24-letter words containing o, i, l, a, m
- master-slave manipulator — any of various devices, guided by the hand of the operator, for imitating the motions and tactile sensitivity of the human hand to a greater or lesser extent: used in situations in which direct handling of the objects or materials involved would be dangerous or impossible.
- mathematical expectation — Mathematics. the product of the probability of the occurrence of an event and the value associated with the occurrence of a given event.
- mathematical probability — the probability of an event consisting of n out of m possible equally likely occurrences, defined to be n/m
- mediterranean flour moth — a small cosmopolitan moth, Anagasta kuehniella, whose larvae damage stored foodstuffs, as grain and flour.
- medium-scale integration — MSI.
- meteorological satellite — an artificial satellite that gathers data concerning the earth's atmosphere and surface in order to aid meteorologists in understanding weather patterns and producing weather forecasts.
- michael viii palaeologus — 1234–1282, Byzantine ruler 1259–82, first of the Palaeologus emperors.
- minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
- multiple virtual storage — (operating system) (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
- multiple-valued function — function (def 4b).
- multistation access unit — Media Access Unit
- mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
- near field communication — a short-range wireless communication system that uses radio waves to enable a phone or other mobile device to interact with another device or card reader: Near Field Communication essentially lets your phone replace your credit cards. Abbreviation: NFC.
- negative acknowledgement — 1. (character) (NAK) The mnemonic for ASCII character 21. Sometimes used as the response to receipt of a corrupted packet of information. Opposite of acknowledgement. 2. (communications) (NAK) Any message transmitted to indicate that some data has been received incorrectly, for example it may have a checksum or message length error. A NAK message allows the sender to distinguish a message which has been received in a corrupted state from one which is not received at all. An alternative is to use only ACK messages, in which case the non-receipt of an ACK after a certain time is counted as a NAK but gives no information about the integrity of the communications channel. See also ACK.
- new programming language — (language) (NEWP) A language which replaced ESPOL on the Burroughs Large System.
- northern mariana islands — a US commonwealth territory in the N Pacific, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1947–87). Capital: Saipan island (Capitol Hill). Pop: 51 170 (2013 est). Area: 477 sq km (184 sq miles)
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- orbital angular momentum — the component of angular momentum of an electron in an atom or a nucleon in a nucleus, arising from its orbital motion rather than from its spin.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- parliamentary government — government by a body of cabinet ministers who are chosen from and responsible to the legislature and act as advisers to a nominal chief of state.
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- permeability coefficient — the volume of an incompressible fluid that will flow in unit time through a unit cube of a porous substance across which a unit pressure difference is maintained
- photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
- physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
- polymer matrix composite — A polymer matrix composite is a material consisting of a composite made stronger by adding fibers or particles to it.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- program information file — (file format) Under Windows, a file providing information on how a non-Windows application program should be run, including how much memory should be allocated to it and what graphics interface it requires.
- programmable array logic — (hardware) (PAL) A family of fuse-programmable logic integrated circuits originally developed by MMI. Registered or combinatorial output functions are modelled in a sum of products form. Each output is a sum (logical or) of a fixed number of products (logical and) of the input signals. This structure is well suited for automatic generation of programming patterns by logic compilers. PAL devices are programmed by blowing the fuses permanently using overvoltage. Today, more complex devices based on the same original architecture are available (CPLD's for Complex PLD's) that incorporate the equivalent of several original PAL chips. PAL chips are, however, still popular due to their high speed.
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- rational-emotive therapy — a form of therapy in which a patient is asked to reject irrational attitudes and assumptions in order to deal effectively with stressful situations.
- read someone like a book — to understand a person, or his motives, character, etc, thoroughly and clearly
- recommended retail price — the selling price of a product officially suggested by a manufacturer to a retailer
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- simultaneous translation — a form of translation in which the interpreter translates into the target language as quickly as possible while the speaker is still speaking in the source language
- solution based modelling — (SBM) A software development process described in the book "Developing Object-Oriented Software for the Macintosh" written by Neal Goldstein and Jeff Alger, published by Addison Wesley in 1992.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- tagged image file format — (file format, graphics) (TIFF) A file format used for still-image bitmaps, stored in tagged fields. Application programs can use the tags to accept or ignore fields, depending on their capabilities. While TIFF was designed to be extensible, it lacked a core of useful functionality, so that most useful functions (e.g. lossless 24-bit colour) requires nonstandard, often redundant, extensions. The incompatibility of extensions has led some to expand "TIFF" as "Thousands of Incompatible File Formats". Compare GIF, PNG, JPEG.
- the last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
- the realm of possibility — If you say that something is not beyond the realms of possibility, you mean that it is possible.
- the whole shooting match — everything; the whole lot
- to lay something to rest — If you lay something such as fears or rumours to rest or if you put them to rest, you succeed in proving that they are not true.
- to make up for lost time — If someone is making up for lost time, they are doing something actively and with enthusiasm because they have not had the opportunity to do it before or when they were younger.