0%

22-letter words containing o, h, r, i

  • local exchange carrier — (communications)   (LEC) A company allowed to handle local calls following the break-up of the Bell system in the US by anti-trust regulators. These vary from Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) through to small independents such as Farmers Cooperative. Local exchange carriers are not allowed to handle long-distance traffic. This is handled by inter-exchange carriers (IXC) who are not allowed to handle local calls.
  • lord high commissioner — the Queen's representative
  • love-hate relationship — If you have a love-hate relationship with someone or something, your feelings towards them change suddenly and often from love to hate.
  • magnetic pole strength — Electricity. a measure of the force exerted by one face of a magnet on a face of another magnet when both magnets are represented by equal and opposite poles. Symbol: m.
  • make a beeline for sth — If you make a beeline for a place, you go to it as quickly and directly as possible.
  • matrix math extensions — (processor)   (MMX) (NOT an acronym for "MultiMedia eXtension", according to Intel, but an Intel brand name) A set of 57 extra instructions built into some versions of Intel's Pentium microprocessors for supporting SIMD operations on multimedia and communications data types. MMX-enhanced processors are due to be released early in 1997. They will be fully compatible with previous Intel processors and software but software will only benefit if it is written to use the new instructions. They can handle many common multimedia operations, such as digital signal processing, normally handled by a separate sound card or video card.
  • mcculloch-pitts neuron — (artificial intelligence)   The basic building block of artificial neural networks. It receives one or more inputs and produces one or more identical outputs, each of which is a simple non-linear function of the sum of the inputs to the neuron. The non-linear function is typically a threshhold or step function which is usually smoothed (i.e. a sigmoid) to facilitate learning.
  • microspectrophotometer — a spectrophotometer for examining light emitted, transmitted, or reflected by minute objects.
  • microspectrophotometry — a spectrophotometer for examining light emitted, transmitted, or reflected by minute objects.
  • mohammed al-khawarizmi — Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
  • mother carey's chicken — any of various small petrels, especially the stormy petrel, Oceanites oceanicus.
  • neighborhood bike code — (humour, programming)   A piece of code that every programmer at the company has touched.
  • neither here nor there — in this place; in this spot or locality (opposed to there): Put the pen here.
  • nigger in the woodpile — a hidden snag or hindrance
  • nitrohydrochloric acid — aqua regia.
  • nonspecific urethritis — nongonococcal urethritis.
  • north atlantic current — an ocean current flowing NE toward the British Isles, formed by the convergence of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current SE of Newfoundland.
  • north rhine-westphalia — a state in W Germany; formerly a part of Rhine province. 13,154 sq. mi. (34,070 sq. km). Capital: Düsseldorf.
  • oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • obligational authority — the necessary authority that precedes budget spending by a government agency or department, granted by Congress through appropriations.
  • occupational therapist — professional who assists with rehabilitation
  • oceanic whitetip shark — whitetip shark (def 2).
  • of the first magnitude — of the greatest importance
  • on a shoestring budget — with very little money to spend
  • one's foot in the door — (in vertebrates) the terminal part of the leg, below the ankle joint, on which the body stands and moves.
  • other side of the coin — a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as money.
  • otorhinolaryngological — of or relating to the medical practice involving the ear, nose, and throat.
  • ousterhout's dichotomy — (language)   John Ousterhout's division of high-level languages into "system programming languages" and "scripting languages". This distinction underlies the design of his language Tcl. System programming languages (or "applications languages") are strongly typed, allow arbitrarily complex data structures, and programs in them are compiled, and are meant to operate largely independently of other programs. Prototypical system programming languages are C and Modula-2. By contrast, scripting languages (or "glue languages") are weakly typed or untyped, have little or no provision for complex data structures, and programs in them ("scripts") are interpreted. Scripts need to interact either with other programs (often as glue) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the file system functions provided in a UNIX shell and with Tcl's GUI functions. Prototypical scripting languages are AppleScript, C Shell, MS-DOS batch files and Tcl. Many believe that this is a highly arbitrary dichotomy, and refer to it as "Ousterhout's fallacy" or "Ousterhout's false dichotomy". While strong-versus-weak typing, data structure complexity, and independent versus stand-alone might be said to be unrelated features, the usual critique of Ousterhout's dichotomy is of its distinction of compilation versus interpretation, since neither semantics nor syntax depend significantly on whether code is compiled into machine-language, interpreted, tokenized, or byte-compiled at the start of each run, or any mixture of these. Many languages fall between being interpreted or compiled (e.g. Lisp, Forth, UCSD Pascal, Perl, and Java). This makes compilation versus interpretation a dubious parameter in a taxonomy of programming languages.
  • pale horse, pale rider — a trilogy of short novels (1939) by Katherine Anne Porter.
  • paranoid schizophrenia — severe psychiatric disorder
  • paroxysmal tachycardia — tachycardia that begins and subsides suddenly.
  • partial-birth abortion — (term used chiefly by opponents of abortion) D & C.
  • partnerships for peace — a subsidiary organization of NATO, comprising former Warsaw Pact countries that wish to be allied with NATO but have not been granted full NATO membership: established in 1994
  • personal relationships — relationships between people, especially those between friends, lovers and family members
  • phosphorus trichloride — a clear, colorless, fuming liquid, PCl 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis as a chlorinating agent.
  • physiographic province — a geographic region in which climate and geology have given rise to an array of landforms different from those of surrounding regions.
  • play one's cards right — a usually rectangular piece of stiff paper, thin pasteboard, or plastic for various uses, as to write information on or printed as a means of identifying the holder: a 3″ × 5″ file card; a membership card.
  • polymyalgia rheumatica — a chronic inflammatory disease, common among older persons, characterized by recurrent episodes of muscle pain and stiffness, sometimes leading to cardiovascular complications or blindness.
  • poor richard's almanac — an almanac (1732–58) written and published by Benjamin Franklin.
  • preestablished harmony — (in the philosophy of Leibnitz) synchronous operation of all monads, since their simultaneous creation, in accordance with the preexisting plan of God.
  • process cinematography — cinematography in which the main or foreground action or scene is superimposed on or combined with simulated or separately filmed background action or scenery to produce special visual effects.
  • prothonotary apostolic — a member of the first college of prelates of the Roman Curia.
  • psychological thriller — book, movie: suspense story
  • public housing project — a group of homes for poorer families which is funded and controlled by the local government
  • pull/bring sb up short — If something pulls you up short or brings you up short, it makes you suddenly stop what you are doing.
  • put the frighteners on — to intimidate
  • quantum chromodynamics — a quantum field theory that describes quarks and gluons and their interactions, with the color of the quarks playing a role analogous to that of electric charge. Abbreviation: QCD. Also called chromodynamics. Compare color (def 18).
  • reactive schizophrenia — a type of schizophrenia of rapid onset and brief duration that occurs in response to environmental factors.
  • recreational therapist — someone who specializes in therapy by means of recreational activities engaged in by the patient
  • registered shareholder — someone who holds or owns a stock registered to their name
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?