20-letter words containing s, e, r, u
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- digital service unit — data service unit
- directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.
- disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.
- disruptive discharge — the sudden, large increase in current through an insulating medium resulting from complete failure of the medium under electrostatic stress.
- distributed database — A collection of several different databases that looks like a single database to the user. An example is the Internet Domain Name System (DNS).
- distributed practice — learning with reasonably long intervals between separate occasions of learning
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- distributive lattice — (theory) A lattice for which the least upper bound (lub) and greatest lower bound (glb) operators distribute over one another so that a lub (b glb c) == (a lub c) glb (a lub b) and vice versa. ("lub" and "glb" are written in LateX as \sqcup and \sqcap).
- district court judge — a judge presiding over a lower court
- diverticular disease — any disease of the colon involving the presence of diverticula
- double-aspect theory — a monistic theory that holds that mind and body are not distinct substances but merely different aspects of a single substance
- drug delivery system — A drug delivery system is a system that is used as a medium or carrier for administering a pharmaceutical product to a patient.
- drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
- drunk and disorderly — If someone is charged with being drunk and disorderly, they are charged with being drunk and behaving in a noisy, offensive, or violent way in public.
- drunk mouse syndrome — (Also "mouse on drugs") A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing device of some computers. The typical symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again. Another recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse mat 90 degrees. At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks. When the steel ball on the mouse had picked up enough cruft to be unreliable, the mouse was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while. However, this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation of cruft, so the dousings became more and more frequent. Finally, the mouse was declared "alcoholic" and sent to the clinic to be dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.
- duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
- due process (of law) — the course of legal proceedings established by the legal system of a nation or state to protect individual rights
- dun & bradstreet — an agency furnishing subscribers with information as to the financial standing and credit rating of businesses
- early sunday morning — a painting (1930) by Edward Hopper.
- ecclesiastical court — a church court in ecclesiastical matters, presided over by members of the clergy and usually having no compulsory jurisdiction.
- eight queens problem — eight queens puzzle
- electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
- electronic signature — electronic proof of a person's identity
- eleusinian mysteries — a mystical religious festival, held in September at Eleusis in classical times, in which initiates celebrated Persephone, Demeter, and Dionysus
- entry qualifications — the qualifications people wishing to enter an organization, university, etc, have to have
- epidural anaesthesia — numbing injection in the spine
- equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
- equivalent air speed — the speed at sea level that would produce the same Pitot-static tube reading as that measured at altitude
- erythema infectiosum — a mild infectious disease of childhood, caused by a virus, characterized by fever and a red rash spreading from the cheeks to the limbs and trunk
- estrela mountain dog — a sturdy well-built dog of a Portuguese breed with a long thick coat and a thick tuft of hair round the neck, often used as a guard dog
- european social fund — one of the four Structural Funds of the European Union which aims to support employment and the economic and social well-being of EU member countries
- exclusive or circuit — a computer logic circuit having two or more input wires and one output wire and giving a high-voltage output signal if a low-voltage signal is fed to one or more, but not all, of the input wires
- federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
- financial instrument — A financial instrument is a document or contract that can be traded in a market, that represents an asset to one party and a liability or equity to the other.
- first-cause argument — an argument for the existence of God, asserting the necessity of an uncaused cause of all subsequent series of causes, on the assumption that an infinite regress is impossible.
- five-star restaurant — a restaurant which has been given the top star-rating
- flame-fusion process — Verneuil process.
- fold-and-thrust belt — a linear or arcuate region of the earth's surface that has been subjected to severe folding and thrust faulting
- four-colour glossies — 1. Literature created by marketroids that allegedly contains technical specs but which is in fact as superficial as possible without being totally content-free. "Forget the four-colour glossies, give me the tech ref manuals." Often applied as an indication of superficiality even when the material is printed on ordinary paper in black and white. Four-colour-glossy manuals are *never* useful for finding a problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual pages that don't contain enough information to diagnose why the program doesn't produce the expected or desired output.
- frame check sequence — (communications) (FCS) The extra characters added to a frame for error detection and correction(?). FCS is used in X.25, HDLC, Frame Relay, and other data link layer protocols.
- freight pass-through — a special allowance or discounted price given a bookseller or bookstore by a publishing house for paying the freight charge on a shipment of books ordered: so called because the shipping charge is passed on to the consumer by an increase in the suggested retail price for each book. Abbreviation: FPT.
- fundamental research — research carried out to deepen understanding of the fundamental or basic principles of something
- gastroduodenostomies — Plural form of gastroduodenostomy.
- general headquarters — the headquarters of the commanding officer of a large military force. Abbreviation: GHQ, G.H.Q.
- general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
- general public virus — (software, legal) A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
- get one's finger out — to begin or speed up activity, esp after initial delay or slackness
- get someone's number — a numeral or group of numerals.