24-letter words containing u, r, i, a
- particulate fluidization — Particulate fluidization is a condition when particles in a fluidized bed are individually suspended.
- pluck sth out of the air — If you say that someone plucks a figure, name, or date out of the air, you mean that they say it without thinking much about it before they speak.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- prairie button snakeroot — a stout composite plant, Liatris pycnostachya, of prairies in the central U.S., having showy, rose-purple flower heads in dense spikes.
- 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.
- principal quantum number — the nonnegative, integral quantum number that defines the stationary orbits in the Bohr model of the atom.
- private health insurance — insurance against the need for medical treatment as a private patient
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- probability distribution — a distribution of all possible values of a random variable together with an indication of their probabilities.
- public international law — Also called public law. the law governing the legal relations between independent states or nations and, increasingly, between these and individuals.
- public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
- 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
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- quadrature of the circle — the insoluble problem of constructing, by the methods of Euclidean geometry, a square equal in area to a given circle.
- quantitative inheritance — the process in which the additive action of numerous genes results in a trait, as height, showing continuous variability.
- quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
- quinacrine hydrochloride — Atabrine
- recursive descent parser — (grammar) A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
- 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.
- renewable term insurance — Renewable term insurance is term life insurance that may be renewed for another period without the policyholder needing to provide further evidence of their insurability.
- repetitive strain injury — overuse strain injury
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
- republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
- 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.
- robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
- rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
- rubaiyat of omar khayyam — a free translation (first published in 1859) by Edward FitzGerald of a group of quatrains by the Persian poet Omar Khayyám.
- san bernardino mountains — mountain range in S Calif., south of the Mojave Desert: highest peak, 11,502 ft (3,506 m)
- san joaquin valley fever — coccidioidomycosis.
- 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
- simultaneous translation — a form of translation in which the interpreter translates into the target language as quickly as possible while the speaker is still speaking in the source language
- 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.
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- 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.
- structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
- subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
- supportive psychotherapy — a type of psychotherapy that seeks to reduce psychological conflict and strengthen a patient's defenses through the use of various techniques, as reassurance, suggestion, counseling, and reeducation.
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory