambda-2"). An extension of typed lambda-calculus allowing functions which take types as parameters. E.g. the polymorphic function "twice" may be written: twice = /\ t . \ (f :: t -> t) . \ (x :: t) . f (f x) (where "/\" is an upper case Greek lambda and "(v :: T)" is usually written as v with subscript T). The parameter t will be bound to the type to which twice is applied, e.g.: twice Int takes and returns a function of type Int -> Int. (Actual type arguments are often written in square brackets [ ]). Function twice itself has a higher type: twice :: Delta t . (t -> t) -> (t -> t) (where Delta is an upper case Greek delta). Thus /\ introduces an object which is a function of a type and Delta introduces a type which is a function of a type. Polymorphic lambda-calculus was invented by Jean-Yves Girard in 1971 and independently by John C. Reynolds in 1974.
- pour oil on troubled waters — any of a large class of substances typically unctuous, viscous, combustible, liquid at ordinary temperatures, and soluble in ether or alcohol but not in water: used for anointing, perfuming, lubricating, illuminating, heating, etc.
- product liability insurance — Product liability insurance is insurance for a producer or supplier of goods against injury to third parties or loss of or damage to their property that is caused by a fault in the goods.
- public broadcasting service — a network of independent, noncommercial television stations that operate with public and government funding instead of with revenues from advertising. Abbreviation: PBS.
- public service broadcasting — publicly-funded broadcasting
- public works administration — the U.S. federal agency (1933–44) that instituted and administered projects for the construction of public works. Abbreviation: PWA, P.W.A.
- put one's best foot forward — (in vertebrates) the terminal part of the leg, below the ankle joint, on which the body stands and moves.
- rise/raise sb from the dead — When Christians say that Jesus Christ rose from the dead or raised someone from the dead, they mean that Jesus came back to life after he had died, or brought a dead person back to life.
- serbs, croats, and slovenes — former name (1918–29) of Yugoslavia.
- someone's days are numbered — If you say that someone's or something's days are numbered, you mean that they will not survive or be successful for much longer.
- the hunchback of notre dame — French Notre Dame de Paris. a novel (1831) by Victor Hugo.
- the odds are in sb's favour — If you say that the odds are in someone's favour, you mean that they are likely to succeed in what they are doing.
- to be suspended on full pay — if someone is suspended on full pay they are temporarily barred from work (due to misconduct, etc) while receiving full salary
- to build up a head of steam — to develop power
- to know something backwards — In British English, if you say that someone knows something backwards, you are emphasizing that they know it very well. In American English, you say that someone knows something backward and forward.
- to make your blood run cold — If you say that something makes your blood run cold or makes your blood freeze, you mean that it makes you feel very frightened.
- to rule sb with a high hand — to behave imperiously towards someone