23-letter words containing s, a, u, r
- cut sb's umbilical cord — If you say that one person, organization, or country has cut its umbilical cord with another, you mean that they have done something that makes them more independent.
- d'entrecasteaux islands — a group of volcanic islands in the Pacific, off the SE coast of New Guinea: part of Papua New Guinea. Pop: 49 167 (1990 est). Area: 3141 sq km (1213 sq miles)
- database query language — (database) A language in which users of a database can (interactively) formulate requests and generate reports. The best known is SQL.
- deterministic automaton — (theory) A finite-state automaton in which the overall course of the computation is completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. The class of problems solvable by such automata is the class P (see polynomial-time algorithm).
- digital subscriber line — (communications, protocol) (DSL, or Digital Subscriber Loop, xDSL - see below) A family of digital telecommunications protocols designed to allow high speed data communication over the existing copper telephone lines between end-users and telephone companies. When two conventional modems are connected through the telephone system (PSTN), it treats the communication the same as voice conversations. This has the advantage that there is no investment required from the telephone company (telco) but the disadvantage is that the bandwidth available for the communication is the same as that available for voice conversations, usually 64 kb/s (DS0) at most. The twisted-pair copper cables into individual homes or offices can usually carry significantly more than 64 kb/s but the telco needs to handle the signal as digital rather than analog. There are many implementation of the basic scheme, differing in the communication protocol used and providing varying service levels. The throughput of the communication can be anything from about 128 kb/s to over 8 Mb/s, the communication can be either symmetric or asymmetric (i.e. the available bandwidth may or may not be the same upstream and downstream). Equipment prices and service fees also vary considerably. The first technology based on DSL was ISDN, although ISDN is not often recognised as such nowadays. Since then a large number of other protocols have been developed, collectively referred to as xDSL, including HDSL, SDSL, ADSL, and VDSL. As yet none of these have reached very wide deployment but wider deployment is expected for 1998-1999.
- digital subscriber loop — Digital Subscriber Line
- dionysius of alexandria — ("the Great") a.d. c190–265, patriarch of Alexandria 247?–265?.
- discontinuous variation — variation in phenotypic traits in which types are grouped into discrete categories with few or no intermediate phenotypes. Compare continuous variation.
- dishonourable discharge — dismissal from the US armed forces by a court martial as a result of serious misconduct
- disjunctive normal form — (DNF) A logical formula consisting of a disjunction of conjunctions where no conjunction contains a disjunction. E.g. the DNF of (A or B) and C is (A and C) or (B and C).
- distributive bargaining — a negotiation process aimed at reaching a compromise agreement over how resources may be allocated between the parties
- dual sensory impairment — the condition of being affected by sight and hearing loss
- earthquake-proof design — Earthquake-proof design is design which will not be badly damaged by earthquakes or tsunamis.
- eastern orthodox church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
- education correspondent — a journalist who reports news in the field of education or teaching
- electronic surveillance — use of electronic devices to spy, observe
- encapsulated postscript — (EPS) An extension of the PostScript graphics file format developed by Adobe Systems. EPS is used for PostScript graphics files that are to be incorporated into other documents. An EPS file includes pragmas (special PostScript comments) giving information such as the bounding box, page number and fonts used. On some computers, EPS files include a low resolution version of the PostScript image. On the Macintosh this is in PICT format, while on the IBM PC it is in TIFF or Microsoft Windows metafile format.
- entrance qualifications — academic requirements
- fall through the cracks — to break without complete separation of parts; become fissured: The plate cracked when I dropped it, but it was still usable.
- fetal tissue transplant — a surgical procedure in which tissue from an aborted fetus is grafted into a patient to replace or improve defective tissue, especially to treat Parkinson's disease or other neurological disorders.
- fifth marquis lansdowne — Henry Charles Keith, 5th Marquis of Lansdowne, Lansdowne, 5th Marquis of.
- fish in troubled waters — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- fraunhofer gesellschaft — (company) (FhG, FhG IIS, Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen) A german company, named after the physicist. IIS is Integrated Circuit Institute. FhG are known for their research on audio compression, especially MPEG-1 Layer-3 (MP3).
- functional requirements — (specification) What a system should be able to do, the functions it should perform. This term is used at both the user requirements analysis and software requirements specifications phases in the software life-cycle. An example of a non-functional requirement is an initialisation sequence incorporated into the software that is specific to a given customer.
- gastroesophageal reflux — a chronic condition in which acid from the stomach flows back into the lower esophagus, causing pain or tissue damage.
- german southwest africa — a former name of Namibia.
- give something a rub-up — to smooth or polish something
- grand duchess charlotte — Grand Duchess (Charlotte Aldegonde Elise Marie Wilhelmine) 1896–1985, sovereign of Luxembourg 1919–64.
- guest relations manager — A guest relations manager at a hotel is responsible for the relationships that the hotel has with its guests and the way in which it treats them.
- guillain-barre syndrome — an uncommon, usually self-limited form of polyneuritis, occurring after a viral illness or immunization and manifested by loss of muscle strength, loss of or altered sensation and sometimes paralysis.
- hang out your/a shingle — If you hang out your shingle or hang out a shingle, you start your own business.
- have one's work cut out — to have as much work as one can manage
- have struck/hit paydirt — If you say that someone has struck paydirt or has hit paydirt, you mean that they have achieved sudden success or gained a lot of money very quickly.
- hermit of st. augustine — a member of an order of mendicant friars, founded in 1256.
- heterogeneous catalysis — Heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis in which the catalyst does not take part in the reaction that it increases.
- hire purchase agreement — an agreement between a seller and a buyer for the buyer to purchase something on hire purchase
- horsehair-blight fungus — a fungal parasite, Marasmius equicrinis, that causes a disease of certain tropical plants, especially tea.
- hortense de beauharnais — Beauharnais, Eugénie Hortense de.
- human rights campaigner — a person who campaigns for human rights
- hunter-killer satellite — a satellite designed to seek out and destroy a nearby enemy satellite by exploding itself into a cloud of high-speed metal fragments.
- hunter-killer submarine — a submarine designed and equipped to pursue and destroy enemy craft
- immigration authorities — the authorities or official government bodies who regulate laws regarding immigration and immigrants
- in the arms of morpheus — sleeping
- in the nature of things — If you say that something is in the nature of things, you mean that you would expect it to happen in the circumstances mentioned.
- in your heart of hearts — If you believe or know something in your heart of hearts, that is what you really believe or think, even though it may sometimes seem that you do not.
- industrial psychologist — a person who studies human behaviour and cognitive processes in relation to the working environment
- inland marine insurance — insurance chiefly covering risks to goods and means of transportation involved in the transporting of goods overland or by inland waterways.
- interfascicular cambium — cambium that develops between the vascular bundles.
- internal reconstruction — the hypothetical reconstruction of an earlier stage of a language or of some part of it, as its phonology, by deductions from irregularities in its present structure, as the reconstruction of a stage in English when certain instances of r were related to s in a systematic way by comparing the pair was:were to other pairs, as lose:forlorn.
- joint test action group —