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18-letter words containing s, a, n

  • aseptic meningitis — a mild form of meningitis usually caused by one of several viruses, characterized by headache, fever, and neck stiffness.
  • assessment process — a series of steps that constitute a method of assessing students or workers
  • assignment problem — (mathematics, algorithm)   (Or "linear assignment") Any problem involving minimising the sum of C(a, b) over a set P of pairs (a, b) where a is an element of some set A and b is an element of set B, and C is some function, under constraints such as "each element of A must appear exactly once in P" or similarly for B, or both. For example, the a's could be workers and the b's projects. The problem is "linear" because the "cost function" C() depends only on the particular pairing (a, b) and is independent of all other pairings.
  • associated company — a company which is largely controlled by its parent company because the latter owns anything up to 50% of the shares
  • association cortex — any of the regions of the cerebral cortex of the brain connected by numerous nerve fibers to all parts of both cerebral hemispheres and coordinating such higher activities as learning and reasoning.
  • assortative mating — the reproductive pairing of individuals that have more traits in common than would likely be the case if mating were random (contrasted with disassortative mating).
  • assumption of risk — Assumption of risk is the practice of paying for minor losses yourself, but protecting against catastrophic losses by buying insurance cover.
  • ast research, inc. — (company)   A company, formed some time before 1980, that was a leading personal computer manufacturer. AST developed desktop computers, mobile computers, and servers that were sold in more than 100 countries worldwide. In January 1999 the name and intellectual property were acquired by a new company named AST Computers, LLC. As of 2000-03-02 it was trading as ARI Service.
  • astrometric binary — a binary star that can be recognized as such because of its undulating proper motion.
  • astronomical clock — a complex clock showing astronomical phenomena, such as the phases of the moon
  • asynchronous logic — (architecture)   A data-driven circuit design technique where, instead of the components sharing a common clock and exchanging data on clock edges, data is passed on as soon as it is available. This removes the need to distribute a common clock signal throughout the circuit with acceptable clock skew. It also helps to reduce power dissipation in CMOS circuits because gates only switch when they are doing useful work rather than on every clock edge. There are many kinds of asynchronous logic. Data signals may use either "dual rail encoding" or "data bundling". Each dual rail encoded Boolean is implemented as two wires. This allows the value and the timing information to be communicated for each data bit. Bundled data has one wire for each data bit and another for timing. Level sensitive circuits typically represent a logic one by a high voltage and a logic zero by a low voltage whereas transition signalling uses a change in the signal level to convey information. A speed independent design is tolerant to variations in gate speeds but not to propagation delays in wires; a delay insensitive circuit is tolerant to variations in wire delays as well. The purest form of circuit is delay-insensitive and uses dual-rail encoding with transition signalling. A transition on one wire indicates the arrival of a zero, a transition on the other the arrival of a one. The levels on the wires are of no significance. Such an approach enables the design of fully delay-insensitive circuits and automatic layout as the delays introduced by the layout compiler can't affect the functionality (only the performance). Level sensitive designs can use simpler, stateless logic gates but require a "return to zero" phase in each transition.
  • at a rate of knots — very fast
  • at one's wit's end — the last part or extremity, lengthwise, of anything that is longer than it is wide or broad: the end of a street; the end of a rope.
  • at one's wits' end — at a loss to know how to proceed
  • at sb's right hand — If someone is at a person's right hand, they work closely with that person so they can help and advise them.
  • at someone's elbow — very close to someone; easy to reach
  • at the instance of — at the suggestion or instigation of
  • at the last minute — almost too late
  • at your fingertips — If you say that something is at your fingertips, you approve of the fact that you can reach it easily or that it is easily available to you.
  • at/from a distance — If you are at a distance from something, or if you see it or remember it from a distance, you are a long way away from it in space or time.
  • atmospheric engine — an early form of single-acting engine in which the power stroke is provided by atmospheric pressure acting upon a piston in an exhausted cylinder.
  • atmospheric window — wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be transmitted through the earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric windows occur in the visible, infrared, and radio regions of the spectrum
  • attendance figures — the number of people present at events such as football matches or concerts
  • auditory phonetics — the branch of phonetics concerned with the perception of speech sounds by humans
  • australian doubles — an unusual formation in doubles in which the server's partner is positioned on the same side of the court as the server.
  • australian terrier — a small wire-haired breed of terrier similar to the cairn
  • australopithecines — Plural form of australopithecine.
  • authorized version — the revised English translation of the Bible published in England in 1611 with the authorization of King James I
  • autoimmune disease — a disease resulting from a disordered immune reaction in which antibodies are produced against one's own tissues, as systemic lupus erythematosus or rheumatoid arthritis.
  • autonomous phoneme — a phoneme that is defined or determined by its contrast in sound with other phonemes, without reference to its role in morphology or any other level of linguistic analysis beyond the phonetic level.
  • aviation insurance — Aviation insurance is insurance cover for aircraft, and for damage, injury, or loss of life or cargo while traveling on aircraft.
  • awnless bromegrass — Hungarian bromegrass.
  • axis of revolution — an axis in a plane, about which an area is revolved to form a solid of revolution.
  • bachelor's-buttons — any of various plants of the daisy family with button-like flower heads
  • back in the saddle — at work again
  • back to square one — If you are back to square one, you have to start dealing with something from the beginning again because the way you were dealing with it has failed.
  • backus normal form — Backus-Naur Form
  • bad news/good news — If you say that something is bad news, you mean that it will cause you trouble or problems. If you say that something is good news, you mean that it will be useful or helpful to you.
  • balanced scorecard — A balanced scorecard is a type of management report which includes both financial and non-financial measures.
  • ballistic pendulum — a device consisting of a large mass hung from a horizontal bar by two rods, used to measure the velocity of an object, as a bullet, by retaining the object upon impact, its velocity being a function of the displacement of the mass.
  • banded rattlesnake — timber rattlesnake.
  • banker's reference — a confidential statement about the financial status of a customer, provided by one bank to another, or to an authorized enquirer
  • bankers-acceptance — a draft or bill of exchange that a bank has accepted. Abbreviation: BA. Also called banker's acceptance. Compare acceptance (def 6).
  • baritone saxophone — the second lowest instrument in the family of saxophones
  • barrow's goldeneye — See under goldeneye (def 1).
  • bartholin's glands — two small reddish-yellow glands, one on each side of the vaginal orifice, that secrete a mucous lubricating substance during sexual stimulation in females
  • basal conglomerate — a conglomerate deposited on an erosion surface and constituting the bottom layer of a stratigraphic series.
  • basement apartment — an apartment below the ground floor of a building
  • basket-handle arch — an arch having a symmetrical form drawn from an odd number of radii in excess of one, which increase in length from the springing toward the center.
  • bats-in-the-belfry — a hairy Eurasian campanulaceous plant, Campanula trachelium, with bell-shaped blue-purple flowers
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