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22-letter words containing o, r, a, n, y

  • delayed-action shutter — a camera shutter that opens after an interval set by the photographer
  • dicyclopentadienyliron — ferrocene (def 1).
  • digital control system — (systems)   (DCS) A digital computer used for real-time control of a dynamic system, usually in an industrial environment, possibly as part of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. A DCS samples feedback from the system under control and modifies the control signals in an attempt to achieve some desired behaviour. Analysis of such digital-analogue feedback systems can involve mathematical methods such as difference equations, Laplace transforms, z transfer functions, state space models and state transition matrices.
  • dihydroxyphenylalanine — dopa.
  • directory system agent — (DSA) The software that provides the X.500 Directory Service for a portion of the directory information base. Generally, each DSA is responsible for the directory information for a single organisation or organisational unit.
  • disciplinary committee — a committee charged with examining alleged breaches of discipline within an organization, profession, etc and adjudicating on them
  • don't hold your breath — sth is unlikely to happen soon
  • earn one's daily bread — to earn one's living
  • east african community — an association established in 1967 by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania to promote closer economic and social ties between member states: dissolved in 1977, but reformed in 1999, and joined in 2007 by Burundi and Rwanda
  • economy-class syndrome — Economy-class syndrome is a serious medical condition caused by blood clots in the legs moving up to the lungs; used especially in connection with long-haul flights.
  • electroencephalography — The measurement of electrical activity in different parts of the brain and the recording of such activity as a visual trace (on paper or on an oscilloscope screen).
  • emergency road service — a form of motoring insurance that sends assistance to drivers when their vehicles break down on a journey; it is provided either by the national or regional automobile association or by a private insurance company
  • employers' association — a body of employers, usually from the same sector of the economy, associated to further the interests of member companies by conducting negotiations with trade unions, providing advice, making representations to other bodies, etc
  • endotrophic mycorrhiza — the most widespread and common type of mycorrhiza, in which the fungus lives within the cells of the roots of the plant
  • every now and then etc — You use every in the expressions every now and then, every now and again, every once in a while, and every so often in order to indicate that something happens occasionally.
  • evolutionary algorithm — (EA) An algorithm which incorporates aspects of natural selection or survival of the fittest. An evolutionary algorithm maintains a population of structures (usually randomly generated initially), that evolves according to rules of selection, recombination, mutation and survival, referred to as genetic operators. A shared "environment" determines the fitness or performance of each individual in the population. The fittest individuals are more likely to be selected for reproduction (retention or duplication), while recombination and mutation modify those individuals, yielding potentially superior ones. EAs are one kind of evolutionary computation and differ from genetic algorithms. A GA generates each individual from some encoded form known as a "chromosome" and it is these which are combined or mutated to breed new individuals. EAs are useful for optimisation when other techniques such as gradient descent or direct, analytical discovery are not possible. Combinatoric and real-valued function optimisation in which the optimisation surface or fitness landscape is "rugged", possessing many locally optimal solutions, are well suited for evolutionary algorithms.
  • fall prey to something — To fall prey to something bad means to be taken over or affected by it.
  • fetal alcohol syndrome — a pattern of birth defects caused by maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy: considered as one of the fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Abbreviation: FAS.
  • four-hundred-day clock — a clock that needs to be wound once a year, having the works exposed under a glass dome and utilizing a torsion pendulum.
  • frictional electricity — static electricity generated by friction
  • genitourinary medicine — the branch of medical science concerned with the study and treatment of diseases of the genital and urinary organs, esp sexually transmitted diseases
  • get a word in edgeways — to succeed in interrupting a conversation in which someone else is talking incessantly
  • glossopharyngeal nerve — either of the ninth pair of cranial nerves, consisting of motor fibers that innervate the muscles of the pharynx, the soft palate, and the parotid glands, and of sensory fibers that conduct impulses to the brain from the pharynx, the middle ear, and the posterior third of the tongue.
  • grand duchy of muscovy — Muscovy (def 1).
  • heart is in your mouth — If your heart is in your mouth, you feel very excited, worried, or frightened.
  • hermann-mauguin symbol — a notation for indicating a particular point group.
  • hexahydroxycyclohexane — inositol.
  • highway contract route — a route for carrying mail over the highway between designated points, given on contract to a private carrier and often requiring, in rural areas, delivery to home mailboxes. Abbreviation: HCR.
  • hydrocinnamic aldehyde — a colorless liquid, C 9 H 10 O, having a floral odor, used in perfumery and flavoring.
  • in all one's born days — so far in one's life
  • in one's birthday suit — naked; nude
  • in one's own back yard — close at hand
  • in your wildest dreams — If you say that you could not imagine a particular thing in your wildest dreams, you are emphasizing that you think it is extremely strange or unlikely.
  • industrial archaeology — the study of past industrial machines, works, etc
  • industrialized country — a country characterized by industry on an extensive scale
  • information technology — the development, implementation, and maintenance of computer hardware and software systems to organize and communicate information electronically. Abbreviation: IT.
  • java community process — (project)   (JCP) An organization controlled by Sun Microsystems to further the growth of the Java language and runtime. The JCP produces standards called Java Standard Requests, which are "requests" in the same sense as RFCs.
  • justification by works — the belief that a person becomes just before God by the performance of good works: the doctrine against which Luther protested in inaugurating the Protestant Reformation.
  • ketamine hydrochloride — a powerful anesthetic, C13H16ClNO·HCl, used in surgery
  • kill yourself laughing — If you say that you killed yourself laughing, you are emphasizing that you laughed a lot because you thought something was extremely funny.
  • kinetic theory of heat — a theory that the temperature of a body is determined by the average kinetic energy of its particles and that an inflow of heat increases this energy.
  • lady's not for burning — a verse play (1948) by Christopher Fry.
  • law enforcement agency — an organization responsible for enforcing the law, such as a police or sheriff department
  • little lord fauntleroy — (italics) a children's novel (1886) by Frances H. Burnett.
  • memory management unit — (hardware, memory management)   (MMU, "Paged Memory Management Unit", PMMU) A hardware device or circuit that supports virtual memory and paging by translating virtual addresses into physical addresses. The virtual address space (the range of addresses used by the processor) is divided into pages, whose size is 2^N, usually a few kilobytes. The bottom N bits of the address (the offset within a page) are left unchanged. The upper address bits are the (virtual) page number. The MMU contains a page table which is indexed (possibly associatively) by the page number. Each page table entry (PTE) gives the physical page number corresponding to the virtual one. This is combined with the page offset to give the complete physical address. A PTE may also include information about whether the page has been written to, when it was last used (for a least recently used replacement algorithm), what kind of processes (user mode, supervisor mode) may read and write it, and whether it should be cached. It is possible that no physical memory (RAM) has been allocated to a given virtual page, in which case the MMU will signal a "page fault" to the CPU. The operating system will then try to find a spare page of RAM and set up a new PTE to map it to the requested virtual address. If no RAM is free it may be necessary to choose an existing page, using some replacement algorithm, and save it to disk (this is known as "paging"). There may also be a shortage of PTEs, in which case the OS will have to free one for the new mapping. In a multitasking system all processes compete for the use of memory and of the MMU. Some memory management architectures allow each process to have its own area or configuration of the page table, with a mechanism to switch between different mappings on a process switch. This means that all processes can have the same virtual address space rather than require load-time relocation. An MMU also solves the problem of fragmentation of memory. After blocks of memory have been allocated and freed, the free memory may become fragmented (discontinuous) so that the largest contiguous block of free memory may be much smaller than the total amount. With virtual memory, a contiguous range of virtual addresses can be mapped to several non-contiguous blocks of physical memory. In early designs memory management was performed by a separate integrated circuit such as the MC 68851 used with the Motorola 68020 CPU in the Macintosh II or the Z8015 used with the Zilog Z80 family of processors. Later CPUs such as the Motorola 68030 and the ZILOG Z280 have MMUs on the same IC as the CPU.
  • monday morning disease — azoturia (def 2).
  • mother carey's chicken — any of various small petrels, especially the stormy petrel, Oceanites oceanicus.
  • motorcycle combination — a motorcycle with a sidecar attached
  • nitrohydrochloric acid — aqua regia.
  • non-euclidean geometry — geometry based upon one or more postulates that differ from those of Euclid, especially from the postulate that only one line may be drawn through a given point parallel to a given line.
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