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23-letter words containing t, e, n, a, b

  • fall between the cracks — to fail to fit into a given agenda or program
  • fall between two stools — If someone has fallen between two stools, they are unable to decide which of two courses of action to take and as a result they have not done either of them successfully.
  • fish in troubled waters — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
  • garbage in, garbage out — (humour)   (GIGO) /gi:'goh/ Wilf Hey's maxim expressing the fact that computers, unlike humans, will unquestioningly process nonsensical input data and produce nonsensical output. Of course a properly written program will reject input data that is obviously erroneous but such checking is not always easy to specify and is tedious to write. GIGO is usually said in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't "do the right thing" when given imperfect input or otherwise mistreated in some way. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. The expansion "Garbage In, Gospel Out" is an ironic comment on the tendency to put excessive trust in "computerised" data.
  • general-obligation bond — a bond issued by a state or city and backed by general tax revenue and the issuer's credit.
  • german baptist brethren — Church of the Brethren.
  • get down to brass tacks — discuss essentials
  • give something a rub-up — to smooth or polish something
  • have bats in the belfry — to be mad or eccentric; have strange ideas
  • horsehair-blight fungus — a fungal parasite, Marasmius equicrinis, that causes a disease of certain tropical plants, especially tea.
  • hortense de beauharnais — Beauharnais, Eugénie Hortense de.
  • hunchback of notre dame — French Notre Dame de Paris. a novel (1831) by Victor Hugo.
  • hunter-killer submarine — a submarine designed and equipped to pursue and destroy enemy craft
  • hypobetalipoproteinemia — (pathology) A low level of betalipoprotein (low-density lipoprotein) in the bloodstream.
  • identification bracelet — a bracelet, usually of metal links, having an identification plate for the name of the wearer.
  • incontestability clause — a clause in a life-insurance or health-insurance policy stating that the insurer cannot contest the policy after a stated period of time.
  • initial public offering — An initial public offering is the first offering of stock when a company goes public.
  • installable file system — (operating system)   (IFS or "File System Driver", "FSD") An API that allows you to extend OS/2 to access files stored on disk in formats other than FAT and HPFS, and access files that are stored on a network file server. For example an IFS could provide programs running under OS/2 (including DOS and Windows programs) with access to files stored under Unix using the Berkeley fast file system. The other variety of IFS (a "remote file system" or "redirector") allows file sharing over a LAN, e.g. using Unix's Network File System protocol. In this case, the IFS passes a program's file access requests to a remote file server, possibly also translating between different file attributes used by OS/2 and the remote system. Documentation on the IFS API has been available only by special request from IBM. An IFS is structured as an ordinary 16-bit DLL with entry points for opening, closing, reading, and writing files, the swapper, file locking, and Universal Naming Convention. The main part of an IFS that runs in ring 0 is called by the OS/2 kernel in the context of the caller's process and thread. The other part that runs in ring 3 is a utility library with entry points for FORMAT, RECOVER, SYS, and CHKDSK.
  • interfascicular cambium — cambium that develops between the vascular bundles.
  • internet public library — (IPL) A project at the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies to provide an on-line, 24 hour public library, chaired by an assemblage of librarians and information industry professionals. The library aims to provide library services to a target audience estimated to number 1/4 of the entire American population by the end of the century. The Internet Public Library is scheduled to go on-line in March 1995. Among the first services will be on-line reference; youth services; user education; and professional services for librarians. Mailing list: [email protected]
  • irish christian brother — Brother of the Christian Schools (def 2).
  • juvenile-onset diabetes — diabetes (def 3).
  • keep sb at arm's length — If you keep someone at arm's length, you avoid becoming too friendly or involved with them.
  • lock, stock, and barrel — a device for securing a door, gate, lid, drawer, or the like in position when closed, consisting of a bolt or system of bolts propelled and withdrawn by a mechanism operated by a key, dial, etc.
  • magnetic quantum number — the quantum number that designates the component of the orbital angular momentum in a fixed direction and that can assume all integral values between and including the orbital quantum number and the negative of the orbital quantum number.
  • magnetic susceptibility — the coefficient or set of coefficients of the magnetic intensity in any expression giving the components of magnetization as linear combinations of the components of magnetic intensity.
  • main distribution frame — (networking)   (MDF) The network closet containing the main hub.
  • martha washington table — a sewing table of the 18th century having an oval top that can be lifted and a central compartment of drawers with semicircular bins at each end.
  • maturity-onset diabetes — diabetes (def 4).
  • mexican free-tailed bat — any of several small, insect-eating bats of the genus Tadarida, of Mexico and the southwestern U.S., inhabiting limestone caves: residual DDT has reduced most populations.
  • negative bending moment — a bending moment that produces convex bending at the supports of a continuously supported beam
  • netscape public license — Open source license
  • nonverbal communication — gesture and facial expression
  • 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 dry behind the ears — free from moisture or excess moisture; not moist; not wet: a dry towel; dry air.
  • nuclear test ban treaty — an agreement signed by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. in 1963, committing nations to halt atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons: by the end of 1963, 96 additional nations had signed the treaty.
  • nuclear test-ban treaty — an agreement signed by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. in 1963, committing nations to halt atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons: by the end of 1963, 96 additional nations had signed the treaty.
  • object management group — (body)   (OMG) A consortium aimed at setting standards in object-oriented programming. In 1989, this consortium, which included IBM Corporation, Apple Computer Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., mobilised to create a cross-compatible distributed object standard. The goal was a common binary object with methods and data that work using all types of development environments on all types of platforms. Using a committee of organisations, OMG set out to create the first Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) standard which appeared in 1991. As of February 1998, the latest standard is CORBA 2.2.
  • object relations theory — a form of psychoanalytic theory postulating that people relate to others in order to develop themselves
  • object-oriented fortran — (language)   (OOF) An object-oriented extension of Fortran, in which data items can be grouped into objects, which can be instantiated and executed in parallel. It was available for Sun, Iris, iPSC, and nCUBE, but is no longer supported. E-mail: Donna Reese <[email protected]>.
  • on one's best behaviour — behaving with careful good manners
  • participant observation — a technique of field research, used in anthropology and sociology, by which an investigator (participant observer) studies the life of a group by sharing in its activities.
  • 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.
  • pat someone on the back — to congratulate or encourage someone
  • pentachloronitrobenzene — a crystalline compound, C 6 Cl 5 NO 2 , used as an herbicide and insecticide. Abbreviation: PCNB.
  • percentage distribution — a frequency distribution is which individual frequencies are shown as a percentage of the total frequencies
  • 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.
  • polybrominated biphenyl — PBB.
  • 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.
  • private branch exchange — (communications)   (PBX) A telephone exchange local to a particular organisation who use, rather than provide, telephone services. The earliest PBXs were manual (Private Manual Branch EXchange, PMBX) but are now more likely to be automatic (Private Automatic Branch eXchange).
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