16-letter words containing s, i, m, n
- dinosaurs mating — (humour) The activity said to occur when yet another big iron merger or buy-out occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the mainframe industry. Also described as "elephants mating": lots of noise and action at a high level, with an eventual outcome in the somewhat distant future. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was "IBM and the Seven Dwarves": Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. Early on, RCA sold out to Univac and GE also sold out, and it was "IBM and the BUNCH" (an acronym for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out by Bull. Univac in turn merged with Sperry to form Sperry/Univac, which was later merged (although the employees of Sperry called it a hostile takeover) with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1986 (this was when the phrase "dinosaurs mating" was coined). In 1991 AT&T absorbed NCR, only to spit it out again in 1996. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988 and later others. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.
- discombobulating — Present participle of discombobulate.
- discombobulation — to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate: The speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.
- discriminability — The condition of being discriminable.
- discriminatingly — With discrimination.
- discriminatorily — characterized by or showing prejudicial treatment, especially as an indication of bias related to age, color, national origin, religion, sex, etc.: discriminatory practices in housing; a discriminatory tax.
- disembarrassment — Freedom or relief from impediment or perplexity.
- disestablishment — to deprive of the character of being established; cancel; abolish.
- disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.
- displacement ton — a unit for measuring the displacement of a vessel, equal to a long ton of 2240 pounds (1016 kg) or 35 cu. ft. (1 cu. m) of seawater.
- display terminal — Visual Display Unit
- distance modulus — a measure of the distance, r, of a celestial object too far away to show measurable parallax. It is given by m–M = 5 log(r/10), where m is its apparent magnitude (corrected for interstellar absorption) and M is its absolute magnitude
- distinguishments — to mark off as different (often followed by from or by): He was distinguished from the other boys by his height.
- domain selection — (systems analysis) The prioritisation and selection of one or more domains for which specific software reuse engineering projects are to be initiated.
- domestic partner — either member of an unmarried, cohabiting, and especially homosexual couple that seeks benefits usually available only to spouses.
- domestic science — home economics.
- domestic servant — person employed to do household chores
- dominus vobiscum — the Lord be with you.
- duplessis-mornay — Philippe [fee-leep] /fiˈlip/ (Show IPA), Mornay, Philippe de.
- dynamic analysis — (programming) Evaluation of a program based on its execution. Dynamic analysis relies on executing a piece of software with selected test data.
- dynamic markings — directions and symbols used to indicate degrees of loudness
- dynamic response — The dynamic response of a machine, structure, or process is how it reacts over time to something that is done to it.
- easter communion — the act of receiving communion in church on Easter Day - considered special because of the primacy of Easter among Christian festivals and because many people regard taking Easter communion as a basic token of membership of their church
- elburz mountains — a mountain range in N Iran, parallel to the SW and S shores of the Caspian Sea. Highest peak: Mount Demavend, 5671 m (18 606 ft)
- electromagnetics — Electricity and magnetism, collectively, as a field of study.
- electromagnetism — The interaction of electric currents or fields and magnetic fields.
- electromechanics — the engineering aspects of devices that are controlled by either static or magnetic electric charges
- electronic music — music: synthesized
- ellesmere island — a Canadian island in the Arctic Ocean: part of Nunavut; mountainous, with many glaciers. Area: 212 688 sq km (82 119 sq miles)
- emancipationists — Plural form of emancipationist.
- embourgeoisement — (chiefly UK) The taking-up of middle-class attitudes or values; bourgeoisification; the process of becoming affluent.
- endarterectomies — Plural form of endarterectomy.
- englishman's tie — a type of knot for tying together heavy ropes
- environmentalism — A political and social ideology that seeks to prevent the environment from degradation by human activity.
- environmentalist — A person who is concerned with or advocates the protection of the environment.
- epiphenomenalism — (philosophy, psychology, uncountable) The doctrine that mental states and processes are simply incidental effects of physiological events in the brain or nervous system and cannot themselves cause any effects in the material world.
- escape mechanism — way of avoiding reality
- evening primrose — flowering plant
- exemplifications — Plural form of exemplification.
- exemption clause — a clause in a contract that exempts one party from liability for something
- exhaust manifold — An exhaust manifold is a heat-resistant tube that connects an engine to an exhaust pipe.
- experimentations — Plural form of experimentation.
- extradimensional — (jargon, science fiction) Originating outside the known physical reality of the universe.
- falsificationism — (epistemology) A scientific philosophy based on the requirement that hypotheses must be falsifiable in order to be scientific; if a claim is not able to be refuted it is not a scientific claim.
- family physician — a general practitioner.
- farmington hills — a city in SE Michigan.
- fashion magazine — periodical about trendy clothing
- feeblemindedness — Quality of being feeble-minded; weak intellect.
- feline distemper — distemper1 (def 1c).
- feminine caesura — a caesura occurring immediately after an unstressed or short syllable.