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20-letter words containing s, i, t, e

  • examining magistrate — (in some countries with inquisitorial legal systems) a judge who investigates cases and decides whether there is a case to answer in court
  • exclusive or circuit — a computer logic circuit having two or more input wires and one output wire and giving a high-voltage output signal if a low-voltage signal is fed to one or more, but not all, of the input wires
  • exercise, left as an — Used to complete a proof in technical books when one doesn't mind a handwave, or to avoid one entirely. The complete phrase is: "The proof [or "the rest"] is left as an exercise for the reader." This comment *has* occasionally been attached to unsolved research problems by authors possessed of either an evil sense of humour or a vast faith in the capabilities of their audiences.
  • existentialistically — In an existentialist manner.
  • explicit parallelism — A feature of a programming language for a parallel processing system which allows or forces the programmer to annotate his program to indicate which parts should be executed as independent parallel tasks. This is obviously more work for the programmer than a system with implicit parallelism (where the system decides automatically which parts to run in parallel) but may allow higher performance.
  • extensional equality — (Or extensionality). Functions, f and g are extensionally equal if and only if f x = g x for all x. where "=" means both expressions fail to terminate (under some given reduction strategy) or they both terminate with the same basic value. Two functions may be extensionally equal but not inter-convertible (neither is reducible to the other). E.g. \ x . x+x and \ x . 2*x. See also observational equivalence, referential transparency.
  • external respiration — exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across external or respiratory surfaces, as gills or lungs, in multicellular organisms
  • feather in one's cap — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
  • federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
  • fight for one's life — Someone who is fighting for their life is making a great effort to stay alive, either when they are being physically attacked or when they are very ill.
  • file descriptor leak — (programming)   (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
  • financial instrument — A financial instrument is a document or contract that can be traded in a market, that represents an asset to one party and a liability or equity to the other.
  • financial statements — Financial statements are all of the reports that show how a company is performing for a certain period.
  • finite state grammar — a simplified form of transformational grammar devised by Noam Chomsky
  • finite state machine — (mathematics, algorithm, theory)   (FSM or "Finite State Automaton", "transducer") An abstract machine consisting of a set of states (including the initial state), a set of input events, a set of output events, and a state transition function. The function takes the current state and an input event and returns the new set of output events and the next state. Some states may be designated as "terminal states". The state machine can also be viewed as a function which maps an ordered sequence of input events into a corresponding sequence of (sets of) output events. A deterministic FSM (DFA) is one where the next state is uniquely determinied by a single input event. The next state of a nondeterministic FSM (NFA) depends not only on the current input event, but also on an arbitrary number of subsequent input events. Until these subsequent events occur it is not possible to determine which state the machine is in. It is possible to automatically translate any nondeterministic FSM into a deterministic one which will produce the same output given the same input. Each state in the DFA represents the set of states the NFA might be in at a given time. In a probabilistic FSM [proper name?], there is a predetermined probability of each next state given the current state and input (compare Markov chain). The terms "acceptor" and "transducer" are used particularly in language theory where automata are often considered as abstract machines capable of recognising a language (certain sequences of input events). An acceptor has a single Boolean output and accepts or rejects the input sequence by outputting true or false respectively, whereas a transducer translates the input into a sequence of output events. FSMs are used in computability theory and in some practical applications such as regular expressions and digital logic design. See also state transition diagram, Turing Machine.
  • firearms certificate — a certificate that entitles the holder to own and keep a firearm
  • first earl of cromer — 1st Earl of, Evelyn Baring.
  • first point of aries — the vernal equinox.
  • first world problems — If you say that someone has First World problems, you mean that their problems are not really very important.
  • first-cause argument — an argument for the existence of God, asserting the necessity of an uncaused cause of all subsequent series of causes, on the assumption that an infinite regress is impossible.
  • first-person shooter — a type of video game in which the player assumes the field of vision of the protagonist, so that the game camera includes the character's weapon, but the rest of the character model is not seen. Abbreviation: FPS.
  • five-a-side football — a version of soccer with five players in each team
  • five-elements school — Yin-Yang School.
  • five-star restaurant — a restaurant which has been given the top star-rating
  • fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
  • for all one is worth — good or important enough to justify (what is specified): advice worth taking; a place worth visiting.
  • for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
  • forbidden transition — an electronic transition in an atom, molecule, etc, that is not permitted by electric dipole selection rules
  • fore-and-aft topsail — gaff topsail (def 1).
  • formative assessment — ongoing assessment of a pupil's educational development within a particular subject area
  • freight pass-through — a special allowance or discounted price given a bookseller or bookstore by a publishing house for paying the freight charge on a shipment of books ordered: so called because the shipping charge is passed on to the consumer by an increase in the suggested retail price for each book. Abbreviation: FPT.
  • fridtjof nansen land — Franz Josef Land.
  • friend with benefits — (used as a euphemism) a friend with whom one has sex without a romantic relationship or commitment.
  • friends of the earth — an organization of environmentalists and conservationists whose aim is to promote the sustainable use of the earth's resources
  • frosting on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
  • gastroduodenostomies — Plural form of gastroduodenostomy.
  • general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
  • generative semantics — a theory of generative grammar holding that the deep structure of a sentence is equivalent to its semantic representation, from which the surface structure can then be derived using only one set of rules that relate underlying meaning and surface form rather than separate sets of semantic and syntactic rules.
  • geological timescale — any division of geological time into chronological units, whether relative (with units in the correct temporal sequence) or absolute (with numerical ages attached)
  • get one's finger out — to begin or speed up activity, esp after initial delay or slackness
  • get one's teeth into — to become engrossed in
  • get someone in wrong — to bring someone into disfavor
  • get under one's skin — the external covering or integument of an animal body, especially when soft and flexible.
  • get/give so the bird — If an audience gives someone the bird, they shout loudly in order to show their disappointment or disapproval.
  • give one's right arm — to be prepared to make any sacrifice
  • give sb/get the push — If you get the push or are given the push, you are told that you are not wanted any more, either in your job or by someone you are having a relationship with.
  • give someone the air — a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and minute amounts of other gases that surrounds the earth and forms its atmosphere.
  • give someone the eye — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
  • glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
  • go against the grain — If you say that an idea or action goes against the grain, you mean that it is very difficult for you to accept it or do it, because it conflicts with your previous ideas, beliefs, or principles.
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