24-letter words containing o, u, t, s, i
- nongonococcal urethritis — a widespread sexually transmitted infection of the urethra, caused by the parasite Chlamydia trachomatis, or the mycoplasm Ureaplasma urealyticum, characterized in males by painful urination and discharge from the penis and in females by frequent, painful urination and cervical erosion. Abbreviation: NGU.
- open software foundation — (body) (OSF) A foundation created by nine computer vendors, (Apollo, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Bull, Nixdorf, Philips, Siemens and Hitachi) to promote "Open Computing". It is planned that common operating systems and interfaces, based on developments of Unix and the X Window System will be forthcoming for a wide range of different hardware architectures. OSF announced the release of the industry's first open operating system - OSF/1 on 23 October 1990.
- open system architecture — (operating system) (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- other things being equal — If you say 'other things being equal' or 'all things being equal' when talking about a possible situation, you mean if nothing unexpected happens or if there are no other factors which affect the situation.
- passbook savings account — a type of savings account in which transactions are entered into a passbook in the possession of the account holder.
- pluck sth out of the air — If you say that someone plucks a figure, name, or date out of the air, you mean that they say it without thinking much about it before they speak.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- prairie button snakeroot — a stout composite plant, Liatris pycnostachya, of prairies in the central U.S., having showy, rose-purple flower heads in dense spikes.
- presumption of innocence — the rebuttable presumption of the innocence of the defendant in a criminal action in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, placing upon the prosecution the burden of proof of the defendant's guilt.
- probability distribution — a distribution of all possible values of a random variable together with an indication of their probabilities.
- public access television — television in which local producers or individuals can participate
- public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
- public-access television — a noncommercial system of broadcasting on television channels made available to independent or community groups for programs of general interest to the community.
- punch above one's weight — to do something that is considered to be beyond one's ability
- put one's house in order — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- put their heads together — to consult together
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
- reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
- robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
- rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
- rub someone's nose in it — to remind someone unkindly of his or her failing or error
- saint ignatius of loyola — Saint Ignatius of (Iñigo López de Loyola) 1491–1556, Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic: founder of the Society of Jesus.
- san bernardino mountains — mountain range in S Calif., south of the Mojave Desert: highest peak, 11,502 ft (3,506 m)
- scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
- scottish country dancing — a type of Scottish folk dancing, including reels, jigs, and strathspeys, in which couples are arranged in sets and perform a series of movements, esp facing one another in a line
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- set one's house in order — to put one's affairs in order
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- simultaneous translation — a form of translation in which the interpreter translates into the target language as quickly as possible while the speaker is still speaking in the source language
- single person supplement — an additional sum of money that a hotel charges for one person to stay in a room meant for two people
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- sodium hexametaphosphate — See under Calgon.
- solution based modelling — (SBM) A software development process described in the book "Developing Object-Oriented Software for the Macintosh" written by Neal Goldstein and Jeff Alger, published by Addison Wesley in 1992.
- south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
- southern british english — the dialect of spoken English regarded as standard in England and considered as having high social status in comparison with other British English dialects. Historically, it is derived from the S East Midland dialect of Middle English
- special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
- sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- student's t distribution — a bell-shaped probability distribution that is flatter or more stretched out than the normal distribution.
- subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
- superheterodyne receiver — a radio receiver that combines two radio-frequency signals by heterodyne action, to produce a signal above the audible frequency limit. This signal is amplified and demodulated to give the desired audio-frequency signal
- supportive psychotherapy — a type of psychotherapy that seeks to reduce psychological conflict and strengthen a patient's defenses through the use of various techniques, as reassurance, suggestion, counseling, and reeducation.
- syquest technology, inc. — (company, hardware) An early entrant into the removable hard disk market for personal computers. For may years SyQuest held the market, particularly as a method of transferring large desktop publisher documents to printers. SyQuest aim their products to give personal computer users "endless" hard drive space for data-intensive applications like desktop publishing, Internet information management, pre-press, multimedia, audio, video, digital photography, fast backup, data exchange, archiving, confidential data security and easy portability for the road. At the top of their current (Mar 1997) range are two drives, The SyJet 1.5 GB a 3.5 inch, double platter removable drive and the EZFlyer 230 MB also on 3.5 inch media. A cartridge holding over 4.7GB is promised before the end of 1997. In recent years they have not fared as well in the market, whilst Iomega has cornered the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) market. Over the period 1995 to 1997 sales declined resulting in a series of losses. In the first quarter of 1997 these losses had been reduced to $6.8 million with net revenues increasing to $48.3 million. This compares to a net loss of $33.8 million, or $2.98 per share, on net revenues of $78.7 million for the same period the year before. It would appear that substantial restructuring has occurred over the past few years.
- take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).