21-letter words containing t, r, a, v
- food conversion ratio — a ratio expressing the weight of food required to produce a unit gain in the live weight of an animal
- fraudulent conversion — conversion committed with the intent to defraud
- functional imperative — a requirement for the survival of any social system, as communication, control of conflict, or socialization.
- generic type variable — (programming) (Also known as a "schematic type variable"). Different occurrences of a generic type variable in a type expression may be instantiated to different types. Thus, in the expression let id x = x in (id True, id 1) id's type is (for all a: a -> a). The universal quantifier "for all a:" means that a is a generic type variable. For the two uses of id, a is instantiated to Bool and Int. Compare this with let id x = x in let f g = (g True, g 1) in f id This looks similar but f has no legal Hindley-Milner type. If we say f :: (a -> b) -> (b, b) this would permit g's type to be any instance of (a -> b) rather than requiring it to be at least as general as (a -> b). Furthermore, it constrains both instances of g to have the same result type whereas they do not. The type variables a and b in the above are implicitly quantified at the top level: f :: for all a: for all b: (a -> b) -> (b, b) so instantiating them (removing the quantifiers) can only be done once, at the top level. To correctly describe the type of f requires that they be locally quantified: f :: ((for all a: a) -> (for all b: b)) -> (c, d) which means that each time g is applied, a and b may be instantiated differently. f's actual argument must have a type at least as general as ((for all a: a) -> (for all b: b)), and may not be some less general instance of this type. Type variables c and d are still implicitly quantified at the top level and, now that g's result type is a generic type variable, any types chosen for c and d are guaranteed to be instances of it. This type for f does not express the fact that b only needs to be at least as general as the types c and d. For example, if c and d were both Bool then any function of type (for all a: a -> Bool) would be a suitable argument to f but it would not match the above type for f.
- get/have the hots for — If you say that one person has the hots for another, you mean that they feel a strong sexual attraction to that person.
- give a horse its head — to allow a horse to gallop by lengthening the reins
- give sb a green light — If someone in authority gives you a green light, they give you permission to do something.
- give sb the runaround — If someone gives you the runaround, they deliberately do not give you all the information or help that you want, and send you to another person or place to get it.
- got what one deserved — If you say that someone got what they deserved, you mean that they deserved the bad thing that happened to them, and you have no sympathy for them.
- government department — a sector of a national or state government that deals with a particular area of interest
- government in waiting — a political group which is hoping to be elected to govern in the near future
- great victoria desert — a desert in SW central Australia. 125,000 sq. mi. (324,000 sq. km).
- greenwich observatory — the national astronomical observatory of Great Britain, housed in a castle in E Sussex; formerly located at Greenwich.
- have a strong stomach — not to be prone to nausea
- have heard sth before — If you say that you have heard something before, you mean that you are not interested in it, or do not believe it, or are not surprised about it, because you already know about it or have experienced it.
- have the inside track — If you say that someone has the inside track, you mean that they have an advantage, for example special knowledge about something.
- home improvement loan — a government loan for house improvements such as insulation, adding a bathroom, or urgent repairs
- human rights activist — a person who campaigns for human rights
- in favor/out of favor — If someone or something is in favor, people like or support them. If they are out of favor, people no longer like or support them.
- induced radioactivity — artificial radioactivity.
- industrial revolution — (sometimes initial capital letters) the totality of the changes in economic and social organization that began about 1760 in England and later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines, as the power loom and the steam engine, and by the concentration of industry in large establishments.
- inflationary universe — a version of the big bang theory in which the universe underwent very rapid growth during the first fraction of a second before it settled down to its current rate of expansion.
- information retrieval — the systematic storage and recovery of data, as from a file, card catalog, or the memory bank of a computer. Abbreviation: IR.
- internal jugular vein — Anatomy. a jugular vein.
- intravenous drug user — a drug addict who injects drugs (esp heroin) intravenously
- java native interface — (programming) (JNI) A native programming interface for Java that allows Java code running inside a Java Virtual Machine to interoperate with applications and libraries written in other programming languages such as C, C++ and assembly language.
- junior varsity sports — sports played at the second highest rank for university sports, ranking first after varsity
- kekule von stradonitz — Friedrich August [free-drikh ou-goo st] /ˈfri drɪx ˈaʊ gʊst/ (Show IPA), 1829–96, German chemist.
- lafcadio's adventures — French Les Caves du Vatican. a novel (1914) by André Gide.
- leave sb in the lurch — If someone leaves you in the lurch, they go away or stop helping you at a very difficult time.
- light armored vehicle — an eight-wheeled armored reconnaissance car with a 25mm cannon, in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in the 1980s.
- magneto-optical drive — magneto-optical disk
- make heavy weather of — to create needless difficulties in dealing with
- mauna kea observatory — an astronomical observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, situated at an altitude of 13,600 feet (4145 meters).
- mauvais quart d'heure — a brief unpleasant experience
- maximum value theorem — the theorem that for a real-valued function f whose domain is a compact set, there is at least one element x in the domain of f for which f (x) achieves its largest value.
- mean square deviation — variance (def 3).
- mean time to recovery — (specification) (MTTR) The average time that a device will take to recover from a non-terminal failure. Examples of such devices range from self-resetting fuses (where the MTTR would be very short, probably seconds), up to whole systems which have to be replaced. The MTTR would usually be part of a maintenance contract, where the user would pay more for a system whose MTTR was 24 hours, than for one of, say, 7 days. This means the supplier is guaranteeing to have the system up and running again within 24 hours (or 7 days) of being notified of the failure. Some devices have a MTTR of zero, which means that they have redundant components which can take over the instant the primary one fails, see RAID for example. See also Mean Time Between Failures.
- motivational research — the application of the knowledge and techniques of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior: used as a guide in advertising and marketing.
- move heaven and earth — the abode of God, the angels, and the spirits of the righteous after death; the place or state of existence of the blessed after the mortal life.
- multi-level marketing — Multi-level marketing is a marketing technique which involves people buying a product, then earning a commission by selling it to their friends. The abbreviation MLM is also used.
- national park service — a division of the Department of the Interior, created in 1916, that administers national parks, monuments, historic sites, and recreational areas.
- negative amortization — the increase of the principal of a loan by the amount by which periodic loan payments fall short of the interest due, usually as a result of an increase in the interest rate after the loan has begun.
- negative prescription — the barring of adverse claims to property, etc, after a specified period of time has elapsed, allowing the possessor to acquire title
- nominative of address — a noun naming the person to whom one is speaking.
- nonproportional cover — Nonproportional cover is reinsurance cover such as excess of loss reinsurance where the reinsurer's liability is not calculated as a proportion of the insurance.
- nonrestrictive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
- nonviolent resistance — passive resistance, peaceful protest
- notre-dame-des-vertus — an industrial suburb of Paris, on the Seine. Pop: 63 136 (1999)
- objective correlative — a completely depicted situation or chain of events that objectifies a particular emotion in such a way as to produce or evoke that emotion in the reader.