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21-letter words containing w, e, n, i

  • in more ways than one — You say in more ways than one to indicate that what you have said is intended to have more than one meaning.
  • indicated horse-power — the horsepower of a reciprocating engine as shown by an indicator record. Abbreviation: ihp, IHP.
  • infant welfare clinic — a medical facility that specializes in the health and well-being of young babies
  • insurance underwriter — sb who assesses eligibility for insurance policies
  • intracoastal waterway — a mostly inland water route, partly natural and partly artificial, extending 1550 miles (2500 km) along the Atlantic coast from Boston to Florida Bay (Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway) and 1116 miles (1800 km) along the Gulf coast from Carrabelle, Fla., to Brownsville, Tex. (Gulf Intracoastal Waterway) constructed to protect small craft from the hazards of the open sea.
  • it takes two to tango — If you say it takes two or it takes two to tango, you mean that a situation or argument involves two people and they are both therefore responsible for it.
  • jewish defense league — an organization of militant Jewish activists, founded in 1968 in the U.S. to combat anti-Semitism and defend Jewish interests worldwide. Abbr.: JDL.
  • keep one's voice down — If someone tells you to keep your voice down, they are asking you to speak more quietly.
  • know someone by sight — If you know someone by sight, you can recognize them when you see them, although you have never met them and talked to them.
  • knowledge engineering — the practical application of developments in the field of computer science concerned with artificial intelligence.
  • lady windermere's fan — a comedy (1892) by Oscar Wilde.
  • law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
  • leaning tower of pisa — a round, marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1174 and now 17 feet (5.2 meters) out of the perpendicular in its height of 179 feet (54 meters).
  • lost in the underflow — (jargon)   Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
  • luck was on sb's side — If you say that luck was on someone's side, you mean that they succeeded in something by chance as well as by their own efforts or ability.
  • madagascar periwinkle — a plant, Catharanthus roseus (or Vinca rosea), cultivated for its glossy foliage and pink or white flowers.
  • maidenhair spleenwort — an evergreen fern, Asplenium trichomanes, abundant in woody areas of the North Temperate Zone, having thickly clustered fronds.
  • maintenance allowance — money that is given to someone, usually on a regular basis, in order to help them pay for the things that they need
  • make one's peace with — the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world.
  • mechanical weathering — any of the various weathering processes that cause physical disintegration of exposed rock without any change in the chemical composition of the rock: Collision between rock surfaces can cause mechanical weathering.
  • medium dry white wine — Medium dry white wine is white wine that is not very sweet.
  • member of the wedding — a novel (1946) and play (1950) by Carson McCullers.
  • microware corporation — Authors of OS-9. Address: Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
  • minister of the crown — any Government minister of cabinet rank
  • model-view-controller — (programming)   (MVC) A way of partitioning the design of interactive software; a software architecture pattern. The "model" is the internal workings of the program (the data objects and algorithms), the "view" is how the user sees the state of the model and the "controller" is how the user changes the state or provides input. MVC was the original kind of what is now sometimes called an MV* pattern. Trygve Reenskaug introduced it into Smalltalk-76 while visiting Xerox PARC in the 1970s.
  • motherwell and wishaw — a burgh in the Motherwell district, in S Scotland.
  • neither fish nor fowl — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
  • network administrator — (job)   A person who manages a communications network within an organisation. Responsibilities include network security, installing new applications, distributing software upgrades, monitoring daily activity, enforcing licensing agreements, developing a storage management program and providing for routine backups.
  • network filing system — (spelling)   Misnomer for Network File System.
  • network time protocol — (NTP) A protocol built on top of TCP/IP that assures accurate local timekeeping with reference to radio, atomic or other clocks located on the Internet. This protocol is capable of synchronizing distributed clocks within milliseconds over long time periods. It is defined in STD 12, RFC 1119.
  • new year's resolution — If you make a New Year's resolution, you make a decision at the beginning of a year to start doing something or to stop doing something.
  • no smoke without fire — the evidence strongly suggests something has indeed happened
  • north east new guinea — the NE part of the former Australian Territory of New Guinea; now part of Papua New Guinea.
  • northwest territories — the region north of the Ohio River, organized by Congress in 1787, comprising present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the eastern part of Minnesota.
  • nuclear power station — a station or plant where nuclear energy is converted into heat, electricity, etc
  • of one's own volition — If you do something of your own volition, you do it because you have decided for yourself that you will do it and not because someone else has told you to do it.
  • of your own free will — out of choice
  • oil-in-water emulsion — An oil-in-water emulsion is a mixture in which an oily medicine is dispersed in water or other liquid.
  • one-way hash function — (algorithm)   (Or "message digest function") A one-way function which takes a variable-length message and produces a fixed-length hash. Given the hash it is computationally infeasible to find a message with that hash; in fact one can't determine any usable information about a message with that hash, not even a single bit. For some one-way hash functions it's also computationally impossible to determine two messages which produce the same hash. A one-way hash function can be private or public, just like an encryption function. MD5, SHA and Snefru are examples of public one-way hash functions. A public one-way hash function can be used to speed up a public-key digital signature system. Rather than sign a long message, which can take a long time, compute the one-way hash of the message, and sign the hash.
  • paper-white narcissus — a white-flowered variety of Narcissus tazetta, often forced for indoor bloom.
  • poweropen association — An independent body established to promote, and test conformance with, the PowerOpen Environment (POE).
  • poweropen environment — (operating system)   (POE) A definition containing API and ABI specifications based on the PowerPC architecture. It is not an operating system. The presence of the ABI specification in the POE distinguishes it from other open systems (POSIX, XPG4, etc.) since it allows platform independent binary compatibility which is otherwise typically limited to particular hardware. The POE is an open standard, derived from AIX and conforming to industry open standards including POSIX, XPG4 and Motif. The POE specification will be publicly available to anyone wishing to produce either application programs or hardware platforms. The PowerOpen Association will provide the necessary conformance testing and POE branding. The POE is hardware bus independent. System implementations can range from laptop computers to supercomputers. It requires a multi-user, multitasking operating system. It provides networking support, an X Window System extension, a Macintosh Application Services extension and Motif. It is conformance tested and certified by an independent party (the PowerOpen Association). The POE specification is targeted for availability in the first quarter of 1994. The PowerOpen Association will soon have some of the information material available on-line.
  • powersoft corporation — (company)   A leading vendor of client/server application development tools. In February 1994, Watcom became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Powersoft Corporation which merged with Sybase on 13 February 1995. In April 1995, the new company is the fastest growing top-ten software company and the seventh largest software company in the world. Headquarters: Concord, Massachusetts, USA.
  • prader-willi syndrome — a congenital condition characterized by obsessive eating, obesity, learning difficulties, and small genitalia
  • protestant work ethic — work ethic.
  • put someone wise (to) — to give someone information, an explanation, etc. (about); enlighten someone (concerning)
  • queen's-pawn openings — a class of chess openings in which the pawn in front of the queen is advanced two squares on the first move.
  • redwood national park — a national park in N California: redwood forest with some of the world's tallest trees. 172 sq. mi. (445 sq. km).
  • ring down the curtain — to lower the curtain at the end of a theatrical performance
  • roll with the punches — a thrusting blow, especially with the fist.
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