20-letter words containing o, v, e, r, a
- documentary evidence — law: written
- dolly varden pattern — a fabric print consisting of bouquets of flowers.
- electromagnetic wave — a wave of energy propagated in an electromagnetic field
- embryo vitrification — a method of in vitro fertilization in which the embryo is exposed to a vitreous solution and frozen before being thawed and implanted into the uterus
- environment variable — (programming, operating system) A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and substituting its value. Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inheritted by a child process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the type of shell being used. These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program. To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh prompt. In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with new bindings when a function's parameters are bound to its actual arguments or when new variables are declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of activation records.
- environmental health — the issues dealt with by the Environmental Health Department of a local authority, such as prevention of the spread of communicable diseases, food safety and hygiene, control of infestation by insects or rodents, etc
- environmental impact — the impact on the environment created by an industry, service, plan, or project
- equivalence relation — (mathematics) A relation R on a set including elements a, b, c, which is reflexive (a R a), symmetric (a R b => b R a) and transitive (a R b R c => a R c). An equivalence relation defines an equivalence class. See also partial equivalence relation.
- every bit as good as — You say that one thing is every bit as good, interesting, or important as another to emphasize that the first thing is just as good, interesting, or important as the second.
- federal reserve note — a form of paper money issued by a Federal Reserve Bank.
- flavour of the month — If you think that something or someone is very popular at a particular time, you can say that they are flavour of the month.
- formative assessment — ongoing assessment of a pupil's educational development within a particular subject area
- front-end volatility — Front-end volatility is the ability of the fractions with lower boiling points, such as butane, to evaporate at normal temperatures.
- garcilaso de la vega — 1503?–36, Spanish poet.
- generative phonology — a theory of phonology that uses a set of rules to derive phonetic representations from abstract underlying forms.
- give a wide berth to — to keep clear of; avoid
- give one's right arm — to be prepared to make any sacrifice
- give someone the air — a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and minute amounts of other gases that surrounds the earth and forms its atmosphere.
- governador valadares — a city in E Brazil.
- great northern diver — a large northern bird, Gavia immer, with a black-and-white chequered back and a black head and neck in summer: family Gaviidae (divers)
- grievous bodily harm — law: serious injury
- heat of vaporization — the heat absorbed per unit mass of a given material at its boiling point that completely converts the material to a gas at the same temperature: equal to the heat of condensation.
- hildegard von bingen — Hildegard von (Hildegard of Bingen"Sibyl of the Rhine") 1098–1178, German nun, healer, writer, and composer.
- in-service education — training and education given to employed teachers throughout their career
- information overload — an excess of incoming information, as might confront a pedestrian on a crowded city street, that forces one to be selective in the information received and retained.
- intravenous drug use — the injection of drugs intravenously
- inventory adjustment — Inventory adjustments are increases or decreases made in inventory to account for theft, loss, breakages, and errors in the amount or number of items received.
- jordan curve theorem — the theorem that the complement of a simple closed curve can be expressed as the union of two disjoint sets, each having as boundary the given curve.
- kármán vortex street — a regular stream of vortices shed from a body placed in a fluid stream: investigated by Kármán who advanced a formula for the frequency of the shed vortices in terms of the stream velocity and the dimensions of the body
- keratoconjunctivitis — inflammation of the cornea and conjunctiva.
- keyboard video mouse — (hardware) (KVM) Used to describe a "KVM switch" that allows one keyboard, one video display and one mouse to be switched between two or more computers.
- kick over the traces — either of the two straps, ropes, or chains by which a carriage, wagon, or the like is drawn by a harnessed horse or other draft animal.
- labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
- lacto-ovo-vegetarian — Also called lactovarian [lak-tuh-vair-ee-uh n] /ˌlæk təˈvɛər i ən/ (Show IPA), ovolactarian, ovo-lacto-vegetarian. a vegetarian whose diet includes dairy products and eggs.
- lavaliere microphone — a small microphone that hangs around the neck of a performer or speaker.
- love's labour's lost — a comedy (1594–95?) by Shakespeare.
- master of the revels — an English court official from the late 15th to early 18th centuries responsible to the Lord Chamberlain for overseeing and paying for court entertainments.
- maternal deprivation — the lack of a mother in a child's life, considered a cause of psychological problems later in life
- medieval warm period — the time, c900–1400, during which warmer temperatures existed in many parts of the world. Abbreviation: MWP.
- microwave background — a background of microwave electromagnetic radiation with a black-body spectrum discovered in 1965, understood to be the thermal remnant of the big bang with which the universe began
- modify a reservation — If you modify a reservation, you change a detail of a booking because someone who has booked a room has asked you to.
- multiplicative group — a group in which the operation of the group is multiplication.
- mum-and-dad investor — a small-scale non-professional investor
- nikkei stock average — an index of prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
- non-volatile storage — (storage) (NVS, persistent storage, memory) A term describing a storage device whose contents are preserved when its power is off. Storage using magnetic media (e.g. magnetic disks, magnetic tape or bubble memory) is normally non-volatile by nature whereas semiconductor memories (static RAM and especially dynamic RAM) are normally volatile but can be made into non-volatile storage by having a (rechargable) battery permanently connected. Other examples of non-volatile storage are EEPROM, CD-ROM, paper tape and punched cards.
- nondirective therapy — client-centered therapy.
- north canadian river — a river in NE New Mexico, E Texas, and E Oklahoma, flowing SE to the Canadian River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- on o's best behavior — If someone is on their best behavior, they are trying very hard to behave well.
- operator overloading — overloading