21-letter words containing o, r, d, u, s
- pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- purple-fringed orchis — either of two North American orchids (Habenaria psycodes and H. fimbriata) with purple-fringed flowers
- radius of convergence — a positive number so related to a given power series that the power series converges for every number whose absolute value is less than this particular number.
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- registration document — a document giving identification details of a motor vehicle, including its manufacturer, date of registration, engine and chassis numbers, and owner's name
- residual unemployment — the unemployment that remains in periods of full employment, as a result of those mentally, physically, or emotionally unfit to work
- ring-around-the-rosey — a children's game in which the players sing while going around in a circle and squat when the lyrics “all fall down” are sung.
- roodepoort-maraisburg — a city in S Transvaal, in the NE Republic of South Africa.
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- saint-maur-des-fosses — a town in N central France, near Paris, on the Marne River.
- sampling distribution — the distribution of a statistic based on all possible random samples that can be drawn from a given population.
- scalar triple product — the volume of the parallelepiped defined by three given vectors, u, v, and w, usually represented as u·v 1 (v×w), [ uvw ], or (uvw), where × denotes a cross product and · denotes an inner product.
- school superintendent — an official whose job is to oversee school administration within a district
- silicon tetrafluoride — a colorless, fuming gas, SiF 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fluosilicic acid.
- sinusoidal projection — an equal-area projection in which parallels are straight lines spaced at regular intervals, the central meridian is a straight line one-half the length of the equator, and the other meridians are curves symmetrical to the central meridian.
- snr bandwidth product — (communications) The integral of the SNR over frequency. The SNR bandwidth product is an important limit in the capacity of a communication channel.
- sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
- statutory declaration — a declaration made under statutory authority before a justice of the peace or commissioner for oaths which may in certain cases be substituted for a statement on oath
- student participation — the extent to which students participate or involve themselves in a class, course, etc
- suction and curettage — a technique involving extraction of the fetus through a suction tube, used to perform abortions during the early stages of pregnancy.
- sunday school teacher — someone who teaches at a Sunday school
- surface friction drag — the part of the drag on a body moving through a fluid that is dependent on the nature of the surface of the body
- surface-to-underwater — (of a missile, message, etc.) traveling from the surface of the earth to a target underwater.
- the household cavalry — a group of British soldiers on horseback who have the job of protecting the king or queen and their family
- theater of the absurd — theater in which standard or naturalistic conventions of plot, characterization, and thematic structure are ignored or distorted in order to convey the irrational or fictive nature of reality and the essential isolation of humanity in a meaningless world.
- theatre of the absurd — drama in which normal conventions and dramatic structure are ignored or modified in order to present life as irrational or meaningless
- to be hard luck on sb — to be unfortunate or unlucky for someone
- to rear its ugly head — If something unpleasant rears its head or rears its ugly head, it becomes visible or noticeable.
- to rub shoulders with — If you rub shoulders with famous people, you meet them and talk to them. You can also say that you rub elbows with someone, especially in American English.
- to sow your wild oats — If a young person sows their wild oats, they behave in a rather uncontrolled way, especially by having a lot of sexual relationships.
- to stick in your mind — If something sticks in your mind, it remains firmly in your memory.
- trades union congress — The Trades Union Congress in Britain is the same as the TUC.
- under one's own steam — If you do something under your own steam, you do it without any help from anyone else.
- 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.
- universe of discourse — the totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space; the cosmos; macrocosm.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- up close and personal — face to face, intimately
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- what the future holds — If you wonder what the future holds, you wonder what will happen in the future.
- xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare inherited disease characterized by sensitivity to ultraviolet light, exposure resulting in lesions and tumors of the skin and eyes.