19-letter words containing o, n, e, a, c
- land of enchantment — New Mexico (used as a nickname).
- languages of choice — C and Lisp. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities. There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with Fortran, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They often prefer to be known as Real Programmers, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel"). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but HLL implementation, glue, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. Fortran occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. Most hackers tend to frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see bondage-and-discipline language), and to regard everything even remotely connected with COBOL or other traditional card walloper languages as a total and unmitigated loss.
- leading coefficient — the coefficient of the term of highest degree in a given polynomial. 5 is the leading coefficient in 5 x 3 + 3 x 2 − 2 x + 1.
- league championship — the competition to become league champions
- lean over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
- legislative council — the upper house of a bicameral legislature.
- leisure occupations — activities which you enjoy and which you perform in your free time
- leukoencephalopathy — (medicine) Any disease that effects the white matter of the brain.
- library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
- lift the curtain on — to begin
- line of demarcation — a separation between things deemed to be distinct
- local area terminal — (protocol) (LAT) A DECnet-related, non-routable network protocol.
- logical consequence — the relation that obtains between the conclusion and the premises of a formally valid argument
- logical unit number — (storage) (LUN) A 3-bit identifier used on a SCSI bus to distinguish between up to eight devices (logical units) with the same SCSI ID.
- loss-of-containment — Loss-of-containment happens when a fluid which is usually contained somewhere escapes from that place.
- lyon office of arms — Heralds' Office.
- macaroni and cheese — pasta with cheese sauce
- machine instruction — (programming) The smallest element of a machine code program.
- machine translation — changing language of a text by computer
- magnesium carbonate — a white powder, MgCO 3 , insoluble in water and alcohol, soluble in acids, used in dentifrices and cosmetics, in medicine as an antacid, and as a refractory material.
- magnetic levitation — the suspension of an object above or below a second object by means of magnetic repulsion or attraction.
- magnetic north pole — the point on Earth to where a compass needle points, and which is situated near the geographic North Pole. However, with time, the exact location can vary.
- magnetohydrodynamic — Of or pertaining to magnetohydrodynamics.
- magnetomotive force — a scalar quantity that is a measure of the sources of magnetic flux in a magnetic circuit. Abbreviation: mmf.
- major seventh chord — a chord much used in modern music, esp jazz and pop, consisting of a major triad with an added major seventh above the root
- make oneself scarce — insufficient to satisfy the need or demand; not abundant: Meat and butter were scarce during the war.
- malleable cast iron — white cast iron that has been malleablized.
- managed competition — a strategy for healthcare delivery whereby costs are reduced by fostering competition between providers of managed-care contracts for large employers.
- manchester autocode — (language, history) The predecessor of Mercury Autocode.
- manchester encoding — (communications, protocol) A method of transmitting bits which enables the receiver to easily synchronise with the sender. A simple way of signalling bits might be to transmit a high voltage for some period for a 1-bit and a low voltage for a 0 bit: Bits Sent: 1 1 0 0 Signal: High ___ Low |___ Time: -> . . . . . However, when several identical bits are sent in succession, this provides no information to the receiver about when each bit starts and stops. Manchester encoding splits each bit period into two, and ensures that there is always a transition between the signal levels in the middle of each bit. This allows the receiver to synchronise with the sender. In normal Manchester encoding, a 1-bit is transmitted with a high voltage in the first period, and a low voltage in the second, and vice verse for the 0 bit: Bits Sent: 1 1 0 0 Signal: High Low || |_| || Time: -> . ' . ' . ' . ' . In Differential Manchester encoding, a 1-bit is indicated by making the first half of the signal equal to the last half of the previous bit's signal and a 0-bit is indicated by making the first half of the signal opposite to the last half of the previous bit's signal. That is, a zero bit is indicated by a transition at the beginning of the bit. Like normal Manchester encoding, there is always a transition in the middle of the transmission of the bit. Differential Manchester Encoding Bits Sent: 1 1 0 0 Signal: High __ Low |_| || || Time: -> . ' . ' . ' . ' . With each bit period half as long, twice as much bandwidth is required when using either of the Manchester encoding schemes.
- maraschino cherries — cherries in a syrup flavored with maraschino or, now usually, imitation maraschino
- maratha confederacy — a loose league of states in central and western India, c1750–1818.
- mary mcleod bethune — Mary McLeod [muh-kloud] /məˈklaʊd/ (Show IPA), 1875–1955, U.S. educator and civil-rights leader.
- mary wollstonecraft — Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) 1759–97, English author and feminist (mother of Mary Shelley).
- maternity allowance — (in the British National Insurance scheme) a payment made to a pregnant woman who usually works but does not qualify for statutory maternity pay, normally from 11 weeks before confinement for a period of 18 weeks
- means of production — resources: equipment, workers
- medical examination — physical examination
- megabits per second — (unit) (Mbps, Mb/s) Millions of bits per second. A unit of data rate. 1 Mb/s = 1,000,000 bits per second (not 1,048,576). E.g. Ethernet can carry 10 Mbps.
- melodic minor scale — minor scale (def 2).
- mendel's second law — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that when two or more characteristics are inherited, individual hereditary factors assort independently during gamete production, giving different traits an equal opportunity of occurring together.
- meningoencephalitic — Relating to meningoencephalitis.
- meningoencephalitis — Inflammation of the membranes of the brain and the adjoining cerebral tissue.
- mercator projection — a conformal projection on which any rhumb line is represented as a straight line, used chiefly in navigation, though the scale varies with latitude and areal size and the shapes of large areas are greatly distorted.
- meter-candle-second — a unit of light-exposure equivalent to one lux for one second.
- metropolitan county — (in England) any of the six conurbations established as administrative units in the new local government system in 1974; the metropolitan county councils were abolished in 1986
- microelectronically — by microcircuits
- miscellaneous items — various kinds of thing, esp small purchases
- mischaracterization — The act of characterizing something in an inaccurate or misleading way.
- molecular astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the study of molecules in space.
- mordvinian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)