24-letter words containing u, g, a, r, i
- jewish autonomous region — an autonomous region in the Khabarovsk territory of the Russian Federation in E Siberia. 13,900 sq. mi. (36,000 sq. km). Capital: Birobidzhan.
- knight in shining armour — If you refer to someone as a knight in shining armour, you mean that they are kind and brave, and likely to rescue you from a difficult situation.
- lady washington geranium — show geranium.
- laugh in a person's face — to show open contempt or defiance towards a person
- legal expenses insurance — Legal expenses insurance is insurance coverage against expenses incurred when you need to seek legal advice or pay for a lawsuit.
- like a red rag to a bull — If you describe something as a red rag to a bull, you mean that it is certain to make a particular person or group very angry.
- long-term care insurance — Long-term care insurance is insurance for people who may require long-term health or nursing care, and pays for things such as nursing homes and adult day care.
- medium-scale integration — MSI.
- mitigating circumstances — conditions that lessen responsibility for a crime
- multiple virtual storage — (operating system) (MVS) Release 2 of OS/VS2, called MVS because it had multiple 16 MB virtual address spaces, in contrast to SVS. MVS ran on the IBM 390 series mainframes. It became MVS/SP, then MVS/XA (with 31-bit addressing) and then MVS/ESA. MVS/Open Edition (MVS/OE), aimed at the growing open systems market, added TCP/IP and Unix support in an MVS address space, allowing users to run IBM, CICS-type applications, batch applications and Unix. MVS/ESA was repackaged as OS/390 as a marketing exercise but it's basically the same thing. Version: 5.1.
- new programming language — (language) (NEWP) A language which replaced ESPOL on the Burroughs Large System.
- nongonococcal urethritis — a widespread sexually transmitted infection of the urethra, caused by the parasite Chlamydia trachomatis, or the mycoplasm Ureaplasma urealyticum, characterized in males by painful urination and discharge from the penis and in females by frequent, painful urination and cervical erosion. Abbreviation: NGU.
- object-oriented language — object-oriented programming
- orbital angular momentum — the component of angular momentum of an electron in an atom or a nucleon in a nucleus, arising from its orbital motion rather than from its spin.
- other things being equal — If you say 'other things being equal' or 'all things being equal' when talking about a possible situation, you mean if nothing unexpected happens or if there are no other factors which affect the situation.
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- pre-emptive multitasking — (operating system, parallel) A type of multitasking where the scheduler can interrupt and suspend ("swap out") the currently running task in order to start or continue running ("swap in") another task. The tasks under pre-emptive multitasking can be written as though they were the only task and the scheduler decides when to swap them. The scheduler must ensure that when swapping tasks, sufficient state is saved and restored that tasks do not interfere. The length of time for which a process runs is known as its "time slice" and may depend on the task's priority or its use of resources such as memory and I/O. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking where each task must include calls to allow it to be descheduled periodically.
- pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications) (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- pure functional language — purely functional language
- put the fear of god into — a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
- put their heads together — to consult together
- registered general nurse — (in Britain) a nurse who has completed a three-year training course in all aspects of nursing care to enable him or her to be registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting
- regular checking account — a checking account for which the monthly fee is usually based on the average balance maintained and the number of transactions recorded.
- reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
- reverse annuity mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
- revolving charge account — a charge plan offerring revolving credit.
- ring down the curtain on — to give forth a clear resonant sound, as a bell when struck: The doorbell rang twice.
- scottish country dancing — a type of Scottish folk dancing, including reels, jigs, and strathspeys, in which couples are arranged in sets and perform a series of movements, esp facing one another in a line
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
- standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
- sth bodes ill/augurs ill — If something bodes ill or augurs ill, it gives you a reason to fear that something harmful might happen soon.
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
- take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- throw one's weight about — to act in an authoritarian or aggressive manner
- to light the touch paper — if someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement
- to play your cards right — If you say that someone will achieve success if they play their cards right, you mean that they will achieve success if they act skilfully and use the advantages that they have.
- ultralarge crude carrier — Nautical. ULCC.
- very large crude carrier — VLCC.
- virtual storage extended — (operating system) (VSE, formerly DOS/VSE) is a multitasking, IBM 370-architected operating system similar to Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS). VSE run jobs in partitions rather than address spaces, and uses POWER for input/output rather than JES, but is largely similar to MVS. Subsequent VSE/ESA releases gave VSE the XA-370 channel architecture, 31-bit virtual and real storage support, and data spaces. VSE is the IBM operating system on one-third of installed IBM 4381s and a significant proportion of IBM 9370s as well. It offers transaction processing and batch processing capabilities well beyond Virtual Machine's current capabilities, and has a close affinity with MVS.
- what are you playing at? — If you ask what someone is playing at, you are angry because you think they are doing something stupid or wrong.
- what are you waiting for — If you say to someone 'What are you waiting for?' you are telling them to hurry up and do something.
- work/go/run like a charm — If you say that something worked like a charm, you mean that it was very effective or successful.
- you aren't gonna need it — (programming) (YAGNI) A motto of extreme programming expressing the principle that functionality should not be implemented until it is needed. The traditional waterfall model makes it difficult to add features after the specification has been signed off, tempting the specifier to add features that may never be used but which take time to program, debug, test and document.