18-letter words containing s, o, y, a
- countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- cross-disciplinary — linking two or more fields of study
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- crystal oscillator — a clear, transparent mineral or glass resembling ice.
- cultural sociology — the study of the origins and development of societal institutions, norms, and practices.
- cytoarchitectonics — Cytoarchitecture.
- data flow analysis — (programming) A process to discover the dependencies between different data items manipulated by a program. The order of execution in a data driven language is determined solely by the data dependencies. For example, given the equations 1. X = A + B 2. B = 2 + 2 3. A = 3 + 4 a data-flow analysis would find that 2 and 3 must be evaluated before 1. Since there are no data dependencies between 2 and 3, they may be evaluated in any order, including in parallel. This technique is implemented in hardware in some pipelined processors with multiple functional units. It allows instructions to be executed as soon as their inputs are available, independent of the original program order.
- daytime television — television broadcasts that are shown during the daytime rather than in the evening
- depository library — a library designated by law to receive without charge all or a selection of the official publications of a government.
- dialytic telescope — a type of achromatic telescope with a second correcting lens
- dihydrotachysterol — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble sterol, C 28 H 46 O, derived from ergosterol: used chiefly in the treatment of hypoparathyroidism.
- diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
- disability pension — a pension paid to people who are unable to continue to work because of a disability
- discourse analysis — the study of the rules or patterns characterizing units of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence.
- display postscript — An extended form of PostScript permitting its interactive use with bitmap displays.
- disproportionality — not in proportion; disproportionate.
- disproportionately — not proportionate; out of proportion, as in size or number.
- domain name system — (networking) (DNS) A general-purpose distributed, replicated, data query service chiefly used on Internet for translating hostnames into Internet addresses. Also, the style of hostname used on the Internet, though such a name is properly called a fully qualified domain name. DNS can be configured to use a sequence of name servers, based on the domains in the name being looked for, until a match is found. The name resolution client (e.g. Unix's gethostbyname() library function) can be configured to search for host information in the following order: first in the local hosts file, second in NIS and third in DNS. This sequencing of Naming Services is sometimes called "name service switching". Under Solaris is configured in the file /etc/nsswitch.conf. DNS can be queried interactively using the command nslookup. It is defined in STD 13, RFC 1034, RFC 1035, RFC 1591.
- dynamic psychology — any system of psychology that emphasizes the interaction between different motives, emotions, and drives
- dynamically scoped — dynamic scope
- dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
- east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
- easy come, easy go — You use easy come, easy go to indicate that the person you are talking about does not care much about money and possessions.
- enantioselectivity — (chemistry) The selectivity of a reaction towards one of a pair of enantiomers.
- ethnopsychological — Relating to ethnopsychology.
- evolution strategy — (ES) A kind of evolutionary algorithm where individuals (potential solutions) are encoded by a set of real-valued "object variables" (the individual's "genome"). For each object variable an individual also has a "strategy variable" which determines the degree of mutation to be applied to the corresponding object variable. The strategy variables also mutate, allowing the rate of mutation of the object variables to vary. An ES is characterised by the population size, the number of offspring produced in each generation and whether the new population is selected from parents and offspring or only from the offspring. ES were invented in 1963 by Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) while searching for the optimal shapes of bodies in a flow.
- eyewitness account — a description given by someone who was present at an event
- fallot's tetralogy — a congenital heart disease in which there are four defects: pulmonary stenosis, enlarged right ventricle, a ventricular septal defect, and an aorta whose origin lies over the septal defect. In babies suffering this disease the defects can be corrected by surgery
- fast-food industry — the industry surrounding fast-food restaurants
- feast of orthodoxy — a solemn festival held on the first Sunday of Lent (Orthodoxy Sunday) commemorating the restoration of the use of icons in the church (a.d. 842) and the triumph over all heresies.
- fragile x syndrome — a widespread form of mental retardation caused by a faulty gene on the X chromosome.
- fragile-x syndrome — an inherited condition characterized by learning disability: affected individuals have an X-chromosome that is easily damaged under certain conditions
- gamblers anonymous — an organization that holds group meetings to help people who are addicted to gambling
- gas chromatography — a chromatograph used for the separation of volatile substances.
- gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
- gensym corporation — (company) A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
- gestalt psychology — (sometimes lowercase) the theory or doctrine that physiological or psychological phenomena do not occur through the summation of individual elements, as reflexes or sensations, but through gestalts functioning separately or interrelatedly.
- get one's end away — to have sexual intercourse
- glycosaminoglycans — Plural form of glycosaminoglycan.
- goya (y lucientes) — Fran‧ˈcis‧co Jo‧ˈsé‧ de (fʀɑnˈθiskɔhɔˈsɛ ðɛ) ; fränt hēsˈk^ōh^ōseˈ the) 1746-1828; Sp. painter
- grand canyon state — Arizona (used as a nickname).
- gray manganese ore — manganite.
- greater yellowlegs — either of two American shorebirds having yellow legs, Tringa melanoleuca (greater yellowlegs) or T. flavipes (lesser yellowlegs)
- ha ha only serious — (SF fandom, originally as mutation of HHOK, "Ha Ha Only Kidding") A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS) that aptly captures the flavour of much hacker discourse. Applied especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. The Jargon File contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a wannabee, or in larval stage. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See also AI koan.
- happy as a sandboy — very happy; high-spirited
- haud your wheesht! — be silent! hush!
- have eyes only for — 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.
- hepatosplenomegaly — Enlargement of both the liver and spleen.
- heteroscedasticity — (statistics) The property of a series of random variables of 'not' every variable having the same finite variance.