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22-letter words containing s, a

  • continental philosophy — a general term for related philosophical traditions that originated in 20th-century continental Europe, including critical theory, deconstruction, existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and structuralism (contrasted with analytic philosophy).
  • continuous welded rail — a long, continuous rail formed by welding many short rails.
  • contradiction in terms — a term, phrase, or phenomenon containing self-contradictory parts
  • conversational quality — (in public speaking) a manner of utterance that resembles the spontaneity and informality of relaxed personal conversation.
  • convertible loan stock — a stock or bond that can be converted into a stated number of shares at a particular date
  • coronary heart disease — any heart disorder caused by disease of the coronary arteries
  • coronary insufficiency — inadequate circulation of blood through the coronary arteries, characterized by attacks of angina pectoris
  • corporate headquarters — the main offices of a corporation, from where it runs its business
  • corporate manslaughter — the death of someone caused by an act of corporate negligence
  • corrupt practices acts — laws limiting contributions to and expenditures in election campaigns, making illegal certain methods of influencing voters, etc.
  • cosmological principle — the theory that the universe is uniform, homogenous, and isotropic, and therefore appears the same from any position
  • counterinterpretations — Plural form of counterinterpretation.
  • counterrevolutionaries — Plural form of counterrevolutionary.
  • course author language — (language)   (CAL) The CAI language for the IBM 360.
  • crankshaft end bearing — The crankshaft end bearing is the bearing between the connecting rod and the crankshaft of an internal combustion engine.
  • crime against humanity — repeated actions undertaken by, or condoned by, a government, deemed to infringe human dignity and safety, such as rape, torture, murder, etc
  • criminal investigation — an investigation by the police into a crime
  • critical path analysis — a technique for planning complex projects by analysing alternative systems with reference to the critical path, which is the sequence of stages requiring the longest time
  • cross the great divide — to die
  • curvature of the spine — a condition in which the spine is abnormally curved
  • cut a long story short — to leave out details in a narration
  • cut someone some slack — to be less demanding of someone; ease up on someone
  • cytidine monophosphate — a nucleotide constituent of ribonucleic acids; a phosphoric acid ester of cytidine. Abbreviation: CMP.
  • d'alembert's principle — the principle that for a moving body the external forces are in equilibrium with the inertial forces; a generalization of Newton's third law of motion
  • dalton's atomic theory — the theory that matter consists of indivisible particles called atoms and that atoms of a given element are all identical and can neither be created nor destroyed. Compounds are formed by combination of atoms in simple ratios to give compound atoms (molecules). The theory was the basis of modern chemistry
  • damn with faint praise — If someone damns something with faint praise, they say something about it which sounds quite nice but is not enthusiastic, and shows that they do not have a high opinion of it.
  • dashing white sergeant — a lively Scottish dance for sets of six people
  • data address generator — (architecture)   (DAG) The mechanism which generates temporary memory addresses for data that is transferred between memory and registers in a Digital Signal Processor. Certain DSP architectures incorporate more than one DAG to simplify the programming needed to move blocks of data between buffers. For instance, certain Fast Fourier Transform algorithms requiring bit reversing, can use the DAG for that purpose, or they can use two DAGS, one for Program Memory Data (PMD), and the other for Data Memory Data (DMD).
  • database administrator — (job)   A person responsible for the design and management of one or more databases and for the evaluation, selection and implementation of database management systems. In smaller organisations, the data administrator and database administrator are often one in the same; however, when they are different, the database administrator's function is more technical. The database administrator would implement the database software that meets the requirements outlined by the organisation's data administrator and systems analysts. Tasks might include controling an organisation's data resources, using data dictionary software to ensure data integrity and security, recovering corrupted data and eliminating data redundancy and uses tuning tools to improve database performance.
  • database normalisation — (database)   A series of steps followed to obtain a database design that allows for efficient access and storage of data in a relational database. These steps reduce data redundancy and the chances of data becoming inconsistent. A table in a relational database is said to be in normal form if it satisfies certain constraints. Codd's original work defined three such forms but there are now five generally accepted steps of normalisation. The output of the first step is called First Normal Form (1NF), the output of the second step is Second Normal Form (2NF), etc. First Normal Form eliminates repeating groups by putting each value of a multi-valued attribute into a new row. Second Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on a partial key by putting the fields in a separate table from those that are dependent on the whole key. Third Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on non-key fields by putting them in a separate table. At this stage, all non-key fields are dependent on the key, the whole key and nothing but the key. Fourth Normal Form separates independent multi-valued facts stored in one table into separate tables. Fifth Normal Form breaks out data redundancy that is not covered by any of the previous normal forms.
  • days of wine and roses — a period of happiness and prosperity.
  • decimal classification — a system of classifying books in libraries by the use of numbers with decimals
  • dehydroepiandrosterone — the most abundant steroid in the human body, that is involved in the manufacture of testosterone, oestrogen, progesterone, and corticosterone
  • deinstitutionalisation — Alternative spelling of deinstitutionalization.
  • deinstitutionalization — to release (a person with mental or physical disabilities) from a hospital, asylum, home, or other institution with the intention of providing treatment, support, or rehabilitation primarily through community resources under the supervision of health-care professionals or facilities.
  • delayed-action shutter — a camera shutter that opens after an interval set by the photographer
  • denotational semantics — (theory)   A technique for describing the meaning of programs in terms of mathematical functions on programs and program components. Programs are translated into functions about which properties can be proved using the standard mathematical theory of functions, and especially domain theory. Compare axiomatic semantics, operational semantics, standard semantics.
  • descriptive cataloging — the aspect of cataloging concerned with the bibliographic and physical description of a book, recording, or other work, accounting for such items as author or performer, title, edition, and imprint as opposed to subject content.
  • descriptive statistics — the use of statistics to describe a set of known data in a clear and concise manner, as in terms of its mean and variance, or diagrammatically, as by a histogram
  • design system language — J. Gaffney, Evans & Sutherland 1976. Interpretive FORTH-like language for 3d graphics databases. Earliest forerunner of both Interpress and PostScript. Mentioned in PostScript Language Reference Manual, Adobe Systems, A-W 1985.
  • developmental disorder — any condition, such as autism or dyslexia, that appears in childhood and is characterized by delay in the development of one or more psychological functions, such as language skill
  • devil's darning needle — dragonfly
  • diachronic linguistics — historical linguistics.
  • digital control system — (systems)   (DCS) A digital computer used for real-time control of a dynamic system, usually in an industrial environment, possibly as part of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. A DCS samples feedback from the system under control and modifies the control signals in an attempt to achieve some desired behaviour. Analysis of such digital-analogue feedback systems can involve mathematical methods such as difference equations, Laplace transforms, z transfer functions, state space models and state transition matrices.
  • digital standard mumps — (DSM) DEC's version of MUMPS.
  • digital versatile disc — (storage)   (DVD, formerly "Digital Video Disc") An optical storage medium with improved capacity and bandwidth compared with the Compact Disc. DVD, like CD, was initally marketed for entertainment and later for computer users. [When was it first available?] A DVD can hold a full-length film with up to 133 minutes of high quality video, in MPEG-2 format, and audio. The first DVD drives for computers were read-only drives ("DVD-ROM"). These can store 4.7 GBytes - over seven times the storage capacity of CD-ROM. DVD-ROM drives read existing CD-ROMs and music CDs and are compatible with installed sound and video boards. Additionally, the DVD-ROM drive can read DVD films and modern computers can decode them in software in real-time. The DVD video standard was announced in November 1995. Matshusita did much of the early development but Philips made the first DVD player, which appeared in Japan in November 1996. In May 2004, Sony released the first dual-layer drive, which increased the disc capacity to 8.5 GB. Double-sided, dual-layer discs will eventually increase the capacity to 17 GB. Write-once DVD-R ("recordable") drives record a 3.9GB DVD-R disc that can be read on a DVD-ROM drive. Pioneer released the first DVD-R drive on 1997-09-29. By March 1997, Hitachi had released a rewritable DVD-RAM drive (by false analogy with random-access memory). DVD-RAM drives read and write to a 2.6 GB DVD-RAM disc, read and write-once to a 3.9GB DVD-R disc, and read a 4.7 GB or 8.5 GB DVD-ROM. Later, DVD-RAM discs could be read on DVD-R and DVD-ROM drives.
  • director of admissions — a member of a university staff who is in overall charge of admissions to the university and its courses
  • directory system agent — (DSA) The software that provides the X.500 Directory Service for a portion of the directory information base. Generally, each DSA is responsible for the directory information for a single organisation or organisational unit.
  • disciplinary committee — a committee charged with examining alleged breaches of discipline within an organization, profession, etc and adjudicating on them
  • dishonorable discharge — the discharge of a person from military service for an offense more serious than one for which a bad-conduct discharge is given.
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