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20-letter words containing s, i, c, l, a, n

  • magneto-optical disk — (hardware, storage)   (MO) A plastic or glass disk coated with a compound (often TbFeCo) with special optical, magnetic and thermal properties. The disk is read by bouncing a low-intensity laser off the disk. Originally the laser was infrared, but frequencies up to blue may be possible giving higher storage density. The polarisation of the reflected light depends on the polarity of the stored magnetic field. To write, a higher intensity laser heats the coating up to its Curie point, allowing its magnetisation to be altered in a way that is retained when it has cooled. Although optical, they appear as hard drives to the operating system and do not require a special filesystem (they can be formatted as FAT, HPFS, NTFS, etc.). The initial 5.25" MO drives, introduced at the end of the 1980s, were the size of a full-height 5.25" hard drive (like in IBM PC XT) and the disks looked like a CD-ROM enclosed in an old-style cartridge In 2006, a 3.5" drive has the size of 1.44 megabyte diskette drive with disks about the size of a regular 1.44MB floppy disc but twice the thickness.
  • malpighian corpuscle — Also called kidney corpuscle, Malpighian body. the structure at the beginning of a vertebrate nephron, consisting of a glomerulus and its surrounding Bowman's capsule.
  • media access control — (networking)   (MAC) The lower sublayer of the OSI data link layer. The interface between a node's Logical Link Control and the network's physical layer. The MAC differs for various physical media. See also MAC Address, Ethernet, IEEE 802.3, token ring.
  • menstrual extraction — an abortion procedure involving suction aspiration of the uterine contents early in gestation, before the first missed menstrual period: sometimes performed later.
  • microcrystalline wax — Microcrystalline wax is a wax used as a stiffening agent and as a coating agent for tablets and capsules.
  • middle-distance race — a race of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres
  • missionary apostolic — an honorary title conferred by the pope on certain missionaries.
  • mitral insufficiency — abnormal closure of the mitral valve resulting in regurgitation of blood into the atrium and leading to reduced heart function or heart failure.
  • molecular geneticist — a specialist in the study of the molecular constitution of genes and chromosomes
  • multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
  • naturalistic fallacy — the supposed fallacy of inferring evaluative conclusions from purely factual premises
  • navigable semicircle — the less violent half of a cyclone; the half blowing in the direction opposite to that in which the cyclone is moving and in which a vessel can run before the wind.
  • nephroangiosclerosis — (pathology) sclerosis of the renal arterioles.
  • neurophysiologically — In terms of, or with regard to, neurophysiology.
  • neuropsychiatrically — In terms of neuropsychiatry.
  • neuropsychologically — In terms of or by means of neuropsychology.
  • no lack of something — If you say there is no lack of something, you are emphasizing that there is a great deal of it.
  • non-sensationalistic — subject matter, language, or style producing or designed to produce startling or thrilling impressions or to excite and please vulgar taste.
  • nonsense correlation — a correlation supported by data but having no basis in reality, as between incidence of the common cold and ownership of televisions
  • north celestial pole — the point of intersection of the earth's extended axis and the northern half of the celestial sphere, lying about 1° from Polaris
  • north richland hills — a town in N Texas.
  • occupational disease — Also called industrial disease. a disease caused by the conditions or hazards of a particular occupation.
  • occupational pension — a pension scheme provided for the members of a particular occupation or by a specific employer or group of employers
  • olfactory anesthesia — absence or loss of the sense of smell.
  • omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
  • operational calculus — a method for solving a differential equation by treating differential operators as ordinary algebraic quantities, thus obtaining a simpler problem.
  • oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
  • overenthusiastically — With excessive enthusiasm.
  • packed like sardines — If you say that a crowd of people are packed like sardines, you are emphasizing that they are sitting or standing so close together that they cannot move easily.
  • paper qualifications — qualifications gained through official examinations, etc, rather than through experience
  • peaceful coexistence — competition without war, or a policy of peace between nations of widely differing political systems and ideologies, especially between Communist and non-Communist nations: peaceful coexistence between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
  • peculiar institution — black slavery in the southern U.S. before the Civil War.
  • pentose nucleic acid — a nucleic acid containing a pentose.
  • permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • personal cleanliness — physical cleanliness; the cleanliness of a person's body and habits
  • photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
  • physical examination — an examination, usually by a physician, of a person's body in order to determine his or her state of health or physical fitness, as for military service or participation in a sport.
  • physiologic jaundice — a transitory jaundice that affects some infants for the first few days after birth.
  • physiological saline — a salt solution that has the same osmotic pressure as that found in the blood or tissues
  • pipeline burst cache — (hardware, storage)   (PB Cache) A synchronous cache built from pipelined SRAM. A cache in which reading or writing a new location takes multiple cycles but subsequent locations can be accessed in a single cycle. On Pentium systems in 1996, pipeline burst caches are frequently used as secondary caches. The first 8 bytes of data are transferred in 3 CPU cycles, and the next 3 8-byte pieces of data are transferred in one cycle each.
  • planetary precession — the small component of the precession of the equinoxes contributed by the motion of the ecliptic, the change in orientation of the plane of the earth's orbit being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets.
  • polyanthus narcissus — a Eurasian amaryllidaceous plant, Narcissus tazetta, having clusters of small yellow or white fragrant flowers
  • prescription glasses — corrective spectacles
  • prince edward island — an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, forming a province of Canada: 2184 sq. mi. (5655 sq. km). Capital: Charlottetown.
  • prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
  • property speculation — the buying or selling of property in the hope of deriving capital gains
  • proportional spacing — a feature of some typewriters and other output devices whereby the space allotted to each character is determined by the width of the character
  • psychological moment — the proper or critical time for achieving a desired result: She found the right psychological moment to make her request.
  • public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
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