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21-letter words containing o, n, m, a

  • step-down transformer — a device that transfers an alternating current from one circuit to one or more other circuits with a decrease of voltage
  • stock list department — (in an American stock exchange) the department dealing with monitoring compliance with its listing requirements and rules
  • stokes-adams syndrome — unconsciousness accompanying atrioventricular heart block, sometimes characterized by weakness, irregular pulse, and intermittent convulsive or nonconvulsive seizures.
  • strategic air command — a U.S. Air Force command charged with intercontinental air strikes, especially nuclear attacks.
  • subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
  • sympathetic vibration — a vibration induced by resonance.
  • symphonie fantastique — a programmatic symphony (1830–31) in five movements by Hector Berlioz.
  • systeme international — Système International d'Unités
  • take someone prisoner — to capture and hold someone as a prisoner, esp as a prisoner of war
  • take/come into effect — If a law or policy takes effect or comes into effect at a particular time, it officially begins to apply or be valid from that time. If it remains in effect, it still applies or is still valid.
  • tape operating system — (operating system)   (TOS) An IBM operating system for System 360, used in the early days around 1965 to support the IBM 360 model 30 et al. TOS was a predecessor to IBM's Disk Operating System. TOS died out really early as disks such as the 2311 and 2314 became common with the IBM 360 whereas thet had been a real luxury on the IBM 7090.
  • teleological argument — the argument purporting to prove the existence of God from empirical facts, the premise being that the universe shows evidence of order and hence design
  • temperature inversion — inversion (def 12).
  • tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
  • the (norman) conquest — the conquering of England by the Normans under William the Conqueror in 1066
  • the assessment method — a way of providing evidence that students' knowledge and learning match the aims of a course
  • the comrades marathon — an annual long-distance race run every year on the 16th of June from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, a distance of approximately 90 kilometres (56 miles)
  • the executive mansion — the White House
  • the moral high ground — If you say that someone has taken the moral high ground, you mean that they consider that their policies and actions are morally superior to the policies and actions of their rivals.
  • the women's land army — a unit of women recruited to do agricultural work in the United Kingdom during World War I and World War II
  • therapeutic community — a group-based form of therapy for mental disorders, sometimes residential
  • thermal decomposition — Thermal decomposition is the process in which a chemical species breaks down when its temperature is increased.
  • thermal power station — a power station in which heat is converted into electricity
  • throw someone a curve — a continuously bending line, without angles.
  • time and motion study — the systematic investigation and analysis of the motions and the time required to perform a specific operation or task with a view to seeking more efficient methods of production as well as setting time standards.
  • to bend someone's ear — If you say that someone is bending your ear about something, you mean that they keep talking to you about it because they think it is important; used especially when you are irritated by this.
  • to box someone's ears — If someone boxes a child's ears, they hit them on the side of their head as a punishment.
  • to have money to burn — If you say that someone has money to burn, you mean that they have more money than they need or that they spend their money on things that you think are unnecessary.
  • to kick someone's ass — To kick ass or to kick someone's ass means to show them that you are angry with them, either by telling them or by using physical force.
  • to kill a mockingbird — a novel (1960) by Harper Lee.
  • to lay something bare — If you lay something bare, you uncover it completely so that it can then be seen.
  • to live hand to mouth — If someone lives hand to mouth or lives from hand to mouth, they have hardly enough food or money to live on.
  • to make a mental note — If you make a mental note of something, you make an effort to store it in your memory so that you will not forget it.
  • to my way of thinking — You add to my way of thinking to a statement in order to indicate that you are giving your opinion.
  • to risk life and limb — If someone risks life and limb, they do something very dangerous that may cause them to die or be seriously injured.
  • to take your mind off — If something takes your mind off a problem or unpleasant situation, it helps you to forget about it for a while.
  • tool command language — (language)   /tik*l/ (Tcl) An interpreted string processing language for issuing commands to interactive programs, developed by John Ousterhout at UCB. Each application program can extend tcl with its own set of commands. Tcl is like a text-oriented Lisp, but lets you write algebraic expressions for simplicity and to avoid scaring people away. Though originally designed to be a "scripting language" rather than for serious programming, Tcl has been used successfully for programs with hundreds of thousands of lines. It has a peculiar but simple syntax. It may be used as an embedded interpreter in application programs. It has exceptions and packages (called libraries), name-spaces for procedures and variables, and provide/require. It supports dynamic loading of object code. It is eight-bit clean. It has only three variable types: strings, lists and associative arrays but no structures. Tcl and its associated GUI toolkit, Tk run on all flavors of Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and VMS. Tcl runs on the Amiga and many other platforms. See also expect (control interactive programs and pattern match on their output), Cygnus Tcl Tools, [incr Tcl] (adds classes and inheritence to Tcl), Scriptics (John Ousterhout's company that is the home of Tcl development and the TclPro tool suite), Tcl Consortium (a non-profit agency dedicated to promoting Tcl), tclhttpd (an embeddable Tcl-based web server), tclx (adds many commands to Tcl), tcl-debug.
  • transformational rule — Linguistics. a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts deep structures into surface structures.
  • trichloronitromethane — chloropicrin.
  • tumor necrosis factor — a protein, produced in humans and other animals, that is destructive to cells showing abnormally rapid growth: identical with cachectin. Abbreviation: TNF.
  • ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
  • under one's own steam — If you do something under your own steam, you do it without any help from anyone else.
  • uniform business rate — a local tax in the UK paid by businesses, based on a local valuation of their premises and a rate fixed by central government that applies throughout the country
  • uniform resource name — (web)   (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any URI which is not a URL. 2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the IETF, which should provide for the resolution using Internet protocols of names which have a greater persistence than that currently associated with Internet host names or organisations (as used in URLs). Uniform Resource Names will be URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability. When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2.
  • universal disk format — (storage, standard)   (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
  • vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
  • voluntary arrangement — a procedure enabling an insolvent company to come to an arrangement with its creditors and resolve its financial problems, often in compliance with a court order
  • volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.
  • warm silence software — A small company run by(?) Robin Watts, producing software for the Acorn Archimedes.
  • weak head normal form — (reduction, theory)   (WHNF) A lambda expression is in weak head normal form (WHNF) if it is a head normal form (HNF) or any lambda abstraction. I.e. the top level is not a redex. The term was coined by Simon Peyton Jones to make explicit the difference between head normal form (HNF) and what graph reduction systems produce in practice. A lambda abstraction with a reducible body, e.g. \ x . ((\ y . y+x) 2) is in WHNF but not HNF. To reduce this expression to HNF would require reduction of the lambda body: (\ y . y+x) 2 --> 2+x Reduction to WHNF avoids the name capture problem with its need for alpha conversion of an inner lambda abstraction and so is preferred in practical graph reduction systems. The same principle is often used in strict languages such as Scheme to provide call-by-name evaluation by wrapping an expression in a lambda abstraction with no arguments: D = delay E = \ () . E The value of the expression is obtained by applying it to the empty argument list:
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