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20-letter words containing u, g, a, r, i

  • malpighian corpuscle — Also called kidney corpuscle, Malpighian body. the structure at the beginning of a vertebrate nephron, consisting of a glomerulus and its surrounding Bowman's capsule.
  • mass-energy equation — the equation, E=mc2, formulated by Albert Einstein, expressing the equivalence between mass and energy, where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the velocity of light.
  • medical underwriting — Medical underwriting is the use of medical or health status information in the evaluation of an applicant for life or health insurance.
  • mickey mouse program — (jargon)   The North American equivalent of a "noddy program", i.e. trivial. The term doesn't necessarily have the belittling connotations of mainstream slang "Oh, that's just mickey mouse stuff!"; sometimes trivial programs can be very useful.
  • microwave background — a background of microwave electromagnetic radiation with a black-body spectrum discovered in 1965, understood to be the thermal remnant of the big bang with which the universe began
  • minimum lending rate — the official interest rate charged by the Bank of England and below which it will refrain from lending money.
  • molecular geneticist — a specialist in the study of the molecular constitution of genes and chromosomes
  • mopping-up operation — an operation after a battle or campaign to root out remaining enemy forces or installations
  • most general unifier — (logic)   If U is the most general unifier of a set of expressions then any other unifier, V, can be expressed as V = UW, where W is another substitution. See also unification.
  • mpeg-1 audio layer 1 — (audio, compression, algorithm)   (MP1) A simple 32-subband audio compressor using a floating point representation for subband samples. Resolution and scale factor are stored for groups of 12 subsamples. MP1 is only used for Philips DCC Digital Compact cassette with data rates of 384 kbps.
  • mpeg-1 audio layer 3 — (music, file format)   (MP3) A digital audio compression algorithm that acheives a compression factor of about twelve while preserving sound quality. It does this by optimising the compression according to the range of sound that people can actually hear. MP3 is currently (July 1999) the most powerful algorithm in a series of audio encoding standards developed under the sponsorship of the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and formalised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). MP3 is very different from Layer 2, using an additional MDCT layer to increase frequency resolution. Its scale factor groups are more optimised for the human ear, and it uses nonlinear sample quantisation and Huffman coding. MP3 files (filename extension ".mp3") can be downloaded from many websites and can be played using software available for most operating systems (also downloadable), e.g. Winamp for PC, MacAmp for Macintosh, and mpeg123 for Unix. MP3 files are usually downloaded completely before playing but streaming MP3 is also possible. A program called a "ripper" can be used to copy a selection from a music CD onto your hard disk and another program called an encoder can convert it to an MP3 file.
  • mpeg-2 audio layer 3 — (compression, standard, algorithm, file format)   An extention of MPEG-1 audio layer 3 for lower sampling rates (16-24 kHz) targeting bit rates from 32-64 kbps (possibly 8-160 kbps). It is often combined with MPEG-2 LSF.
  • multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
  • multiplicative group — a group in which the operation of the group is multiplication.
  • neighbourhood warden — a person employed by a local authority to patrol residential areas and deal with antisocial behaviour
  • neurophysiologically — In terms of, or with regard to, neurophysiology.
  • neuropsychologically — In terms of or by means of neuropsychology.
  • occupation groupings — a system of classifying people according to occupation, based originally on information obtained by government census and subsequently developed by market research. The classifications are used by the advertising industry to identify potential markets. The groups are A, B, C1, C2, D, and E
  • ode on a grecian urn — a poem (1819) by Keats.
  • officer of the guard — an officer, acting under the officer of the day, who is responsible for the instruction, discipline, and performance of duty of the guard in a post, camp, or station. Abbreviation: OG, O.G.
  • omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
  • ontological argument — an a priori argument for the existence of God, asserting that as existence is a perfection, and as God is conceived of as the most perfect being, it follows that God must exist; originated by Anselm, later used by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz.
  • orthognathic surgery — the surgical correction of deformities or malpositions of the jaw.
  • oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
  • pedal steel (guitar) — a steel guitar mounted on legs and equipped with pedals that serve as an additional means of changing pitch
  • perpendicular gothic — the style of Gothic architecture in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by tracery having vertical lines, a four-centred arch, and fan vaulting
  • pound cost averaging — a method of accumulating capital by investing a fixed sum in a particular security at regular intervals, in order to achieve an average purchase price below the arithmetic average of the market prices on the purchase dates
  • prenuptial agreement — A prenuptial agreement is a written contract made between a man and a woman before they marry, in which they state how their assets such as property and money should be divided if they get divorced.
  • production agreement — a contract concerning the production or manufacture of something
  • programming language — a high-level language used to write computer programs, as COBOL or BASIC, or, sometimes, an assembly language.
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
  • quaker meeting house — a place where Quakers gather for worship
  • quarantine anchorage — an anchorage for ships awaiting a pratique.
  • radial triangulation — triangulation based upon lines radiating from the center of each of two overlapping photographs to certain objects appearing on each photograph.
  • regenerative furnace — a furnace in which the incoming air is heated by regenerators.
  • ring wall foundation — A ring wall foundation is a base made of concrete, used to put large tanks on.
  • rough-winged swallow — either of two New World swallows of the genus Stelgidopteryx, having outer primary feathers with small barblike hooks on the margins.
  • scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
  • schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
  • semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
  • shoulder-length hair — hair that reaches a person's shoulders
  • special patrol group — a former police unit tasked with counter terrorism in the Royal Ulster Constabulary
  • squatter sovereignty — (used contemptuously by its opponents) popular sovereignty (def 2).
  • straight-cut tobacco — tobacco that is cut in such a way that it will lie flat.
  • surface-active agent — any substance that when dissolved in water or an aqueous solution reduces its surface tension or the interfacial tension between it and another liquid.
  • temperature gradient — rate of change of temperature with distance.
  • terrestrial guidance — a method of missile or rocket guidance in which the flight path is controlled by reference to the strength and direction of the earth's gravitational or magnetic field
  • the founding fathers — any of the men who were members of the U.S. Constituional Convention of 1787
  • the garment industry — the manufacturing of items of clothing
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