20-letter words containing s, i, l, c, a
- long island iced tea — a potent cocktail consisting of equal parts of, typically, five different distilled alcoholic liquors, usually vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and triple sec, with a small amount of mixer, usually cola
- longitudinal section — the representation of an object as it would appear if cut by the vertical plane passing through the longest axis of the object.
- lunisolar precession — the principal component of the precession of the equinoxes, produced by the gravitational attraction of the sun and the moon on the equatorial bulge of the earth.
- magical mystery tour — something exciting and mysterious; esp an exploration of a new place where somebody being shown or taken around does not know where exactly they will be going
- 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.
- malware as a service — (security, legal) A kind of cybercrime as a service in which the service provider operates or distributes malware on behalf of others for money.
- 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
- miliary tuberculosis — tuberculosis in which the bacilli are spread by the blood from one point of infection, producing small tubercles in other parts of the body.
- 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.
- multistorey car park — a car park consisting of several levels
- 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.
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- 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
- official secrets act — law: legislation protecting state secret
- 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
- particulars of claim — (in England) the first reading made by the claimant in a county court action, showing the facts upon which he or she relies in support of a claim and the relief asked for
- particulate scrubber — A particulate scrubber is a scrubber in which a liquid is mixed with the gas to collect solids.
- 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).
- peroxysulphuric acid — a white hygroscopic crystalline unstable oxidizing acid. Formula: H2SO5
- personal cleanliness — physical cleanliness; the cleanliness of a person's body and habits
- photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
- physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- 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.