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26-letter words containing s, a, t, u, r, i

  • hoist with your own petard — If someone who has planned to harm someone else is hoist with their own petard or hoist by their own petard, their plan in fact results in harm to themselves.
  • if i had/given my druthers — You can say that you would do something if I had my druthers or given my druthers when you mean that you would do it if you were able to choose.
  • indefinite relative clause — a relative clause with an indefinite relative pronoun as subordinating word, as what they said in We heard what they said.
  • individualized instruction — a teaching method tailored to the skills, abilities, and interests of the individual student
  • intermodulation distortion — (electronics, communications)   (IMD) Nonlinear distortion in a system or transducer, characterised by the appearance in the output of frequencies equal to the sums and differences of integral multiples of the two or more component frequencies present in the input waveform.
  • internal combustion engine — An internal combustion engine is an engine that creates its energy by burning fuel inside itself. Most cars have internal combustion engines.
  • internal-combustion engine — an engine of one or more working cylinders in which the process of combustion takes place within the cylinders.
  • justice of the peace court — (in Scotland, formerly) a court with limited criminal jurisdiction held by justices of the peace in counties: replaced in 1975 by the district court
  • knights of the round table — a legendary order of knights created by King Arthur.
  • law of diminishing returns — diminishing returns (def 2).
  • make a virtue of necessity — moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.
  • master of the king's music — (in Britain when the sovereign is male) a court post dating from the reign of Charles I. It is an honorary title and normally held by an established English composer
  • mean time between failures — (specification)   (MTBF, or "Mean Time Between Faults") The average time (usually expressed in hours) that a component works without failure. It is calculated by dividing the total number of failures into the total number of operating hours observed. The term can also mean the length of time a user may reasonably expect a device or system to work before an incapacitating fault occurs. See also Mean Time To Recovery.
  • mecklenburg-west pomerania — a state of NE Germany, along the Baltic coast: consists of the former state of Mecklenburg and those parts of W Pomerania not incorporated into Poland after World War II: part of East Germany until 1990. Pop: 1 732 000 (2003 est)
  • metropolitan museum of art — the principal museum in New York City: founded in 1870 and housed in its present premises in Central Park since 1880
  • microcrystalline cellulose — Microcrystalline cellulose is a polymer used as a binder in tablets because it is stable, compressible, and disintegrates quickly.
  • micronetics standard mumps — (MSM) A version of MUMPS for the IBM PC RT and R6000.
  • mongolian hordes technique — (programming, jargon)   (Or "Chinese Army technique") Assigning a large number of inexperienced programmers to a job which would better performed by a few skilled ones. The term was first used by Dr. Fred Brooks in his book "The Mythical Man-Month", Chapter 3. According to Dr. Brooks, he had in mind the vision of the Mongol Hordes sweeping across Asia and Europe when he created the term.
  • most-favored-nation clause — a clause in a commercial treaty or contract by which each signatory agrees to give the other the same treatment that is or will be accorded any other nation.
  • multi-color graphics array — (hardware, graphics)   (MCGA) One of IBM's less popular hardware video display standards for use in the IBM PS/2. MCGA can display 80*25 text in monochrome, 40*25 text in 256 colours or 320*200 pixel graphics in 256 colors. It is now obsolete.
  • mushroom slab construction — beamless reinforced-concrete floor and roof construction employing columns with widely flaring heads having horizontal rings of reinforcement to support the floor or roof slab.
  • mutual assured destruction — a U.S. doctrine of reciprocal deterrence resting on the U.S. and Soviet Union each being able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack.
  • nature conservancy council — (in Britain) a body set up by act of parliament in 1973 to establish and manage nature reserves, identify SSSIs, and provide information and advice about nature conservation. In 1991–92 it was replaced by English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage, and the Countryside Council for Wales
  • new business profit margin — A new business profit margin is a system used by insurers to measure the cost of and profit from writing new policies.
  • newfoundland standard time — one of the standard times used in Canada, three and a half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time
  • nondeterministic automaton — (theory)   (Or "probabilistic automaton") An automaton in which there are several possible actions (outputs and next states) at each state of the computation such that the overall course of the computation is not completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. See also nondeterministic Turing Machine.
  • nuclear magnetic resonance — the selective absorption of electromagnetic radiation by an atomic nucleus in the presence of a strong, static, magnetic field: used in research and in medicine to monitor tissue metabolism and to distinguish between normal and abnormal cells. Abbreviation: NMR.
  • object constraint language — (language)   (OCL) A formal specification language extension to UML. The Object Constraint Language is a precise text language that provides constraint and object query expressions on an object-oriented model that cannot otherwise be expressed by diagrammatic notation. OCL supplements UML by providing expressions that have neither the ambiguities of natural language nor the inherent difficulty of using complex mathematics. OCL is a descendent of Syntropy, a second-generation object-oriented analysis and design method. The OCL 1.4 definition specified a constraint language. In OCL 2.0, the definition has been extended to include general object query language definitions.
  • official production system — (language)   (OPS) The first production system (i.e. rule based) programming language, developed at CMU in 1970 and used for building expert systems. OPS was originally written in Franz Lisp and later ported to other LISP dialects.
  • orthogonal instruction set — (architecture)   An instruction set where all (or most) instructions have the same format and all registers and addressing modes can be used interchangeably - the choices of op code, register, and addressing mode are mutually independent (loosely speaking, the choices are "orthogonal"). This contrasts with some early Intel microprocessors where only certain registers could be used by certain instructions. Examples include the PDP-11, 680x0, ARM, VAX.
  • period-luminosity relation — the relationship between the period of light variation and of the absolute magnitude of Cepheid variable stars.
  • permanent health insurance — a form of insurance that provides up to 75 per cent of a person's salary, until retirement, in case of prolonged illness or disability
  • pick up the threads of sth — If you pick up the threads of an activity, you start it again after an interruption. If you pick up the threads of your life, you become more active again after a period of failure or bad luck.
  • post-and-beam construction — wall construction in which beams rather than studs are used to support heavy posts.
  • public-liability insurance — insurance covering the insured against risks involving liability to the public for damages arising from negligence.
  • public-service corporation — a private or quasi-private corporation chartered to provide an essential commodity or service to the public.
  • put a bug in someone's ear — Also called true bug, hemipteran, hemipteron. a hemipterous insect.
  • put one's signature to sth — If you put your signature to a document, you sign it as a way of officially showing that you agree with what is written.
  • quasi-stellar radio source — a quasar having detectable radio emission. Abbreviation: QSS.
  • quite apart from something — used to indicate that you are aware of one aspect of a situation, but that you are going to focus on another aspect
  • register transfer language — (RTL) 1. A kind of hardware description language (HDL) used in describing the registers of a computer or digital electronic system, and the way in which data is transferred between them. 2. An intermediate code for a machine with an infinite number of registers, used for machine-independent optimisation. RTL was developed by Chris Fraser <[email protected]> and J. Davidson <[email protected]> at the University of Arizona in the early 1980s. RTL is used by the GNU C compiler, gcc and by Davidson's VPCC (Very Portable C compiler).
  • replacement cost insurance — Replacement cost insurance is insurance in which the cost of replacing property is calculated without a reduction for depreciation.
  • reticuloendothelial system — the aggregate of the phagocytic cells, including certain cells of the bone marrow, lymphatic system, liver, and spleen, that have reticular and endothelial characteristics and function in the immune system's defense against foreign bodies. Abbreviation: RES.
  • sangre de cristo mountains — a mountain range in S Colorado and N New Mexico: part of the Rocky Mountains. Highest peak: Blanca Peak, 4364 m (14 317 ft)
  • scares the life out of you — If you want to emphasize that something scares you a lot, you can say that it scares the hell out of you or scares the life out of you.
  • sixty-four-dollar question — the critical or basic question or problem: Whether the measure will get through Congress this session or not is the sixty-four-dollar question.
  • software writer's language — (language)   (SWL) /swil/ An industrial strength dialect of Pascal that allowed multiple source code files, originally developed at Control Data Corporation (CDC) prior to 1973. Development continued at the Integrated Systems Laboratory. SWL was adopted by NCR as its corporate operating system and compiler implementation language (1978-1982+). The NCR SWL dialect was renamed NCRL (NCR Language) in 1981 and continued development [until ?].
  • st andrews static language — (language)   (SASL) A functional programming language designed by Professor David Turner in 1976 whilst at St. Andrews University. SASL is a derivative of ISWIM with infinite data structures. It is fully lazy but weakly typed. It was designed for teaching functional programming, with very simple syntax. Example syntax: def fac n = n = 0 -> 1 ; n x fac(n-1) A version of the expert system EMYCIN has been written in SASL. SASL was originally known as "St Andrews Standard Language". Not to be confused with SISAL.
  • staffordshire bull terrier — one of an English breed of strong, stocky, muscular dogs having a broad skull and a smooth coat, in combinations of red, white, black, or blue, originally raised for bullbaiting and later dogfighting, but now bred as a companion dog.
  • state of the union address — an annual message to Congress in which the president reports on the state of the nation and outlines a legislative program: required by the Constitution (Article II, Section 3). Abbreviation: SOTU.
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