20-letter words containing u, a, e
- freight pass-through — a special allowance or discounted price given a bookseller or bookstore by a publishing house for paying the freight charge on a shipment of books ordered: so called because the shipping charge is passed on to the consumer by an increase in the suggested retail price for each book. Abbreviation: FPT.
- frequency modulation — FM.
- friedrich max müller — Friedrich Max [free-drik maks;; German free-drikh mahks] /ˈfri drɪk mæks;; German ˈfri drɪx mɑks/ (Show IPA), 1823–1900, English Sanskrit scholar and philologist born in Germany.
- frontenac et palluau — Comte de (Louis de Buade) 1620?–98, French governor of New France 1672–82, 1689–98.
- full to the gunwales — completely full; full to overflowing
- fulminate of mercury — a gray, crystalline solid, Hg(CNO) 2 , used chiefly in the manufacture of commercial and military detonators.
- fundamental constant — a physical constant, such as the gravitational constant or speed of light, that plays a fundamental role in physics and chemistry and usually has an accurately known value
- fundamental particle — elementary particle.
- fundamental research — research carried out to deepen understanding of the fundamental or basic principles of something
- fundamental sequence — an infinite sequence, x 1 , x 2 , …, whose terms are points in Ek, in which there exists a point y such that the limit as n goes to infinity of xn = y if and only if for every ε>0, there exists a number N such that i > N and j > N implies | xi − xj |< ε. Also called Cauchy sequence, convergent sequence. Compare complete (def 10b).
- gastroduodenostomies — Plural form of gastroduodenostomy.
- general headquarters — the headquarters of the commanding officer of a large military force. Abbreviation: GHQ, G.H.Q.
- general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
- general public virus — (software, legal) A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
- gentleman of fortune — an adventurer.
- get a real computer! — (jargon) A typical hacker response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done on a toy system or bitty box. The threshold for "real computer" rises with time. As of mid-1993 it meant multi-tasking, with a hard disk, and an address space bigger than 16 megabytes. At this time, according to GLS, computers with character-only displays were verging on "unreal". In 2001, a real computer has a one gigahertz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 20 GB of hard disk, and runs Linux.
- get away with murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
- get one's hackles up — to become tense with anger; bristle
- glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
- gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)
- grand unified theory — a possible future quantum field theory that would encompass both the electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics. Abbreviation: GUT.
- greatest lower bound — a lower bound that is greater than or equal to all the lower bounds of a given set: 1 is the greatest lower bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbreviation: glb.
- green mountain state — Vermont (used as a nickname).
- greenwich hour angle — hour angle measured from the meridian of Greenwich, England.
- gregory of nazianzus — Saint. ?329–89 ad, Cappadocian theologian: bishop of Caesarea (370–79). Feast days: Jan 2, 25, and 30
- grievous bodily harm — law: serious injury
- group life insurance — a form of life insurance available to members of a group, typically employees of a company, under a master policy.
- group representation — representation in a governing body on the basis of interests rather than by geographical location.
- guarded horn clauses — (language) (GHC) A parallel dialect of Prolog by K. Ueda in which each clause has a guard. GHC is similar to Parlog. When several clauses match a goal, their guards are evaluated in parallel and the first clause whose guard is found to be true is used and others are rejected. It uses committed-choice nondeterminism. See also FGHC, KL1.
- guided visualization — a relaxation technique in which words, sounds, etc., are used to evoke positive mental images, feelings, and thoughts.
- guillaume de machaut — Guillaume de [French gee-yohm duh] /French giˈyoʊm də/ (Show IPA), Guillaume de Machaut.
- hampton court palace — a royal palace in Hampton, London, built in 1515 by Cardinal Wolsey
- hang up one's spikes — to retire, as from a professional sport
- hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
- harvard architecture — (architecture) A computer architecture in which program instructions are stored in different memory from data. Each type of memory is accessed via a separate bus, allowing instructions and data to be fetched in parallel. Contrast: von Neumann architecture.
- hate a person's guts — to dislike a person very strongly
- health questionnaire — A health questionnaire is a list of questions about someone's health issued by underwriters before accepting a person as a risk.
- helmeted guinea fowl — the common guinea fowl in its wild state.
- hexafluoroantimonate — (inorganic chemistry) The anion SbF6- or any salt containing this anion; it is used as an acidic catalyst in epoxide opening reactions.
- hierarchical routing — The complex problem of routing on large networks can be simplified by breaking a network into a hierarchy of smaller networks, where each level is responsible for its own routing. The Internet has, basically, three levels: the backbones, the mid-levels, and the stub networks. The backbones know how to route between the mid-levels, the mid-levels know how to route between the sites, and each site (being an autonomous system) knows how to route internally. See also Exterior Gateway Protocol, Interior Gateway Protocol, transit network.
- himalayan guinea pig — a variety of short-haired guinea pig with markings on its nose, ears, and feet
- hindu-arabic numeral — Arabic numeral.
- hipparchus satellite — an astronometric satellite launched in 1989 by the European Space Agency that measured the position, proper motion, and brightness of 118 218 stars down to 12th magnitude and the magnitude and colour of a million stars down to 10th magnitude
- hire-purchase system — a system of payment for a commodity in regular installments while using it.
- hit the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
- hit-and-run accident — a motor-vehicle accident in which the driver leaves the scene without stopping to give assistance, inform the police, etc
- honeysuckle ornament — anthemion.
- hot under the collar — the part of a shirt, coat, dress, blouse, etc., that encompasses the neckline of the garment and is sewn permanently to it, often so as to fold or roll over.
- house of assignation — a brothel.
- household appliances — devices or machines, usually electrical, that are in your home and which you use to do jobs such as cleaning or cooking