23-letter words containing o, n, l, i
- dissociate oneself from — to deny or repudiate any connection with
- dollar (cost) averaging — see average (sense 11)
- drop into someone's lap — to cause to be someone's responsibility
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- ellipsoid of revolution — a geometric surface produced by rotating an ellipse about one of its two axes and having circular plane surfaces perpendicular to the axis of revolution
- 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.
- 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
- exclusive economic zone — the coastal water and sea bed around a country's shores, to which it claims exclusive rights for fishing, oil exploration, etc
- experimental psychology — the scientific study of the individual behaviour of man and other animals, esp of perception, learning, memory, motor skills, and thinking
- 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.
- fiddle while rome burns — If you say that someone is fiddling while Rome burns, you mean that they are not dealing with a difficult or dangerous situation but instead are doing useless things or pretending that nothing is wrong.
- 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.
- finite impulse response — (electronics, DSP) (FIR) A type of digital signal filter, in which every sample of output is the weighted sum of past and current samples of input, using only some finite number of past samples.
- firing on all cylinders — working or performing at full capability
- fish in troubled waters — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- floating-point specrate — SPECrate_fp92
- forest tent caterpillar — any of the larvae of several moths of the genus Malacosoma, which feed on the leaves of orchard and shade trees and live colonially in a tentlike silken web.
- fractional distillation — the separation of volatile components of different boiling points in a mixture by the gradual increase of temperature and the separate collection of each component.
- free on-line dictionary — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- frictional unemployment — those people who are in the process of moving from one job to another and who therefore appear in the unemployment statistics collected at any given time
- friedel-crafts reaction — a reaction for the synthesis of hydrocarbons and ketones by the alkylation or acylation of an aromatic compound in the presence of a catalyst, typically anhydrous aluminum chloride.
- function graph language — (language) (FGL) The machine language for the AMPS (Applicative Multi-Processing System) proposed by Robert Keller, Gary Lindstrom and Suhas Patil at the University of Utah.
- function point analysis — (programming) (FPA) A standard metric for the relative size and complexity of a software system, originally developed by Alan Albrecht of IBM in the late 1970s. Functon points (FPs) can be used to estimate the relative size and complexity of software in the early stages of development - analysis and design. The size is determined by identifying the components of the system as seen by the end-user: the inputs, outputs, inquiries, interfaces to other systems, and logical internal files. The components are classified as simple, average, or complex. All of these values are then scored and the total is expressed in Unadjusted FPs (UFPs). Complexity factors described by 14 general systems characteristics, such as reusability, performance, and complexity of processing can be used to weight the UFP. Factors are also weighted on a scale of 0 - not present, 1 - minor influence, to 5 - strong influence. The result of these computations is a number that correlates to system size. Although the FP metric doesn't correspond to any actual physical attribute of a software system (such as lines of code or the number of subroutines) it is useful as a relative measure for comparing projects, measuring productivity, and estimating the amount a development effort and time needed for a project. See also International Function Point Users Group.
- functional requirements — (specification) What a system should be able to do, the functions it should perform. This term is used at both the user requirements analysis and software requirements specifications phases in the software life-cycle. An example of a non-functional requirement is an initialisation sequence incorporated into the software that is specific to a given customer.
- fundamental interaction — any of the four basic interactions that occur in nature: the gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak interactions
- galilean transformation — the equations in classical mechanics that relate position and time in two frames of reference that are moving uniformly with respect to each other. Compare inertial system, relativity (def 2).
- gastrointestinal series — GI series.
- general-obligation bond — a bond issued by a state or city and backed by general tax revenue and the issuer's credit.
- girl of the golden west — Italian La fanciulla del West. an opera (1910) by Giacomo Puccini.
- give someone the needle — to goad or heckle
- grant-maintained school — a school funded directly by central government
- grist to someone's mill — anything that someone can use profitably
- guest relations manager — A guest relations manager at a hotel is responsible for the relationships that the hotel has with its guests and the way in which it treats them.
- guillain-barre syndrome — an uncommon, usually self-limited form of polyneuritis, occurring after a viral illness or immunization and manifested by loss of muscle strength, loss of or altered sensation and sometimes paralysis.
- haleakala national park — a national park on Maui, Hawaii: site of 21-mile (34-km) diameter volcanic crater. 43 sq. mi. (111 sq. km).
- handwriting on the wall — writing done with a pen or pencil in the hand; script.