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20-letter words containing s, o, f, t, e, r

  • olfactory anesthesia — absence or loss of the sense of smell.
  • order of the thistle — an ancient Scottish order of knighthood revived by James VII of Scotland in 1687. It consists of the sovereign, 16 knights brethren, and extra members created by statute. It is the equivalent of the Order of the Garter, and is usually conferred on Scots
  • ousterhout's fallacy — Ousterhout's dichotomy
  • overseer of the poor — a minor official of a parish attached to the workhouse or poorhouse
  • paper qualifications — qualifications gained through official examinations, etc, rather than through experience
  • pave the way for sth — If one thing paves the way for another, it creates a situation in which it is possible or more likely that the other thing will happen.
  • person of no account — (University of California at Santa Cruz) Used when referring to a person with no network address, frequently to forestall confusion. Most often as part of an introduction: "This is Bill, a person of no account, but he used to be [email protected]". Compare return from the dead.
  • pest control officer — a person who gets rid of pests such as rats and mice
  • post office protocol — (messaging, protocol)   (POP) A protocol designed to allow single-user computers to retrieve electronic mail from a POP server via TCP/IP. The default port is 110. The POP server might be a computer with a permanent Internet connection whereas its clients might only connect to it occasionally, e.g. by modem. There are (in 1994) three versions: POP, POP2, and POP3. Later versions are NOT compatible with earlier ones.
  • prefecture apostolic — a territory in the early stage of missionary development.
  • recursive definition — a definition consisting of a set of rules such that by repeated application of the rules the meaning of the definiendum is uniquely determined in terms of ideas that are already familiar.
  • reflecting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • refracting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • refuse disposal unit — a unit or part of a sink that disposes of waste food, etc, by grinding
  • 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.
  • request for proposal — (programming)   (RFP) The publication by a prospective software purchaser of details of the required system in order to attract offers by software developers to supply it. Software development under contract starts with the selection of the software developer by the customer. A request for proposal (also called in Britain an "invitation to tender") is the beginning of the selection process.
  • respecter of persons — one whose behavior toward people is influenced by their social status, prestige, etc.
  • restriction fragment — a length of DNA cut from the strand by a restriction enzyme.
  • royal air force list — an official list of all serving commissioned officers of the RAF and reserve officers liable for recall
  • saint anthony's fire — any of certain skin conditions that are of an inflammatory or gangrenous nature, as erysipelas, hospital gangrene, or ergotism.
  • senior aircraftwoman — a rank in the Royal Air Force comparable to that of a private in the army, though not the lowest rank in the Royal Air Force
  • separation of powers — the principle or system of vesting in separate branches the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of a government.
  • shear transformation — a map of a coordinate space in which one coordinate is held fixed and the other coordinate or coordinates are shifted.
  • sinfonia concertante — a type of concerto for two or more solo instruments accompanied by an orchestra
  • snowflake generation — the generation of people who became adults in the 2010s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations
  • sodium fluoroacetate — a white, amorphous, water-soluble, poisonous powder, C 2 H 2 FO 2 Na, used as a rodenticide.
  • software engineering — the process of writing computer programs
  • software methodology — (programming)   The study of how to navigate through each phase of the software process model (determining data, control, or uses hierarchies, partitioning functions, and allocating requirements) and how to represent phase products (structure charts, stimulus-response threads, and state transition diagrams).
  • soke of peterborough — a former administrative unit of E central England, generally considered part of Northamptonshire or Huntingdonshire: absorbed into Cambridgeshire in 1974
  • solitary confinement — the confinement of a prisoner in a cell or other place in which he or she is completely isolated from others.
  • spirit of enterprise — the motivation to set up and succeed in business or commerce
  • square of opposition — a diagrammatic representation of the opposition of categorical propositions.
  • squirrel's-foot fern — ball fern.
  • staff sergeant major — a noncommissioned officer equivalent in rank to a command sergeant major but having no command responsibility.
  • states of the church — Papal States
  • strike off the rolls — to expel from membership
  • strong nuclear force — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
  • the course of nature — the ordinary course of events
  • the eye of the storm — If you say that someone or something is at the eye of the storm, you mean they are the main subject of a public disagreement.
  • the founding fathers — any of the men who were members of the U.S. Constituional Convention of 1787
  • the gnomes of zurich — Swiss bankers and financiers
  • the legal profession — the profession of law
  • the price of someone — what someone deserves, esp a fitting punishment
  • the way of the cross — a series of images in a church or along a road to a church etc depicting the last hours of Christ
  • the-comedy-of-errors — an early comedy (1594) by Shakespeare.
  • there is no call for — If you say that there is no call for someone to behave in a particular way, you are criticizing their behaviour, usually because you think it is rude.
  • theresa of avila, st — Saint. Also, Teresa. Also called Theresa of Avila [ah-vee-lah] /ˈɑ viˌlɑ/ (Show IPA), 1515–82, Spanish Carmelite nun, mystic, and writer.
  • third-party software — software created by programmers or publishers independent of the manufacturer of the hardware for which it is intended.
  • this time, for sure! — (exclamation)   Ritual affirmation frequently uttered during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small obstacles (e.g. attempts to bring up a UUCP connection). For the proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruity imitation of Bullwinkle J. Moose. Also heard: "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" The canonical response is, of course, "But that trick *never* works!" See hacker humour.
  • thomas of erceldoune — Thomas of, Thomas of Erceldoune.
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