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20-letter words containing s, a, i, n

  • erythema infectiosum — a mild infectious disease of childhood, caused by a virus, characterized by fever and a red rash spreading from the cheeks to the limbs and trunk
  • essential amino acid — an amino acid that cannot be synthesized in the body and is thus an essential component of the diet
  • essential complexity — (programming)   A measure of the "structuredness" of a program.
  • essential fatty acid — any fatty acid required by the body in manufacturing prostaglandins, found in such foods as oily fish and nuts
  • 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
  • examining magistrate — (in some countries with inquisitorial legal systems) a judge who investigates cases and decides whether there is a case to answer in court
  • exercise, left as an — Used to complete a proof in technical books when one doesn't mind a handwave, or to avoid one entirely. The complete phrase is: "The proof [or "the rest"] is left as an exercise for the reader." This comment *has* occasionally been attached to unsolved research problems by authors possessed of either an evil sense of humour or a vast faith in the capabilities of their audiences.
  • existentialistically — In an existentialist manner.
  • extensional equality — (Or extensionality). Functions, f and g are extensionally equal if and only if f x = g x for all x. where "=" means both expressions fail to terminate (under some given reduction strategy) or they both terminate with the same basic value. Two functions may be extensionally equal but not inter-convertible (neither is reducible to the other). E.g. \ x . x+x and \ x . 2*x. See also observational equivalence, referential transparency.
  • external respiration — exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across external or respiratory surfaces, as gills or lungs, in multicellular organisms
  • feather in one's cap — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
  • federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
  • financial consultant — A financial consultant is the same as a financial adviser.
  • financial instrument — A financial instrument is a document or contract that can be traded in a market, that represents an asset to one party and a liability or equity to the other.
  • financial statements — Financial statements are all of the reports that show how a company is performing for a certain period.
  • finite state grammar — a simplified form of transformational grammar devised by Noam Chomsky
  • finite state machine — (mathematics, algorithm, theory)   (FSM or "Finite State Automaton", "transducer") An abstract machine consisting of a set of states (including the initial state), a set of input events, a set of output events, and a state transition function. The function takes the current state and an input event and returns the new set of output events and the next state. Some states may be designated as "terminal states". The state machine can also be viewed as a function which maps an ordered sequence of input events into a corresponding sequence of (sets of) output events. A deterministic FSM (DFA) is one where the next state is uniquely determinied by a single input event. The next state of a nondeterministic FSM (NFA) depends not only on the current input event, but also on an arbitrary number of subsequent input events. Until these subsequent events occur it is not possible to determine which state the machine is in. It is possible to automatically translate any nondeterministic FSM into a deterministic one which will produce the same output given the same input. Each state in the DFA represents the set of states the NFA might be in at a given time. In a probabilistic FSM [proper name?], there is a predetermined probability of each next state given the current state and input (compare Markov chain). The terms "acceptor" and "transducer" are used particularly in language theory where automata are often considered as abstract machines capable of recognising a language (certain sequences of input events). An acceptor has a single Boolean output and accepts or rejects the input sequence by outputting true or false respectively, whereas a transducer translates the input into a sequence of output events. FSMs are used in computability theory and in some practical applications such as regular expressions and digital logic design. See also state transition diagram, Turing Machine.
  • first point of aries — the vernal equinox.
  • first-cause argument — an argument for the existence of God, asserting the necessity of an uncaused cause of all subsequent series of causes, on the assumption that an infinite regress is impossible.
  • fission-track dating — the dating of samples of minerals by comparing the tracks in them by fission fragments of the uranium nuclei they contain, before and after irradiation by neutrons
  • five-star restaurant — a restaurant which has been given the top star-rating
  • flame-fusion process — Verneuil process.
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
  • for all one is worth — good or important enough to justify (what is specified): advice worth taking; a place worth visiting.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • forbidden transition — an electronic transition in an atom, molecule, etc, that is not permitted by electric dipole selection rules
  • force-field analysis — a decision-making technique, often presented graphically, that identifies all the positive and negative forces impinging on a problem
  • fore-and-aft topsail — gaff topsail (def 1).
  • formative assessment — ongoing assessment of a pupil's educational development within a particular subject area
  • fridtjof nansen land — Franz Josef Land.
  • friends of the earth — an organization of environmentalists and conservationists whose aim is to promote the sustainable use of the earth's resources
  • frosting on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
  • fuming sulfuric acid — an oily, hygroscopic, corrosive liquid, H 2 S 2 O 7 , that, depending on purity, is colorless or dark brown: used chiefly as a dehydrating agent in the manufacture of explosives and as a sulfating or sulfonating agent in the manufacture of dyes.
  • gastroduodenostomies — Plural form of gastroduodenostomy.
  • general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
  • general public virus — (software, legal)   A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
  • generative semantics — a theory of generative grammar holding that the deep structure of a sentence is equivalent to its semantic representation, from which the surface structure can then be derived using only one set of rules that relate underlying meaning and surface form rather than separate sets of semantic and syntactic rules.
  • gingival hyperplasia — Gingival hyperplasia is abnormal enlargement of the gums.
  • 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.
  • glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
  • go against the grain — If you say that an idea or action goes against the grain, you mean that it is very difficult for you to accept it or do it, because it conflicts with your previous ideas, beliefs, or principles.
  • gravimetric analysis — analysis by weight.
  • gravitational radius — Schwarzschild radius.
  • great-circle sailing — sailing between two points more or less according to an arc of a great circle, in practice almost always using a series of rhumb lines of different bearings to approximate the arc, whose own bearing changes constantly unless it coincides with a meridian or the equator.
  • green monkey disease — Marburg disease.
  • green mountain state — Vermont (used as a nickname).
  • gregory of nazianzus — Saint. ?329–89 ad, Cappadocian theologian: bishop of Caesarea (370–79). Feast days: Jan 2, 25, and 30
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