22-letter words containing o, m, i, t, s
- 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
- of the first magnitude — of the greatest importance
- on someone's coattails — the back of the skirt on a man's coat or jacket.
- open-market operations — the purchase and sale on the open market of government securities by the Bank of England for the purpose of regulating the supply of money and credit to the economy
- operation desert storm — the codename for the US-led UN operation to liberate Kuwait from Iraq (1991)
- 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.
- parker morris standard — (in Britain) a set of minimum criteria for good housing construction, design, and facilities, recommended by the 1961 report of the Central Housing Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Parker Morris. Subsequent governments have urged private and local authority house-builders to achieve these standards
- paroxysmal tachycardia — tachycardia that begins and subsides suddenly.
- philip the magnanimous — 1504–67, German prince; landgrave of Hesse (1509–67). He helped to crush (1525) the Peasants' Revolt and formed (1531) the League of Schmalkaden, an alliance of German Protestant rulers
- planetary transmission — A planetary transmission is a special form of geared drive in which the input and output shafts are on the same axis.
- pneumocystis pneumonia — a pulmonary infection caused by the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii, occurring as an opportunistic disease in persons with impaired immune systems, as AIDS victims. Abbreviation: PCP.
- point of sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
- point-of-sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
- positive reinforcement — encouragement
- post office department — former name of United States Postal Service.
- postmortem examination — dissection and examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death
- potassium ferricyanide — a bright-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 , used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, as Prussian blue, and of paper, especially blueprint paper.
- potassium ferrocyanide — a lemon-yellow, crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in casehardening alloys having an iron base and in dyeing wool and silk.
- potassium permanganate — a very dark purple, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KMnO 4 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent, disinfectant, laboratory reagent, and in medicine as an astringent and antiseptic.
- potassium-argon dating — a method for estimating the age of a mineral or rock, based on measurement of the rate of decay of radioactive potassium into argon.
- 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.
- program transformation — The systematic development of efficient programs from high-level specifications by meaning-preserving program manipulations. Also known as optimisation. See fusion, loop combination, peephole optimisation, register allocation, tupling, unfold/fold.
- programmed instruction — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
- protestant reformation — reformation (def 2).
- public domain software — public domain
- pulmonary tuberculosis — tuberculosis of the lungs.
- pyridostigmine bromide — a cholinesterase inhibitor, C 9 H 1 3 BrN 2 O 2 , used in its bromide form in the treatment of myasthenia gravis.
- 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).
- raster image processor — (application, printer) (RIP) A device (usually hardware but can be software) that takes a Page Description Language description of a page and converts it into a bitmap for printing.
- recruitment consultant — A recruitment consultant is a person or service that helps professional people to find work by introducing them to potential employers.
- relationship marketing — a marketing strategy in which a company seeks to build long-term relationships with its customers by providing consistent satisfaction
- remote access services — (communications) (RAS) A service provided by Windows NT which allows most of the services which would be available on a network to be accessed over a modem link. The service includes support for dialup and logon, and then presents the same network interface as the normal network drivers (albeit slightly slower!). It is not necessary to run Windows NT on the client - there are client versions for other Windows operating systems.
- replacement cost basis — Replacement cost basis is a method of valuing insured property in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
- resistance thermometer — an instrument for measuring the temperature of a metal, utilizing the principle that the electrical resistance of the metal varies with the temperature.
- respond to a complaint — If you respond to a complaint, you answer a customer who expressed their dissatisfaction with something.
- reverse discrimination — the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities.
- revolutions per minute — (unit) (rpm, rarely: rotations per minute) A unit of angular velocity equal to 1/60 of a revolution per second.
- rheumatoid spondylitis — ankylosing spondylitis.
- rocky mountain oysters — mountain oyster.
- sales force automation — (business) (Sales Automation, SFA, SFFA, Sales & Field Force Automation) Software to support sales reps. The software gives sales representitives access to contacts, appointments and e-mail. It is likely to be integrated with Customer Relationship Management systems and Opportunity Management Systems.
- santiago de compostela — a city in and the capital of Chile, in the central part.
- sarcoplasmic reticulum — a system of membrane-bound tubules that surrounds muscle fibrils, releasing calcium ions during contraction and absorbing them during relaxation.
- satisfiability problem — A problem used as an example in complexity theory. It can be stated thus: Given a Boolean expression E, decide if there is some assignment to the variables in E such that E is true. A Boolean expression is composed of Boolean variables, (logical) negation (NOT), (logical) conjunction (AND) and parentheses for grouping. The satisfiability problem was the first problem to be proved to be NP-complete (by Cook).
- scientific creationism — the belief that the account of creation in the early chapters of Genesis is scientifically as well as religiously valid and that it can be supported by scientific evidence apart from scriptural authority.
- selective transmission — a transmission in which the available forward and reverse gears may be engaged in any order, without passing progressively through the different changes of gear.
- senior master sergeant — a noncommissioned officer ranking above a master sergeant and below a chief master sergeant. Abbreviation: SMSgt.
- side-impact protection — a device that is intended to protect a car and its passengers in the event of a collision at the side
- simple harmonic motion — vibratory motion in a system in which the restoring force is proportional to the displacement from equilibrium. Abbreviation: S.H.M., s.h.m.
- simultaneous broadcast — a programme, etc, broadcast simultaneously on radio and television