27-letter words containing s, e, r, v
- publius-licinius-valerianus — (Publius Licinius Valerianus) died a.d. c260, Roman emperor 253–60.
- respiratory syncytial virus — a myxovirus causing infections of the nose and throat, esp in young children. It is thought to be involved in some cot deaths
- seasonal affective disorder — recurrent winter depression characterized by oversleeping, overeating, and irritability, and relieved by the arrival of spring or by light therapy. Abbreviation: SAD.
- sell your soul to the devil — If you say that someone has sold their soul to the devil, you mean that you disapprove of them because they have done something that you think is not right in order to get what they want.
- serbs, croats, and slovenes — former name (1918–29) of Yugoslavia.
- storage management services — (storage) (SMS) Software that enables network administrators to route backup data from various devices on a network to another device such as a server or a magnetic tape backup unit. This is done either to make use of a high-capacity storage system such as a tape juke-box or for disaster protection.
- the odds are in sb's favour — If you say that the odds are in someone's favour, you mean that they are likely to succeed in what they are doing.
- to fall over yourself to do — If you say that people are falling over themselves to do something, you mean that they are very enthusiastic about doing it, and often that you disapprove of this.
- to give someone a free hand — If someone gives you a free hand, they give you the freedom to use your own judgment and to do exactly as you wish.
- to give something houseroom — If you say that you wouldn't give something houseroom, you are emphasizing that you do not want it or do not like it at all.
- to invade someone's privacy — If someone or something invades your privacy, they interfere in your life without your permission.
- to send someone to coventry — If people send you to Coventry, they avoid speaking to you whenever they meet you, as a way of punishing you for something that you have done.
- united service organization — a private, non-profit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the US military, with programmes in 140 centres worldwide
- universal computer protocol — (communications, protocol) An earlier form of External Machine Interface (EMI).
- universal military training — a program for maintaining a nation's pool of trained military personnel, requiring all qualified citizens to serve for a period of active and reserve duty. Abbreviation: UMT.
- universal naming convention — (networking) (UNC) The type of file system path used in Microsoft Windows networking to completely specify a directory on a file server. The basic format is: \\servername\sharename where "servername" is the hostname or IP address of a network file server, and "sharename" is the name of a shared directory on the server. This is related to the conventional MS-DOS "C:\windows" style of directory name. E.g. \\server1\dave might be set up to point to C:\users\homedirs\dave on a server called "server1". It is possible to execute a program using this convention without having to specifically link a drive, by running: \\server\share\directory\program.exe The undocumented DOS command, TRUENAME can be used to find out the UNC name of a file or directory on a network drive. Even Microsoft don't know whether UNC stands for "Universal Naming Convention" or "Uniform Naming Convention", both appear on their website, sometimes withing the same document, but with a preference for "Universal".
- university grants committee — an advisory committee of the British government, which advised on the distribution of grant funding amongst British universities. It was in existence from 1919 until 1989. Its functions have now largely been taken over by the higher education funding councils (HEFCE (England), SHEFC (Scotland), HEFCW (Wales), and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland)
- vice-presidential candidate — a candidate for the position of a person who ranks immediately below the chief executive or head of state of a republic, esp of the US