20-letter words containing s, o, r, n
- difference threshold — the minimum difference between two stimuli that is just detectable by a person
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- directory assistance — a telephone company service that furnishes telephone directory information over the telephone.
- directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.
- discretionary income — money for luxuries
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- dispersion hardening — the strengthening of an alloy as a result of the presence of fine particles in the lattice
- disproportionateness — The state or quality of being disproportionate or out of proportion.
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- do someone a service — If you do someone a service, you do something that helps or benefits them.
- draw close/draw near — If an event or period of time is drawing closer or is drawing nearer, it is approaching.
- dressed to the nines — a cardinal number, eight plus one.
- drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
- drunk and disorderly — If someone is charged with being drunk and disorderly, they are charged with being drunk and behaving in a noisy, offensive, or violent way in public.
- drunk mouse syndrome — (Also "mouse on drugs") A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing device of some computers. The typical symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again. Another recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse mat 90 degrees. At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks. When the steel ball on the mouse had picked up enough cruft to be unreliable, the mouse was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while. However, this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation of cruft, so the dousings became more and more frequent. Finally, the mouse was declared "alcoholic" and sent to the clinic to be dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.
- duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
- early modern english — the English language represented in printed documents of the period starting with Caxton (1476) and ending with Dryden (1700).
- early sunday morning — a painting (1930) by Edward Hopper.
- eastern roman empire — the eastern of the two empires created by the division of the Roman Empire in 395 ad
- economic determinism — the doctrine that all social, cultural, political, and intellectual forms are determined by or result from such economic factors as the quality of natural resources, productive capability, technological development, or the distribution of wealth.
- economic rationalism — an economic policy based on the efficiency of market forces, characterized by minimal government intervention, tax cuts, privatization, and deregulation of labour markets
- edward the confessor — Saint, 1002?–66, English king 1042–66: founder of Westminster Abbey.
- eight queens problem — eight queens puzzle
- electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
- electrohydrodynamics — (physics) the study of the dynamics of electrically conducting fluid.
- electronic signature — electronic proof of a person's identity
- endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
- entry qualifications — the qualifications people wishing to enter an organization, university, etc, have to have
- epitaxial transistor — a transistor made by depositing a thin pure layer of semiconductor material (epitaxial layer) onto a crystalline support by epitaxy. The layer acts as one of the electrode regions, usually the collector
- equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
- erythema infectiosum — a mild infectious disease of childhood, caused by a virus, characterized by fever and a red rash spreading from the cheeks to the limbs and trunk
- estrela mountain dog — a sturdy well-built dog of a Portuguese breed with a long thick coat and a thick tuft of hair round the neck, often used as a guard dog
- european social fund — one of the four Structural Funds of the European Union which aims to support employment and the economic and social well-being of EU member countries
- evening primrose oil — an oil, obtained from the seeds of the evening primrose, that is claimed to stimulate the production of prostaglandins
- external respiration — exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across external or respiratory surfaces, as gills or lungs, in multicellular organisms
- feast of tabernacles — Sukkoth.
- 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.
- federal reserve note — a form of paper money issued by a Federal Reserve Bank.
- field ion microscope — a device in which the atomic structure of the surface of a conductor is made visible by introducing helium gas into the device and applying a high voltage to ionize and accelerate the gas toward a fluorescent screen.
- field-ion microscope — a device in which the atomic structure of the surface of a conductor is made visible by introducing helium gas into the device and applying a high voltage to ionize and accelerate the gas toward a fluorescent screen.
- 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.
- first point of aries — the vernal equinox.
- 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.
- fission-track dating — the dating of samples of minerals by comparing the tracks in them by fission fragments of the uranium nuclei they contain, before and after irradiation by neutrons
- flame-fusion process — Verneuil process.
- fold-and-thrust belt — a linear or arcuate region of the earth's surface that has been subjected to severe folding and thrust faulting
- for all one is worth — good or important enough to justify (what is specified): advice worth taking; a place worth visiting.
- for sb's consumption — If you do or say something for a particular person's or group's consumption, you do or say it especially for them, although your private thoughts or plans may be very different.
- for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.