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20-letter words containing s, m

  • potassium-bitartrate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 4 H 5 KO 6 , used chiefly as an ingredient in baking powders and in galvanic tinning of metals. Also called potassium bitartrate, potassium acid tartrate. Compare tartar (def 3).
  • precision instrument — finely-tuned device
  • premenstrual tension — Premenstrual tension is the same as premenstrual syndrome. The abbreviation PMT is often used.
  • prescriptive grammar — an approach to grammar that is concerned with establishing norms of correct and incorrect usage and formulating rules based on these norms to be followed by users of the language.
  • presentation manager — The elephantine graphical user interface to the OS/2 operating system.
  • presidential primary — a direct primary for the selection of state delegates to a national party convention and the expression of preference for a U.S. presidential nominee.
  • price discrimination — the practice of offering identical goods to different buyers at different prices, when the goods cost the same.
  • primary spermatocyte — a male germ cell (primary spermatocyte) that gives rise by meiosis to a pair of haploid cells (secondary spermatocytes) that give rise in turn to spermatids.
  • prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
  • pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
  • psychological moment — the proper or critical time for achieving a desired result: She found the right psychological moment to make her request.
  • psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
  • psychomotor epilepsy — temporal-lobe epilepsy.
  • public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
  • pure lambda-calculus — Lambda-calculus with no constants, only functions expressed as lambda abstractions.
  • pythagoras's theorem — (mathematics)   The theorem of geometry, named after Pythagoras, of Samos, Ionia, stating that, for a right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. I.e. if the longest side has length A and the other sides have lengths B and C (in any units), A^2 = B^2 + C^2 (2004-02-12)
  • quaker meeting house — a place where Quakers gather for worship
  • quantum bogodynamics — /kwon'tm boh"goh-di:-nam"iks/ A theory that characterises the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and suits in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise mechanics of bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood. Quantum bogodynamics is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which the former absorb.
  • queen's remembrancer — (in Great Britain) a judiciary official who collects debts owed to the king.
  • random access memory — RAM.
  • random-access memory — RAM.
  • rapid transit system — a rail or other system providing rapid public transport
  • raynaud's phenomenon — a secondary circulatory disorder, often associated with a primary vascular disease, characterized by changes of blood flow resulting in white, bluish, or red hands and feet
  • real-time processing — data-processing by a computer which receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
  • recommended standard — (standard)   (RS) A series of EIA standards including EIA-232.
  • red mercuric sulfide — a crystalline, water-insoluble, poisonous compound, HgS, occurring as a coarse, black powder (black mercuric sulfide) or as a fine, bright-scarlet powder (red mercuric sulfide) used chiefly as a pigment and as a source of the free metal.
  • reductio ad absurdum — a reduction to an absurdity; the refutation of a proposition by demonstrating the inevitably absurd conclusion to which it would logically lead.
  • registered trademark — brand name
  • relative atomic mass — the ratio of the average mass per atom of the naturally occurring form of an element to one-twelfth the mass of an atom of carbon-12
  • reminder advertising — a type of advertising designed to remind customers that an existing or well-known product is still available and for sale
  • republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
  • repurchase agreement — a contract between a dealer, as a bank, and an investor, whereby the investor purchases securities with the promise that they will be bought back by the dealer on a designated date, for which the investor receives a fixed return.
  • request for comments — (standard)   (RFC) One of a series, begun in 1969, of numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix communities. Few RFCs are standards but all Internet standards are recorded in RFCs. Perhaps the single most influential RFC has been RFC 822, the Internet electronic mail format standard. The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted as standards. The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a flourishing tradition of "joke" RFCs; usually at least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the TCP/IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier pigeon. The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions. See also For Your Information, STD.
  • reservations manager — A reservations manager at a hotel is responsible for the reservations at the hotel.
  • restriction fragment — a length of DNA cut from the strand by a restriction enzyme.
  • retinitis pigmentosa — degeneration of the retina manifested by night blindness and gradual loss of peripheral vision, eventually resulting in tunnel vision or total blindness.
  • return on investment — the amount of profit, before tax and after depreciation, from an investment made, usually expressed as a percentage of the original total cost invested. Abbreviation: ROI.
  • rheumatoid arthritis — a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation of the joints, frequently accompanied by marked deformities, and ordinarily associated with manifestations of a general, or systemic, affliction.
  • ride on shank's mare — to walk
  • rocky mountain basic — (language)   The BASIC language used by Hewlett Packard on their 680x0-based computers. Rocky Mountain Basic is good for interfaces to IEEE 488 controls and contains many mathematical and matrix functions. It has about 600 commands. Typical applications include automatic test stations.
  • rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
  • rotations per minute — revolutions per minute
  • royal leamington spa — a city in Warwickshire, central England: health resort.
  • saint james's palace — a palace in London, England: the royal residence from the time of Henry VIII until the accession of Victoria.
  • saint john ambulance — an organization that provides first aid and first-aid training
  • saint mary magdalene — a woman of Magdala (ˈmæɡdələ ) in Galilee whom Jesus cured of evil spirits (Luke 8:2) and who is often identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7:36–50. In Christian tradition she is usually taken to have been a prostitute. Feast day: July 22
  • saint thomas aquinas — Saint, Aquinas, Saint Thomas.
  • salmonella poisoning — an illness caused by ingestion of a salmonella bacterium
  • satellite chromosome — a type of densely staining chromosome of uncertain biological function, found in many plant and animal species.
  • save someone's bacon — to help someone to escape from danger
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