20-letter words containing r, o, m, c, u
- 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
- midcourse correction — a navigational correction made in the course of a ship, airplane, rocket, or space vehicle at some point between the beginning and end of the journey.
- miliary tuberculosis — tuberculosis in which the bacilli are spread by the blood from one point of infection, producing small tubercles in other parts of the body.
- molecular gastronomy — an approach to cooking in which a chef’s knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology allows him or her to experiment with unusual flavour combinations and cooking techniques
- molecular geneticist — a specialist in the study of the molecular constitution of genes and chromosomes
- moreton bay chestnut — an Australian leguminous tree, Castanospermum australe, having thin smooth bark and yellow or reddish flowers: used in furniture manufacture
- mountain rescue team — a group of people who conduct search and rescue on a mountain, for example of someone who has fallen, got lost, etc
- multiplicative group — a group in which the operation of the group is multiplication.
- multipurpose vehicle — a large car, similar to a van, designed to carry up to eight passengers
- multistorey car park — a car park consisting of several levels
- music of the spheres — a music, imperceptible to human ears, formerly supposed to be produced by the movements of the spheres or heavenly bodies.
- net domestic product — the gross domestic product minus an allowance for the depreciation of capital goods
- neuromusculoskeletal — (medicine) Describing the interactions between nerves, muscles and the skeleton.
- next program counter — (architecture) (nPC) A register in a CPU that contains the address of the instruction to be executed next.
- not mince your words — If you say that someone does not mince their words, you mean that they speak in a forceful and direct way, especially when saying something unpleasant to someone.
- omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
- ontological argument — an a priori argument for the existence of God, asserting that as existence is a perfection, and as God is conceived of as the most perfect being, it follows that God must exist; originated by Anselm, later used by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz.
- pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.
- parametric equations — one of two or more equations expressing the location of a point on a curve or surface by determining each coordinate separately.
- particulars of claim — (in England) the first reading made by the claimant in a county court action, showing the facts upon which he or she relies in support of a claim and the relief asked for
- permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- polymorphic function — a function in a computer program that can deal with a number of different types of data
- potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
- potassium dichromate — an orange-red crystalline soluble solid substance that is a good oxidizing agent and is used in making chrome pigments and as a bleaching agent. Formula: K2Cr2O7
- precision instrument — finely-tuned device
- prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
- procedural agreement — regulations agreed between the parties to collective bargaining, defining the bargaining units, bargaining scope, procedures for collective bargaining, and the facilities to be provided to trade union representatives
- production agreement — a contract concerning the production or manufacture of something
- pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
- public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
- quantum cryptography — a method of coding information based on quantum mechanics, which is said to be unbreakable
- reductio ad absurdum — a reduction to an absurdity; the refutation of a proposition by demonstrating the inevitably absurd conclusion to which it would logically lead.
- republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
- request for comments — (standard) (RFC) One of a series, begun in 1969, of numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix communities. Few RFCs are standards but all Internet standards are recorded in RFCs. Perhaps the single most influential RFC has been RFC 822, the Internet electronic mail format standard. The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted as standards. The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a flourishing tradition of "joke" RFCs; usually at least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the TCP/IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier pigeon. The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions. See also For Your Information, STD.
- retirement community — a group of houses in a suburban area or a town designed primarily for retired persons.
- rocky mountain basic — (language) The BASIC language used by Hewlett Packard on their 680x0-based computers. Rocky Mountain Basic is good for interfaces to IEEE 488 controls and contains many mathematical and matrix functions. It has about 600 commands. Typical applications include automatic test stations.
- rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
- scream bloody murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
- second-degree murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
- secure accommodation — an institution where young offenders are kept in custody
- semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
- sodium fluoroacetate — a white, amorphous, water-soluble, poisonous powder, C 2 H 2 FO 2 Na, used as a rodenticide.
- sound motion picture — a motion picture with a soundtrack.
- south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
- structural isomerism — Chemistry. the relation of two or more compounds, radicals, or ions that are composed of the same kinds and numbers of atoms but differ from each other in structural arrangement (structural isomerism) as CH 3 OCH 3 and CH 3 CH 2 OH, or in the arrangement of their atoms in space and therefore in one or more properties. Compare optical isomerism, stereoisomerism.
- summary jurisdiction — the right a court has to adjudicate immediately upon some matter arising during its proceedings
- systemic circulation — the circulatory system in general.
- the gnomes of zurich — Swiss bankers and financiers
- the methodist church — a group of people within the Christian religion who follow a system of faith and practice initiated by the English preacher John Wesley (1703–91) and his followers
- thermal conductivity — the amount of heat per unit time per unit area that can be conducted through a plate of unit thickness of a given material, the faces of the plate differing by one unit of temperature.