24-letter words containing s, i, m, p
- machine independent sail — (MAINSAIL) From XIDAK, Palo Alto CA, +1 (415) 855 9271.
- mandy rice-davis applies — (chat) (MRDA) An acronym used to imply that someone is lying to protect their own interests. During the trial of Stephen Ward (who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Rice-Davies), the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied any involvement with her and Rice-Davies replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
- manic-depressive illness — bipolar disorder.
- mari autonomous republic — autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 8994 sq. mi. (23,294 sq. km). Capital: Ioshkar-Ola.
- mass psychogenic illness — a condition in which a large group of people report similar physical symptoms that are traceable to psychological factors rather than environmental or physiological factors.
- master-slave manipulator — any of various devices, guided by the hand of the operator, for imitating the motions and tactile sensitivity of the human hand to a greater or lesser extent: used in situations in which direct handling of the objects or materials involved would be dangerous or impossible.
- michael viii palaeologus — 1234–1282, Byzantine ruler 1259–82, first of the Palaeologus emperors.
- minister plenipotentiary — plenipotentiary.
- monopolistic competition — the form of imperfect competition that exists when there are many producers or sellers of similar but differentiated goods or services
- morphologic construction — a construction that forms a compound or complex word. Compare syntactic construction (def 1).
- multiple virtual storage — (operating system) (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
- mutual insurance company — an insurance company owned by the policyholders and not by shareholders
- network operating system — (operating system) (NOS) The operating system on Control Data Corporation's Cyber Computer.
- nonparametric statistics — the branch of statistics that studies data measurable on an ordinal or nominal scale, to which arithmetic operations cannot be applied
- open system architecture — (operating system) (OSA) A competitor to IBM's SNA.
- operational requirements — (programming) Qualitative and quantitative parameters that specify the desired capabilities of a system and serve as a basis for determining the operational effectiveness and suitability of a system prior to deployment.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
- physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
- pin something on someone — to lay the blame for something on someone
- polymer matrix composite — A polymer matrix composite is a material consisting of a composite made stronger by adding fibers or particles to it.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- pre-emptive multitasking — (operating system, parallel) A type of multitasking where the scheduler can interrupt and suspend ("swap out") the currently running task in order to start or continue running ("swap in") another task. The tasks under pre-emptive multitasking can be written as though they were the only task and the scheduler decides when to swap them. The scheduler must ensure that when swapping tasks, sufficient state is saved and restored that tasks do not interfere. The length of time for which a process runs is known as its "time slice" and may depend on the task's priority or its use of resources such as memory and I/O. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking where each task must include calls to allow it to be descheduled periodically.
- presumption of innocence — the rebuttable presumption of the innocence of the defendant in a criminal action in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, placing upon the prosecution the burden of proof of the defendant's guilt.
- pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications) (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- resale price maintenance — the practice by which a manufacturer establishes a fixed or minimum price for the resale of a brand product by retailers or other distributors
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- single person supplement — an additional sum of money that a hotel charges for one person to stay in a room meant for two people
- single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
- six nations championship — the annual competition involving national sides representing England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. Until the admission of Italy in 2000, it was known as the Five Nations Championship
- slop oil recovery system — A slop oil recovery system is a method and the equipment used for cleaning and disposing of mixtures of oil, chemicals, and water from various sources in a refinery or oilfield.
- sodium hexametaphosphate — See under Calgon.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- split image range finder — a range finder in which opposing halves of a split field move relative to each other and coincide when the object centered in the field is in focus.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
- tear someone off a strip — to rebuke (someone) angrily
- the realm of possibility — If you say that something is not beyond the realms of possibility, you mean that it is possible.
- thompson sub-machine-gun — a .45 calibre sub-machine-gun
- to keep something at bay — If you keep something or someone at bay, or hold them at bay, you prevent them from reaching, attacking, or affecting you.
- to make up for lost time — If someone is making up for lost time, they are doing something actively and with enthusiasm because they have not had the opportunity to do it before or when they were younger.
- to pick someone's brains — If you pick someone's brains, you ask them to help you with a problem because they know more about the subject than you.
- to pick someone's pocket — If someone picks your pocket, they steal something from your pocket, usually without you noticing.