18-letter words containing s, p, i, n
- farewell-to-spring — a slender, showy plant, Clarkia amoena, of the evening primrose family, native to western North America, having satiny, cup-shaped, lilac-crimson or reddish-pink flowers and roundish fruit.
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
- fish and chip shop — In Britain, a fish and chip shop is a shop which sells hot food such as fish and chips, fried chicken, sausages, and meat pies. The food is cooked in the shop and people take it away to eat at home or in the street.
- fishing expedition — a legal proceeding mainly for the purpose of interrogating an adversary, or of examining his or her property and documents, in order to gain useful information.
- flat-panel display — a type of thin, lightweight video display that uses liquid crystals or electroluminescence to reflect images.
- fob shipping point — FOB shipping point is a shipping term indicating that ownership of goods passes when they are transferred to the carrier.
- foundling hospital — an institutional home for foundlings.
- ftp software, inc. — (company) Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
- funding operations — the conversion of government floating stock or short-term debt into holdings of long-term bonds
- funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
- galilean telescope — a refracting telescope that forms an erect image, consisting of an objective of relatively long focal length that causes light rays to converge and an eyepiece of short focal length that causes them to diverge.
- general precession — the precession that results from both lunisolar precession and planetary precession; precession of the equinoxes.
- 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.
- get one's irish up — of, relating to, or characteristic of Ireland, its inhabitants, or their language.
- give a person five — to greet or congratulate someone by slapping raised hands
- give someone pause — to make someone hesitant or uncertain
- glomerulonephritis — a kidney disease affecting the capillaries of the glomeruli, characterized by albuminuria, edema, and hypertension.
- gnu superoptimiser — (GSO) A function sequence generator that uses an exhaustive generate-and-test approach to find the shortest instruction sequence for a given function. Written by Torbjorn Granlund <[email protected]> and Tom Wood. You have to tell the superoptimiser which function and which CPU you want to get code for. This is useful for compiler writers. FTP superopt-2.2.tar.Z from a GNU archive site. Generates code for DEC Alpha, SPARC, Intel 80386, 88000, RS/6000, 68000, 29000 and Pyramid (SP, AP and XP).
- grains of paradise — Usually, grains of paradise. one of the pungent, peppery seeds of an African plant, Aframomum melegueta, of the ginger family, used to strengthen cordials and in veterinary medicine.
- grampian mountains — a mountain system of central Scotland, extending from the southwest to the northeast and separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. Highest peak: Ben Nevis, 1344 m (4408 ft)
- grasshopper engine — a steam engine having a piston attached to one end of a beam that is hinged to an upright at the other end, the connecting rod being suspended from near the center of the beam.
- gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
- great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
- grosse pointe park — a city in SE Michigan, near Detroit.
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- handyman's special — fixer-upper.
- helicopter gunship — military attack helicopter
- helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
- high speed connect — (hardware) (HSC) A Hewlett-Packard bus like EISA.
- historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
- homeowner's policy — a form of home insurance that provides compensation for damage, loss, or injury of property, personal belongings, or persons due to fire, theft, accidents, etc.
- hotel receptionist — a person who looks after guests when they first arrive at a hotel, checking them in, giving them their keys, etc
- houghton-le-spring — a town in N England, in Sunderland unitary authority, Tyne and Wear: coal-mining. Pop: 36 746 (2001)
- human rights group — a group that campaigns for human rights
- hydroxytryptamines — Plural form of hydroxytryptamine.
- hyperaldosteronism — aldosteronism.
- hypernationalistic — a person devoted to nationalism.
- hypersensitiveness — The state of being hypersensitive.
- hypersensitization — Photography. to treat (a film or emulsion) so as to increase its speed.
- hypersexualisation — Alternative spelling of hypersexualization.
- hypersexualization — The act or process of hypersexualizing.
- hypodermic syringe — a small glass piston or barrel syringe having a detachable, hollow needle for use in injecting solutions subcutaneously.
- hypothesis testing — the theory, methods, and practice of testing a hypothesis concerning the parameters of a population distribution (the null hypothesis) against another (the alternative hypothesis) which will be accepted only if its probability exceeds a predetermined significance level, generally on the basis of statistics derived from random sampling from the given population
- imploded consonant — a consonant which is pronounced with or by implosion
- impressionableness — The quality of being impressionable.
- in company with sb — If you feel, believe, or know something in company with someone else, you both feel, believe, or know it.
- in comparison with — when compared to
- in praise of folly — Latin Moriae Encomium. a prose satire (1509) by Erasmus, written in Latin and directed against theologians and church dignitaries.
- in propria persona — represented by oneself and not by an attorney. Abbreviation: in pro. per.