22-letter words containing s, a, m, p
- graph rewriting system — An extension of a term rewriting system which uses graph reduction on terms represented by directed graphs to avoid duplication of work by sharing expressions.
- gum bichromate process — a contact printing method in which the image is formed on a coating of sensitized gum containing a suitable colored pigment and potassium or ammonium dichromate.
- hemorrhagic septicemia — an acute infectious disease of animals, caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida, and characterized by fever, catarrhal symptoms, pneumonia, and general blood infection.
- horn-rimmed spectacles — spectacles with rims made of material resembling horn
- hospital administrator — a person who works in the management team of a hospital
- hypothetical syllogism — a hypothetical syllogism has two uses. In propositional logic it expresses one of the rules of inference, while in the history of logic, it is a short-hand for the theory of consequence
- independent assortment — law of independent assortment.
- information processing — processing of information, especially the handling of information by computers in accordance with strictly defined systems of procedure.
- interpretive semantics — a school of semantic theory based on the doctrine that the rules that relate sentences to their meanings form an autonomous system, separate from the rules that determine what is grammatical in a language
- isthmus of tehuantepec — the narrowest part of S Mexico, with the Bay of Campeche on the north coast and the Gulf of Tehuantepec (an inlet of the Pacific) on the south coast
- jacquard, joseph-marie — Joseph-Marie Jacquard
- japanese umbrella pine — a single aberrant species of pine, Sciadopitys verticillata, in which the leaves are fused in pairs and the crown is spire-shaped
- java community process — (project) (JCP) An organization controlled by Sun Microsystems to further the growth of the Java language and runtime. The JCP produces standards called Java Standard Requests, which are "requests" in the same sense as RFCs.
- last call optimisation — (programming) (Or "tail call optimisation") Discarding the immediate calling context (call stack frame) when the last action of a function or procedure, A, is to call another function or procedure, B. B will then return directly to A's caller, or possibly further up the call stack if the optimisation has been applied to several consecutive calls. Last call optimisation allows arbitrarily deep nesting of procedure calls without consuming memory to store useless environments. This is particularly useful in the special case of tail recursion optimisation, where a procedure's last action is to call itself (possibly indirectly).
- magnetic pole strength — Electricity. a measure of the force exerted by one face of a magnet on a face of another magnet when both magnets are represented by equal and opposite poles. Symbol: m.
- make one's flesh creep — to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands and knees.
- make/prove one's point — If you make your point or prove your point, you prove that something is true, either by arguing about it or by your actions or behaviour.
- microwave spectroscopy — the determination of those frequencies of the microwave spectrum that are selectively absorbed by certain materials, providing information about atomic, molecular, and crystalline structure.
- mind one's p's and q's — to be careful to behave correctly and use polite or suitable language
- miscellaneous expenses — small expenses of various kinds
- missing persons bureau — the part of the Police Force dealing with tracing missing people
- monoammonium phosphate — a white, crystalline, moderately water-soluble compound, NH 4 H 2 PO 4 , used as fertilizer, in fire extinguishers, etc.
- mozilla public license — Open source license
- multiplicative inverse — reciprocal (def 9).
- non-hodgkin's lymphoma — Pathology. any of several malignancies of the lymphatic system in which the cells characteristic of Hodgkin's disease are absent.
- non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
- nonrepresentationalism — not resembling or portraying any object in physical nature: a nonrepresentational painting.
- not be sb's department — If you say that a task or area of knowledge is not your department, you mean that you are not responsible for it or do not know much about it.
- oak processionary moth — a moth, (Thaumetopoea processionea), of the family Thaumetopoeidae, the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- on the part of someone — as far as someone is concerned
- open-market operations — the purchase and sale on the open market of government securities by the Bank of England for the purpose of regulating the supply of money and credit to the economy
- operation desert storm — the codename for the US-led UN operation to liberate Kuwait from Iraq (1991)
- paracoccidioidomycosis — a chronic infection caused by the fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis, occurring in Mexico and in Central and South America, characterized by mouth and throat ulcers, weight loss, and lesions on the skin, intestines, and genitals.
- parker morris standard — (in Britain) a set of minimum criteria for good housing construction, design, and facilities, recommended by the 1961 report of the Central Housing Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Parker Morris. Subsequent governments have urged private and local authority house-builders to achieve these standards
- paroxysmal tachycardia — tachycardia that begins and subsides suddenly.
- passive matrix display — (hardware) A type of liquid crystal display which relies on persistence to maintain the state of each display element (pixel) between refresh scans. The resolution of such displays is limited by the ratio between the time to set a pixel and the time it takes to fade. Contrast active matrix display.
- percussive maintenance — (jargon) The fine art of whacking a device to get it working, possibly using a fine adjuster.
- philip the magnanimous — 1504–67, German prince; landgrave of Hesse (1509–67). He helped to crush (1525) the Peasants' Revolt and formed (1531) the League of Schmalkaden, an alliance of German Protestant rulers
- planetary transmission — A planetary transmission is a special form of geared drive in which the input and output shafts are on the same axis.
- pneumocystis pneumonia — a pulmonary infection caused by the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii, occurring as an opportunistic disease in persons with impaired immune systems, as AIDS victims. Abbreviation: PCP.
- point of sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
- point-of-sale terminal — the store, dealer, or other retail outlet where an item is sold: from manufacturer to point-of-sale.
- poor richard's almanac — an almanac (1732–58) written and published by Benjamin Franklin.
- post office department — former name of United States Postal Service.
- postmortem examination — dissection and examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death
- potassium ferricyanide — a bright-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 , used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments, as Prussian blue, and of paper, especially blueprint paper.
- potassium ferrocyanide — a lemon-yellow, crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in casehardening alloys having an iron base and in dyeing wool and silk.
- potassium permanganate — a very dark purple, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KMnO 4 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent, disinfectant, laboratory reagent, and in medicine as an astringent and antiseptic.
- potassium-argon dating — a method for estimating the age of a mineral or rock, based on measurement of the rate of decay of radioactive potassium into argon.
- practice makes perfect — If you say 'practice makes perfect', you mean that it is possible to learn something or develop a skill if you practise enough. People often say this to encourage someone to keep practising.