20-letter words containing r, d, o
- directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.
- discretionary income — money for luxuries
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- dispersion hardening — the strengthening of an alloy as a result of the presence of fine particles in the lattice
- disproportionateness — The state or quality of being disproportionate or out of proportion.
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- district court judge — a judge presiding over a lower court
- district high school — a school in a rural area that includes primary and post-primary classes
- district of columbia — a federal area in the E United States, on the Potomac, coextensive with the federal capital, Washington. 69 sq. mi. (179 sq. km). Abbreviation: DC (for use with zip code), D.C.
- do someone a service — If you do someone a service, you do something that helps or benefits them.
- doctor of philosophy — Also called doctorate. the highest degree awarded by a graduate school, usually to a person who has completed at least three years of graduate study and a dissertation approved by a board of professors.
- doctor of the church — a title conferred on an ecclesiastic for great learning and saintliness.
- documentary evidence — law: written
- dolly varden pattern — a fabric print consisting of bouquets of flowers.
- double fertilization — the fertilization process characteristic of flowering plants, in which one sperm cell of a pollen grain fertilizes an egg cell while a second fuses with two polar nuclei to produce a triploid body that gives rise to the endosperm.
- double-aspect theory — a monistic theory that holds that mind and body are not distinct substances but merely different aspects of a single substance
- double-trailer truck — tandem trailer (def 1).
- draw close/draw near — If an event or period of time is drawing closer or is drawing nearer, it is approaching.
- draw the short straw — to be the person (as in drawing lots) to whom an unwelcome task or fate falls
- dressed to the nines — a cardinal number, eight plus one.
- drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
- drunk and disorderly — If someone is charged with being drunk and disorderly, they are charged with being drunk and behaving in a noisy, offensive, or violent way in public.
- drunk mouse syndrome — (Also "mouse on drugs") A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing device of some computers. The typical symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again. Another recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse mat 90 degrees. At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks. When the steel ball on the mouse had picked up enough cruft to be unreliable, the mouse was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while. However, this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation of cruft, so the dousings became more and more frequent. Finally, the mouse was declared "alcoholic" and sent to the clinic to be dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.
- dry-bulb thermometer — a thermometer having a dry bulb: used in conjunction with a wet-bulb thermometer in a psychrometer.
- duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
- due process (of law) — the course of legal proceedings established by the legal system of a nation or state to protect individual rights
- early modern english — the English language represented in printed documents of the period starting with Caxton (1476) and ending with Dryden (1700).
- early sunday morning — a painting (1930) by Edward Hopper.
- economic determinism — the doctrine that all social, cultural, political, and intellectual forms are determined by or result from such economic factors as the quality of natural resources, productive capability, technological development, or the distribution of wealth.
- education department — the department of a local authority that is concerned with education, or the government department concerned with education
- edward the confessor — Saint, 1002?–66, English king 1042–66: founder of Westminster Abbey.
- electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
- electrocardiographic — Of or pertaining to an electrocardiogram (ECG) or electrocardiograph.
- electrode efficiency — the ratio of the amount of metal deposited in an electrolytic cell to that theoretically deposited according to Faraday's laws
- electrohydrodynamics — (physics) the study of the dynamics of electrically conducting fluid.
- elementary education — the first six to eight years of a child's education
- endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
- equity of redemption — the right that a mortgager has in equity to redeem his property on payment of the sum owing, even though the sum is overdue
- estrela mountain dog — a sturdy well-built dog of a Portuguese breed with a long thick coat and a thick tuft of hair round the neck, often used as a guard dog
- european social fund — one of the four Structural Funds of the European Union which aims to support employment and the economic and social well-being of EU member countries
- 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.
- factor of production — any instrument, agent, etc., employed in the production of goods and services.
- fast-breeder reactor — a breeder reactor in which there is no moderator and fission is caused by high-energy neutrons.
- federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
- federal reserve note — a form of paper money issued by a Federal Reserve Bank.
- federation of malaya — a federation of the nine Malay States of the Malay Peninsula and two of the Straits Settlements (Malacca and Penang): formed in 1948: became part of the British Commonwealth in 1957 and joined Malaysia in 1963
- field ion microscope — a device in which the atomic structure of the surface of a conductor is made visible by introducing helium gas into the device and applying a high voltage to ionize and accelerate the gas toward a fluorescent screen.
- field-ion microscope — a device in which the atomic structure of the surface of a conductor is made visible by introducing helium gas into the device and applying a high voltage to ionize and accelerate the gas toward a fluorescent screen.
- file descriptor leak — (programming) (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
- first world problems — If you say that someone has First World problems, you mean that their problems are not really very important.