24-letter words containing p, e, d
- disturbance of the peace — a malicious and willful intrusion on the peace and quiet of a community or neighbourhood
- document type definition — (text, standard) (DTD) The definition of a document type in SGML or XML, consisting of a set of mark-up tags and their interpretation.
- domain-specific language — (language) A machine-processable language whose terms are derived from a domain model and that is used for the definition of components or software architectures supporting that domain. A domain-specific language is often used as input to an application generator.
- dutch west india company — a Dutch merchant company chartered in 1621 to carry on trade with Africa, the West Indies, North and South America, and Australia.
- dynamic adaptive routing — Automatic rerouting of traffic based on analysis of current network conditions. This does not include routing decisions based on predefined information.
- educational psychologist — a person trained in educational psychology
- effective sound pressure — the square root of the mean of the squares of the sound pressures of a sound wave, measured at a given point over a certain time interval.
- electrocardiographically — By means of electrocardiography.
- exponential distribution — a continuous single-parameter distribution used esp when making statements about the length of life of certain materials or waiting times between randomly occurring events. Its density function is p(x) = λe–λx for positive λ and nonnegative x, and it is a special case of the gamma distribution
- fcc propylene production — FCC propylene production is the production of propylene from a catalytic cracker.
- federal power commission — FPC.
- figure-ground phenomenon — the division of the perceptual field into background and objects that appear to stand out against it. The concept was evolved by the Gestalt psychologists, who invented ambiguous figures in which the same part could be seen either as figure or ground
- finger-pointing syndrome — (programming) All-too-frequent result of bugs, especially in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware. All the poor users get is the finger.
- floating decimal (point) — a decimal (point) whose position is not fixed
- floating point underflow — underflow
- free and accepted masons — a member of a widely distributed secret order (Free and Accepted Masons) having for its object mutual assistance and the promotion of brotherly love among its members.
- geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
- graduated pension scheme — (between 1961 and 1975) an earnings-related pension scheme which was based on the amount of an employee's National Insurance contributions
- great saint bernard pass — St. Bernard, Great.
- ground-fault interrupter — a circuit breaker that senses currents caused by ground faults and quickly shuts off power before damage can occur to generating equipment.
- hairdressing appointment — an appointment to have your hair cut, styled, coloured, etc, at a hairdresser
- have had a drop too much — to be drunk
- have the drop on someone — to have the advantage over someone
- high-density lipoprotein — a blood constituent involved in the transport of cholesterol and associated with a decreased risk of atherosclerosis and heart attack. Abbreviation: HDL .
- ichthyophthirius-disease — ich.
- implicit differentiation — a method of finding the derivative of an implicit function by taking the derivative of each term with respect to the independent variable while keeping the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable in symbolic form and then solving for that derivative.
- in the shit/in deep shit — If someone is in the shit or in deep shit, they are in a lot of trouble.
- independent logical file — (database) (ILF) One kind of dynamic database management system. Examples of ILF databases are INQUIRE, ADABAS, NOMAD, FOCUS and DATACOM.
- industrial correspondent — a journalist who specializes in reporting the industrial news
- internet access provider — (networking, company) (IAP) A company or other origanisation which provides access to the Internet to businesses and/or consumers. An IAP purchases an Internet link from another company that has a direct link to the Internet and resells portions of that bandwidth to the general public. For example, an IAP may purchase a T1 link (1.544Mb/s) and resell that bandwidth in chunks consisting of ISDN (64Kb/s, 128Kb/s) and analog modems (14.4Kb/s, 28.8Kb/s). The IAP's customer base is likely to include both businesses and individuals. Individual customers usually connect to the IAP via a modem and telephone line to a (preferably local) point of presence. An IAP may also be an Internet Service Provider.
- knowledge representation — The subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with designing and using systems for storing knowledge - facts and rules about some subject. A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualisation - an abstract view of the world that we wish to represent. In order to manipulate this knowledge we must specify how the abstract conceptualisation is represented as a concrete data structure. An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation.
- law of supply and demand — the theory that prices are determined by the interaction of supply and demand: an increase in supply will lower prices if not accompanied by increased demand, and an increase in demand will raise prices unless accompanied by increased supply
- licensed practical nurse — a person who has graduated from an accredited school of nursing and has become licensed to provide basic nursing care under the supervision of a physician or registered nurse. Abbreviation: LPN.
- liquid components of gas — Liquid components of gas are associated hydrocarbons in natural gas, which include ethane, propane, and butane.
- local loopback addresses — The special Internet address, 127.0.0.1, defined by the Internet Protocol. A host can use local the loopback address to send messages to itself.
- long-spined sea scorpion — Cottus bubalis or Taurulus bubalis
- low-density polyethylene — highly branched polyethylene with low crystallinity and melting point, and a density of 0.91 to 0.94, prepared at very high pressures, and used mainly for sheeting, films, and packaging materials. Abbreviation: LDPE.
- machine independent sail — (MAINSAIL) From XIDAK, Palo Alto CA, +1 (415) 855 9271.
- make a production out of — to make an unnecessary fuss about
- mandy rice-davis applies — (chat) (MRDA) An acronym used to imply that someone is lying to protect their own interests. During the trial of Stephen Ward (who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Rice-Davies), the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied any involvement with her and Rice-Davies replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
- manic-depressive illness — bipolar disorder.
- multiple-valued function — function (def 4b).
- nalbuphine hydrochloride — an opiate drug used as a painkiller
- not ready for prime time — Usable, but only just so; not very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device. Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid Real Soon Now. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players". It has extra flavour for hackers because of the special (though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of prime time. Compare beta.
- not sb's place to do sth — If you say that it is not your place to do something, you mean that it is not right or appropriate for you to do it, or that it is not your responsibility to do it.
- open data-link interface — (networking, standard) (ODI) A Novell-developed network card API that provides media and protocol independence. It allows the sharing of a single card by multiple transport layer protocols and resolves conflicts.
- 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.
- optical character reader — the process or technology of reading data in printed form by a device (optical character reader) that scans and identifies characters. Abbreviation: OCR.
- particulate fluidization — Particulate fluidization is a condition when particles in a fluidized bed are individually suspended.
- passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade