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21-letter words containing s, h, e, f

  • lost in the underflow — (jargon)   Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
  • lotus of the good law — Saddharma-Pundarika.
  • lotus-of-the-true-law — a Mahayana sutra, forming with its references to Amida and the Bodhisattvas the basis for the doctrine that there is something of Buddha in everyone, so that salvation is universally available: a central text of Mahayana Buddhism.
  • lower the tone of sth — If you say that something lowers the tone of a place or event, you mean that it is not appropriate and makes the place or event seem less respectable.
  • lull before the storm — If you describe a situation as the lull before the storm, you mean that although it is calm now, there is going to be trouble in the future.
  • macintosh file system — (file system)   A file on the Macintosh consists of two parts, called forks. The "data fork" contains the data which would normally be stored in the file on other operating systems. The "resource fork" contains a collection of arbitrary attribute/value pairs, including program segments, icon bitmaps, and parametric values. Yet more information regarding Macintosh files is stored by the Finder in a hidden file, called the "Desktop Database". Because of the complications in storing different parts of a Macintosh file in non-Macintosh file systems that only handle consecutive data in one part, it is common to only send the Data fork or to convert the Macintosh file into some other format before transferring it.
  • make yourself at home — settle in
  • minister of the crown — any Government minister of cabinet rank
  • mistress of the robes — (in Britain) a lady of high rank in charge of the Queen's wardrobe
  • mother-of-pearl glass — an American art glassware having colored glass set into indentations in a thickness of opaque glass, the whole covered with clear glass and etched slightly with acid.
  • neither fish nor fowl — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
  • nightmare file system — Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen - worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great misfeature). ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these problems in the early 1970s. See also broadcast storm.
  • no smoke without fire — the evidence strongly suggests something has indeed happened
  • one-way hash function — (algorithm)   (Or "message digest function") A one-way function which takes a variable-length message and produces a fixed-length hash. Given the hash it is computationally infeasible to find a message with that hash; in fact one can't determine any usable information about a message with that hash, not even a single bit. For some one-way hash functions it's also computationally impossible to determine two messages which produce the same hash. A one-way hash function can be private or public, just like an encryption function. MD5, SHA and Snefru are examples of public one-way hash functions. A public one-way hash function can be used to speed up a public-key digital signature system. Rather than sign a long message, which can take a long time, compute the one-way hash of the message, and sign the hash.
  • pathfinder prospectus — a prospectus regarding the flotation of a new company that contains only sufficient details to test the market reaction
  • profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
  • psychological warfare — the use of propaganda, threats, and other psychological techniques to mislead, intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise influence the thinking or behavior of an opponent.
  • pull oneself together — to draw or haul toward oneself or itself, in a particular direction, or into a particular position: to pull a sled up a hill.
  • purple-fringed orchis — either of two North American orchids (Habenaria psycodes and H. fimbriata) with purple-fringed flowers
  • reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
  • rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
  • safe in the knowledge — If you do something safe in the knowledge that something else is the case, you do the first thing confidently because you are sure of the second thing.
  • satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
  • schema definition set — (SDS) Something in Portable Common Tool Environment.
  • school of the soldier — an institution where instruction is given, especially to persons under college age: The children are at school.
  • self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
  • set the scene for sth — Something that sets the scene for a particular event creates the conditions in which the event is likely to happen.
  • set the world on fire — the earth or globe, considered as a planet.
  • shoot off one's mouth — to hit, wound, damage, kill, or destroy with a missile discharged from a weapon.
  • shoot one's mouth off — to talk indiscreetly
  • siamese fighting fish — a labyrinth fish, Betta splendens, that has been bred for centuries to develop brilliant coloration, very long fins, and pugnacity.
  • sieve of eratosthenes — a method of obtaining prime numbers by sifting out the composite numbers from the set of natural numbers so that only prime numbers remain.
  • skeleton at the feast — a person or event that brings gloom or sadness to an occasion of joy or celebration
  • something for nothing — If you say that someone is getting something for nothing, you disapprove of the fact that they are getting what they want without doing or giving anything in return.
  • south pacific current — an ocean current that flows E in the South Pacific Ocean parallel to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
  • sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
  • spotted alfalfa aphid — a pale yellowish aphid, Therioaphis maculata, of the southern U.S., especially west of the Mississippi River, that is marked with black spots and has fine spines on its back: a pest mainly of alfalfa and some other legumes, as clover.
  • staffordshire terrier — former name of American Staffordshire terrier.
  • stare one in the face — to be glaringly obvious or imminent
  • stations of the cross — a series of 14 crosses, often accompanied by 14 pictures or carvings, arranged in order around the walls of a church, to commemorate 14 supposed stages in Christ's journey to Calvary
  • steer clear of sb/sth — If you steer clear of someone or something, you deliberately avoid them.
  • stockholder of record — a stockholder or his or her agent whose name is registered on the books of the issuing corporation at the close of a business day set for determining that stockholders shall receive dividends or vote on an issue.
  • symphonie fantastique — a programmatic symphony (1830–31) in five movements by Hector Berlioz.
  • synchronized shifting — gear shifting in which the gears to be meshed are made to rotate at the same speed.
  • take off one's hat to — a shaped covering for the head, usually with a crown and brim, especially for wear outdoors.
  • take one's hat off to — to salute or congratulate
  • the acting profession — actors considered as a group
  • the barber of seville — Italian Il barbiere di Siviglia. a comic opera (1816) by Gioacchino Rossini based on a comedy (1775) by Beaumarchais.
  • the best of the bunch — If you say someone or something is the best of the bunch or the pick of the bunch, you mean they are the best of a group of people or things.
  • the end of one's rope — the end of one's endurance, resources, etc.
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