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22-letter words containing t, a, b, l

  • d'alembert's principle — the principle that for a moving body the external forces are in equilibrium with the inertial forces; a generalization of Newton's third law of motion
  • database normalisation — (database)   A series of steps followed to obtain a database design that allows for efficient access and storage of data in a relational database. These steps reduce data redundancy and the chances of data becoming inconsistent. A table in a relational database is said to be in normal form if it satisfies certain constraints. Codd's original work defined three such forms but there are now five generally accepted steps of normalisation. The output of the first step is called First Normal Form (1NF), the output of the second step is Second Normal Form (2NF), etc. First Normal Form eliminates repeating groups by putting each value of a multi-valued attribute into a new row. Second Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on a partial key by putting the fields in a separate table from those that are dependent on the whole key. Third Normal Form eliminates functional dependencies on non-key fields by putting them in a separate table. At this stage, all non-key fields are dependent on the key, the whole key and nothing but the key. Fourth Normal Form separates independent multi-valued facts stored in one table into separate tables. Fifth Normal Form breaks out data redundancy that is not covered by any of the previous normal forms.
  • de broglie wave length — the postulate of wave mechanics that a particle of mass m moving at a velocity v will have the properties of a wave of wavelength h / mv (de Broglie wavelength) where h is Planck's constant.
  • debt collection agency — a company that collects debts on behalf of creditors
  • diethylbarbituric acid — barbital
  • disposable soma theory — the theory that ageing is caused by the body having increasingly fewer resources to allocate towards repairing wear and damage to tissues
  • don't hold your breath — sth is unlikely to happen soon
  • double blackwall hitch — a kind of knot
  • end transmission block — (character)   (ETB) The mnemonic for ASCII character 23.
  • federal maritime board — the body responsible for regulating commerce by US and international shipping in US waters
  • fifth earl of rosebery — Archibald Philip Primrose [prim-rohz] /ˈprɪmˌroʊz/ (Show IPA), 5th Earl of, 1847–1929, British statesman and author: prime minister 1894–95.
  • flexible-rate mortgage — adjustable-rate mortgage.
  • forth modification lab — (event)   (FORML) A Forth conference held every November on the West coast of the USA ().
  • full english breakfast — morning meal of eggs, bacon, etc.
  • go for all the marbles — to take a great risk in the hope of a great gain
  • great australian bight — a wide bay in S Australia.
  • have all one's buttons — a small disk, knob, or the like for sewing or otherwise attaching to an article, as of clothing, serving as a fastening when passed through a buttonhole or loop.
  • holy day of obligation — a day on which Roman Catholics are duty-bound to attend Mass and abstain from certain kinds of work.
  • hubble space telescope — U.S. Aerospace. a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) optical telescope designed for use in orbit around the earth.
  • inertia-reel seat belt — a type of car seat belt in which the belt is free to unwind from a metal drum except when the drum locks as a result of rapid deceleration
  • interoperable database — A database front-end which communicates with multiple heterogenous databases and makes them appear as a single homogenous entity with semantic calls. See ODBC.
  • islands of the blessed — lands where the souls of heroes and good men were taken after death
  • it's london to a brick — it is certain
  • jack and the beanstalk — an English fairy tale about a boy who angers his mother by selling their last cow, not for money, but for magic beans. His mother throws the beans away, but the next day Jack discovers that they have sprouted into a giant beanstalk. He climbs the beanstalk three times, each time stealing some treasure from the giant who lives in a land in the clouds at the top. Jack ultimately kills the giant by chopping down the beanstalk while the giant is climbing down it
  • knowledge-based system — (artificial intelligence)   (KBS) A program for extending and/or querying a knowledge base. The related term expert system is normally used to refer to a highly domain-specific type of KBS used for a specialised purpose such as medical diagnosis. The Cyc project is an example of a large KBS.
  • label switching router — (networking)   (LSR) A device that typically resides somewhere in the middle of a network and is capable of forwarding datagrams by label switching. In many cases, especially early versions of MPLS networks, a LSR will typically be a modified ATM switch that forwards datagrams based upon a label in the VPI/VCI field.
  • lady's not for burning — a verse play (1948) by Christopher Fry.
  • lesser cornstalk borer — the larva of a widely distributed pyralid moth, Elasmopalpus lignosellus, that damages corn and some other crops by boring into the part of the stalk close to the soil.
  • liberal democrat party — The Liberal Democrat Party is the third largest political party in Britain and the main centre party. It believes in improving the constitution and the voting system and in providing good welfare services.
  • like a bat out of hell — very fast
  • little st bernard pass — a pass over the Savoy Alps, between Bourg-Saint-Maurice, France, and La Thuile, Italy: 11th-century hospice. Height: 2187 m (7177 ft)
  • lund software house ab — (company)   The company who produced Lund Simula. Address: Box 7056, S-22007 Lund, Sweden.
  • make a beeline for sth — If you make a beeline for a place, you go to it as quickly and directly as possible.
  • make a big deal out of — to attach extreme importance to; make a big fuss about
  • make a clean breast of — Anatomy, Zoology. (in bipeds) the outer, front part of the thorax, or the front part of the body from the neck to the abdomen; chest.
  • make out like a bandit — a robber, especially a member of a gang or marauding band.
  • manuel estrada cabrera — Manuel [mah-nwel] /mɑˈnwɛl/ (Show IPA), 1857–1924, Guatemalan politician: president 1898–1920.
  • metasyntactic variable — (grammar)   Strictly, a variable used in metasyntax, but often used for any name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example. To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use "foo" or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time. To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: bazola, ztesch: Stanford (from mid-'70s on). zxc, spqr, wombat: Cambridge University (England). shme: Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/. blarg, wibble: New Zealand Of all these, only "foo" and "bar" are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and "foobaz" also enjoy very wide currency. Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also Commonwealth Hackish for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
  • miniature bull terrier — one of an English breed of small muscular dogs resembling a smaller version of a standard bull terrier, with a short, flat, harsh coat of glossy white or white with brindle patches.
  • motorcycle combination — a motorcycle with a sidecar attached
  • mutton dressed as lamb — If you describe a woman as mutton dressed as lamb, you are criticizing her for trying to look younger than she really is, in a way that you consider unattractive.
  • nassella tussock board — one of many local statutory organizations set up in different regions of New Zealand to eradicate the invasive nassella tussock weed
  • native elm bark beetle — elm bark beetle (def 2).
  • nickel-cadmium battery — a storage battery, with an alkaline electrolyte, having nickel oxide as the positive element and cadmium as the negative.
  • non-maskable interrupt — (NMI) An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680x0 or the NMI line on an 80x86. In contrast with a priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
  • northern redbelly dace — any of the small, brightly colored North American freshwater cyprinids, especially Phoxinus oreas (northern redbelly dace) and P. erythrogaster (southern redbelly dace)
  • object-oriented pascal — Object Pascal
  • obligational authority — the necessary authority that precedes budget spending by a government agency or department, granted by Congress through appropriations.
  • partial-birth abortion — (term used chiefly by opponents of abortion) D & C.
  • portable standard lisp — (language)   (PSL) A dialect of Lisp from Utah University. PSL is available as a kit for 68000 and also runs on VAX. It compiles Lisp to C-code virtual machine language.
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