23-letter words containing t, e, l, o, a
- meaningful relationship — a romantic relationship based upon mutual respect and supportiveness and marked by a sense of commitment and fulfillment.
- mediated generalization — generalization (def 4c).
- mediated-generalization — the act or process of generalizing.
- multimedia compact disc — (storage) (MMCD) A CD-ROM standard for storing 4.7 GB of data including video. MMCD is being developed by a large numer of computer manufacturers and is expected to be shipped in late 1996 or early 1997. Initially it will be aimed at the consumer market, then perhaps in CD-ROM format for computers, and maybe later on erasble CD.
- national health service — In Britain, the National Health Service is the state system for providing medical care. It is paid for by taxes.
- national safety council — a non profit organization that promotes and ensures health and safety standards
- national superannuation — a means-related pension paid to elderly people
- new year's honours list — an Honour's List published at the beginning of a new year
- newton's laws of motion — three laws of mechanics describing the motion of a body. The first law states that a body remains at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by a force. The second law states that a body's rate of change of momentum is proportional to the force causing it. The third law states that when a force acts on a body due to another body, then an equal and opposite force acts simultaneously on that body
- nondisclosure agreement — a legal contract in which one or more parties agree to keep information, as a trade secret, confidential and protected for a specific amount of time. Abbreviation: NDA.
- nonessential amino acid — an amino acid that can be synthesized in the body
- nonverbal communication — gesture and facial expression
- north east lincolnshire — a unitary authority in E England, in Lincolnshire: formerly (1974–96) part of the county of Humberside. Pop: 157 400 (2003 est). Area: 192 sq km (74 sq miles)
- north ossetian republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the N slopes of the central Caucasus Mountains. Capital: Vladikavkaz. Pop: 709 900 (2002). Area: about 8000 sq km (3088 sq miles)
- not a hair out of place — If you say that someone has not a hair out of place, you are emphasizing that they are extremely smart and neatly dressed.
- o'reilly and associates — The leading publisher of information on the Internet, Unix, the X Window System and other open systems. They also provide the Global Network Navigator service.
- object relations theory — a form of psychoanalytic theory postulating that people relate to others in order to develop themselves
- off the back of a lorry — If someone says that something has fallen off the back of a lorry, or that they got something off the back of a lorry, they mean that they bought something that they knew was stolen.
- on someone's coat-tails — thanks to the popularity or success of someone else
- on someone's wavelength — having similar views, feelings, or thoughts (as someone else)
- on the same wave length — Physics. the distance, measured in the direction of propagation of a wave, between two successive points in the wave that are characterized by the same phase of oscillation.
- on-line data processing — the storing or processing of data on a computer using the internet
- order of military merit — an order awarded to members of the Canadian Forces for conspicuous merit; established in 1972
- out of a clear blue sky — the region of the clouds or the upper air; the upper atmosphere of the earth: airplanes in the sky; cloudy skies.
- parametric polymorphism — Polymorphism was first identified by Christopher Strachey in 1967 and developed by Hindley and Milner. For example we could specify that the argument of the "head" function was a list without specifying a type for the elements of the list. In Haskell we would write: head :: [a] -> a meaning head has type function from "list of a" to "a" where "a" is a type variable). This is known as parametric polymorphism. Polymorphic typing allows strong type checking as well as generic functions. ML in 1976 was the first language with polymorphic typing. See also generic type variable.
- parasexual reproduction — reproduction by recombination of genes from genetically dissimilar nuclei within binucleate or multinucleate cells, as in filamentous fungi.
- parliamentary democracy — a system of government in which people elect representatives to a parliament to make laws, for example Canada and the UK
- partial differentiation — the process of finding one of the partial derivatives of a function of several variables.
- past one's sell-by date — If you say that someone or something is past their sell-by date, you mean they are no longer effective, interesting, or useful.
- patient confidentiality — the law that a doctor or medical practitioner cannot reveal anything said to them by their patients during consultation or treatment
- pay one's last respects — If you pay your last respects to someone who has just died, you show your respect or affection for them by coming to see their body or their grave.
- pentachloronitrobenzene — a crystalline compound, C 6 Cl 5 NO 2 , used as an herbicide and insecticide. Abbreviation: PCNB.
- pentagonal dodecahedron — pyritohedron.
- performance-related pay — salary based on individual assessment
- pest control department — the local government department responsible for controlling such pests as rats and mice
- pharmaceuticals company — a company specialising in developing and marketing pharmaceuticals
- philadelphia pepper pot — pepper pot (def 1).
- photoelectric magnitude — the magnitude of a star determined using a photometer plus a filter to select light or other radiation of the desired wavelength
- phyletic classification — classification of organisms based on their assumed evolutionary histories and relationships.
- physiological phonetics — the branch of phonetics that deals with the motive processes, anatomical measurements, spirometric properties, muscle and membrane tone, and kinetic aspects of the production of speech and with related aspects of the reception of speech.
- plain old documentation — (text) (pod, occasionally "POD") A simple markup language used to embed documentation, literate programming-style, in Perl programs. Pod readers and converters are part of the standard Perl distribution and the documentation provided with Perl is all in pod format.
- planetesimal hypothesis — one of the small celestial bodies that, according to one theory (planetesimal hypothesis) were fused together to form the planets of the solar system.
- play a part/play a role — If something or someone plays a part or plays a role in a situation, they are involved in it and have an effect on it.
- play by electronic mail — (games) A kind of game where the players use electronic mail to communicate. This may be done via a human moderator or an automatic mailing list exploder on some central machine or it may be fully distributed with each player just addressing his mail to all other players. This is a natural extension of "play by mail" games conducted via snail mail.
- political incorrectness — Political incorrectness is the attitude or policy shown by someone who does not care if they offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
- polybrominated biphenyl — PBB.
- polymethyl methacrylate — polymerized methyl methacrylate.
- polytetrafluoroethylene — any polymer, plastic, or resin having the formula (C 2 F 4) n , prepared from tetrafluoroethylene, noted for its slippery, nonsticking properties, and used in the manufacture of gaskets, electrical insulation, tubing, candy molds, container linings, frying-pan coatings, etc.
- portable object adapter — (architecture) (POA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
- portable tool interface — (programming, standard) (PTI) A standard such as PCTE, allowing interworking between different software tools via defined interfaces to the user and to the repository or object management system.