23-letter words containing o, n, a, t
- differential psychology — the branch of psychology dealing with the study of characteristic differences or variations of groups or individuals, especially through the use of analytic techniques and statistical methods.
- direct characterization — the process by which the personality of a fictitious character is revealed by the use of descriptive adjectives, phrases, or epithets.
- direct primary election — a preliminary election at which candidates for public office are chosen by direct vote of the people instead of by delegates at a convention: in closed primary elections voters must declare party affiliation and may vote only for candidates of their party
- discontinuous variation — variation in phenotypic traits in which types are grouped into discrete categories with few or no intermediate phenotypes. Compare continuous variation.
- discrimination learning — a learning process in which an organism learns to react differently to different stimuli
- disintegration constant — decay constant.
- disjunctive normal form — (DNF) A logical formula consisting of a disjunction of conjunctions where no conjunction contains a disjunction. E.g. the DNF of (A or B) and C is (A and C) or (B and C).
- dissociate oneself from — to deny or repudiate any connection with
- dissociative extraction — Dissociative extraction is when a component is divided between two liquids, which involves breakdown of the component.
- do someone's heart good — to make someone happy; please someone
- dollar (cost) averaging — see average (sense 11)
- draw/make a distinction — If you draw a distinction or make a distinction, you say that two things are different.
- drawing exchange format — (DXF) A file format for graphical information, similar to IGES. Commonly used by CAD systems like AutoCAD.
- drop into someone's lap — to cause to be someone's responsibility
- drummond of hawthornden — William. 1585–1649, Scottish poet, historian, and royalist pamphleteer
- dual sensory impairment — the condition of being affected by sight and hearing loss
- duplication of the cube — the insoluble problem of constructing a cube having twice the volume of a given cube, using only a ruler and compass.
- earthquake-proof design — Earthquake-proof design is design which will not be badly damaged by earthquakes or tsunamis.
- eastern lowland gorilla — the largest of the anthropoid apes, Gorilla gorilla, terrestrial and vegetarian, of western equatorial Africa and the Kivu highlands, comprising the subspecies G. g. gorilla (western lowland gorilla) G. g. graueri (eastern lowland gorilla) and G. g. beringei (mountain gorilla) now rare.
- eastern orthodox church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
- eating your own dogfood — eating one's own dogfood
- education correspondent — a journalist who reports news in the field of education or teaching
- electroencephalographer — A specialist in electroencephalography.
- electroencephalographic — Of or pertaining to electroencephalography or electroencephalographs.
- electron spin resonance — a technique for investigating paramagnetic substances by subjecting them to high-frequency radiation in a strong magnetic field. Changes in the spin of unpaired electrons cause radiation to be absorbed at certain frequencies
- electronic file cabinet — a device, controlled by software, for the storage and retrieval of information
- electronic mail address — (messaging) (Usually "e-mail address") The string used to specify the source or destination of an electronic mail message. E.g. "[email protected]". The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the Internet. X.400 was once used in Europe and Canada. UUCP-style (bang path) addresses or other kinds of source route became virtually extinct in the 1990s. In the example above, "john" is the local part which is the name of a mailbox on the destination computer. If the sender and recipient use the same computer, or the same LAN, for electronic mail then the local part is usually all that is required. If they use different computers, e.g. they work at different companies or use different Internet service providers, then the "host part", e.g. "sales.acme.com" must be appended after an "@". This usually takes the form of a fully qualified domain name or, within a large organisation, it may be just the hostname part, e.g. "sales". The destination computer named by the host part is usually a server of some kind rather than an individual's workstation or PC. The user's mail is stored on the server and read later via client mail software running on the user's computer. Large organisations, such as universities will often set up a global alias directory which maps a simple user name such as "jsmith" to an address which contains more information such as "[email protected]". This hides the detailed knowledge of where the message will be delivered from the sender, making it much easier to redirect mail if a user leaves or moves to a different department for example.
- electronic surveillance — use of electronic devices to spy, observe
- electrostatic generator — any device for producing a high voltage by building up a charge of static electricity
- electroweak interaction — a type of fundamental interaction combining both the electromagnetic interaction and the weak interaction
- embarrassment of riches — If you say that someone has an embarrassment of riches, you mean that they have so many good things that these things are a problem.
- embden-meyerhof pathway — the metabolic reaction sequence in glycolysis by which glucose is converted to pyruvic acid with production of ATP
- encapsulated postscript — (EPS) An extension of the PostScript graphics file format developed by Adobe Systems. EPS is used for PostScript graphics files that are to be incorporated into other documents. An EPS file includes pragmas (special PostScript comments) giving information such as the bounding box, page number and fonts used. On some computers, EPS files include a low resolution version of the PostScript image. On the Macintosh this is in PICT format, while on the IBM PC it is in TIFF or Microsoft Windows metafile format.
- endorsement advertising — the practice of saying that you approve of a company or product by appearing in advertisements for it
- entrance qualifications — academic requirements
- equivalent focal length — the ratio of the size of an image of a small distant object near the optical axis to the angular distance of the object in radians
- european monetary union — the agreement between members of the European Union to establish a common currency. The current participating members are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain
- execute channel program — (operating system) (EXCP) An IBM system for low-level file access, where the programmer is completely responsible for providing a list of device-specific "channel comands" to be executed by I/O channels, control units and/or devices. The operating system will simply check the "CCW" chains for security purposes (access invalid memory or outside of file extents) and then schedule them for execution.
- experimental psychology — the scientific study of the individual behaviour of man and other animals, esp of perception, learning, memory, motor skills, and thinking
- extended memory manager — (software, storage) (XMM) The memory manager software implementing Extended Memory Specification, such as HIMEM or QEMM386. XMM's can usually also act as A20 handlers.
- extraordinary rendition — the process by which a country seizes a person assumed to be involved in terrorist activity and then transports him or her for interrogation to a country where due process of law is unlikely to be respected
- extrasensory perception — Extrasensory perception means knowing without using your ordinary senses such as sight and hearing. Some people believe this is possible. The abbreviation ESP is also used.
- fall between two stools — If someone has fallen between two stools, they are unable to decide which of two courses of action to take and as a result they have not done either of them successfully.
- fall flat on one's face — to fail, esp in a ridiculous or humiliating manner
- fear-driven development — (jargon, humour) When project management adds more pressure (fires someone or something). A play on test-driven development.
- fendalton shopping cart — a four-wheel drive recreational vehicle
- ferric ammonium oxalate — a green, crystalline, water-soluble, synthetically produced powder, (NH 4) 3 Fe(C 2 O 4) 3 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in the manufacture of blueprint paper.
- field effect transistor — a transistor in which the output current is varied by varying the value of an electric field within a region of the device. Abbreviation: FET.
- field-effect transistor — a transistor in which the output current is varied by varying the value of an electric field within a region of the device. Abbreviation: FET.
- fifth marquis lansdowne — Henry Charles Keith, 5th Marquis of Lansdowne, Lansdowne, 5th Marquis of.