16-letter words containing s, i, n, c, e
- listening device — a device used to overhear, record, or monitor speech
- loose connection — an imperfect electrical connection, as in a plug or car engine
- lose one's voice — If you lose your voice, you cannot speak for a while because of an illness.
- louisiana french — French as spoken in Louisiana; Cajun. Abbreviation: LaF.
- lymphangiectasia — (medicine) dilation of the lymphatic vessels.
- lymphangiectasis — Alt form lymphangiectasia.
- lz77 compression — The first algorithm to use the Lempel-Ziv substitutional compression schemes, proposed in 1977. LZ77 compression keeps track of the last n bytes of data seen, and when a phrase is encountered that has already been seen, it outputs a pair of values corresponding to the position of the phrase in the previously-seen buffer of data, and the length of the phrase. In effect the compressor moves a fixed-size "window" over the data (generally referred to as a "sliding window"), with the position part of the (position, length) pair referring to the position of the phrase within the window. The most commonly used algorithms are derived from the LZSS scheme described by James Storer and Thomas Szymanski in 1982. In this the compressor maintains a window of size N bytes and a "lookahead buffer", the contents of which it tries to find a match for in the window: while (lookAheadBuffer not empty) { get a pointer (position, match) to the longest match in the window for the lookahead buffer; if (length > MINIMUM_MATCH_LENGTH) { output a (position, length) pair; shift the window length characters along; } else { output the first character in the lookahead buffer; shift the window 1 character along; } } Decompression is simple and fast: whenever a (POSITION, LENGTH) pair is encountered, go to that POSITION in the window and copy LENGTH bytes to the output. Sliding-window-based schemes can be simplified by numbering the input text characters mod N, in effect creating a circular buffer. The sliding window approach automatically creates the LRU effect which must be done explicitly in LZ78 schemes. Variants of this method apply additional compression to the output of the LZSS compressor, which include a simple variable-length code (LZB), dynamic Huffman coding (LZH), and Shannon-Fano coding (ZIP 1.x), all of which result in a certain degree of improvement over the basic scheme, especially when the data are rather random and the LZSS compressor has little effect. An algorithm was developed which combines the ideas behind LZ77 and LZ78 to produce a hybrid called LZFG. LZFG uses the standard sliding window, but stores the data in a modified trie data structure and produces as output the position of the text in the trie. Since LZFG only inserts complete *phrases* into the dictionary, it should run faster than other LZ77-based compressors. All popular archivers (arj, lha, zip, zoo) are variations on LZ77.
- lz78 compression — A substitutional compression scheme which works by entering phrases into a dictionary and then, when a reoccurrence of that particular phrase is found, outputting the dictionary index instead of the phrase. Several algorithms are based on this principle, differing mainly in the manner in which they manage the dictionary. The most well-known Lempel-Ziv scheme is Terry Welch's Lempel-Ziv Welch variant of LZ78.
- mach's principle — the proposition that there is no absolute space and that the inertia and acceleration of a body are determined by all of the matter of the universe.
- machiavellianism — of, like, or befitting Machiavelli.
- machine washable — suitable for washing in a washing machine
- machinist's mate — a petty officer trained to operate, repair, etc. ships' engines
- maclaurin series — a Taylor series in which the reference point is zero.
- macrorestriction — In physical gene mapping, the digestion of DNA of high molecular weight with a restriction enzyme having a low number of restriction sites.
- magazine section — a magazinelike section in the Sunday editions of many newspapers, containing articles rather than news items and often letters, reviews, stories, puzzles, etc.
- magnesiochromite — (mineral) A chromite species with the formula MgCr2O4.
- magnetic compass — a compass having a magnetized needle generally in line with the magnetic poles of the earth.
- magnetic pyrites — Mineralogy. pyrrhotite.
- magnetoacoustics — (used with a singular verb) the branch of physics studying the effects of magnetism on acoustics or their interaction.
- magnetochemistry — the study of magnetic and chemical phenomena in their relation to one another.
- magnetostriction — a change in dimensions exhibited by ferromagnetic materials when subjected to a magnetic field.
- magnetostrictive — Of or pertaining to magnetostriction.
- mandarin chinese — the official language of China since 1917; the form of Chinese spoken by about two thirds of the population and taught in schools throughout China
- manic depression — bipolar disorder.
- manic-depressive — suffering from bipolar disorder.
- marine insurance — ocean marine insurance.
- marine scientist — a scientist concerned with the sea
- marriage license — permit to marry
- marsh cinquefoil — a variety of cinquefoil, Potentilla palustris, that grows in marshy areas
- masculine ending — a final inflection or suffix designating that a word belongs to the masculine gender.
- mass destruction — devastation on a large scale
- matrix mechanics — a formulation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics in which physical quantities are represented by matrices and matrix algebra is used to predict the outcome of physical measurements.
- measuring device — gauge
- mechanochemistry — the field of chemistry that deals with the direct conversion of chemical into mechanical energy.
- medieval cornish — the Cornish language of the Middle Ages, usually dated from the 14th century to 1600.
- megacorporations — Plural form of megacorporation.
- mercator sailing — sailing according to rhumb lines, which appear as straight lines on a Mercator chart.
- merchant service — A merchant service is a provider of credit card processing services.
- meretriciousness — alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry.
- mexican hairless — one of a breed of small dogs having no hair except for a tuft on the top of the head and a little fuzz on the lower part of the tail.
- mexican standoff — a stalemate or impasse; a confrontation that neither side can win.
- microaggressions — Plural form of microaggression.
- microconstituent — a microscopically small constituent of a metal or alloy.
- microcrystalline — minutely crystalline; composed of microscopic crystals.
- microelectronics — the technology dealing with the design, development, and construction of electronic systems utilizing extremely small elements, especially solid-state devices employing microminiaturization.
- microencapsulate — (transitive) To embed by means of microencapsulation.
- microenterprises — Plural form of microenterprise.
- microtransmitter — a small electronic device which transmits television or radio signals
- military science — the study of the causative factors and tactical principles of warfare.
- minimum-security — (of a prison) designed for prisoners regarded as being less dangerous; having fewer restrictions.