20-letter words containing y, a, g
- gregory of nazianzus — Saint. ?329–89 ad, Cappadocian theologian: bishop of Caesarea (370–79). Feast days: Jan 2, 25, and 30
- grey-crowned babbler — an insect-eating Australian bird, Pomatostomus temporalis of the family Timaliidae
- grievous bodily harm — law: serious injury
- happy hunting ground — the North American Indian heaven, conceived of as a paradise of hunting and feasting for warriors and hunters.
- have come a long way — If you say that someone or something has come a long way, you mean that they have developed, progressed, or become very successful.
- high-energy particle — Physics
- himalayan guinea pig — a variety of short-haired guinea pig with markings on its nose, ears, and feet
- historical sociology — the sociological study of the origins and development of societies and of other social phenomena that seeks underlying laws and principles.
- how are you keeping? — how are you?
- hydraulic fracturing — a process in which fractures in rocks below the earth's surface are opened and widened by injecting chemicals and liquids at high pressure: used especially to extract natural gas or oil.
- hyperbolic cotangent — a hyperbolic function that is the ratio of cosh to sinh, being the reciprocal of tanh; coth
- ignatius (of) loyola — Saint(born Iñigo López de Recalde) (1491-1556); Sp. priest: founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuit order): his day is July 31
- indistinguishability — The state of being indistinguishable.
- industrial sociology — the sociological study of social relationships and social structures in business settings.
- infiltration gallery — a conduit, built in permeable earth, for collecting ground water.
- infrared photography — photography using film with an emulsion that is sensitive to infrared light, enabling it to be used in misty weather, in darkened interiors, or at night. It has applications in aerial surveys, the detection of forgeries, etc
- integration by parts — Mathematics. a method of evaluating an integral by use of the formula, ∫udv = uv − ∫vdu.
- integrity constraint — (database) A constraint (rule) that must remain true for a database to preserve data integrity. Integrity constraints are specified at database creation time and enforced by the database management system. Examples from a genealogical database would be that every individual must be their parent's child or that they can have no more than two natural parents.
- laboratory diagnosis — scientific analysis of a disease
- legislative assembly — the legislature of France 1791–92.
- linguistic geography — dialect geography.
- llanfairpwllgwyngyll — a village in NW Wales, in SE Anglesey: reputed to be the longest place name in Great Britain when unabbreviated; means: St Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of Llandysilio of the red cave
- llywelyn ap gruffudd — died 1282, prince of Wales (1258–82): the only Welsh ruler to be recognized as such by the English
- longitude by account — the longitude of the position of a vessel as estimated by dead reckoning.
- lymphogranulomatosis — widespread infectious granuloma of the lymphatic system.
- macias nguema biyogo — a former name of Bioko.
- magical mystery tour — something exciting and mysterious; esp an exploration of a new place where somebody being shown or taken around does not know where exactly they will be going
- magnetohydrodynamics — the branch of physics that deals with the motion of electrically conductive fluids, especially plasmas, in magnetic fields. Abbreviation: MHD.
- make goo-goo eyes at — to look at (someone) in a sentimental and embarrassing way
- marginal probability — (in a multivariate distribution) the probability of one variable taking a specific value irrespective of the values of the others
- 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.
- megabytes per second — (unit) (MBps, MB/s) Millions of bytes per second. A unit of data rate. 1 MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes per second (not 1,048,576).
- megakaryocytopoiesis — (biology) The cellular development process that leads to platelet production.
- 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.
- military engineering — the design, construction, etc, of military fortifications and communications
- molecular gastronomy — an approach to cooking in which a chef’s knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology allows him or her to experiment with unusual flavour combinations and cooking techniques
- morning glory family — the plant family Convulvulaceae, characterized by twining herbaceous vines, shrubs, and trees having alternate, simple, or compound leaves, funnel-shaped, often showy flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry or capsule, and including bindweed, dodder, moonflower, morning glory, and sweet potato.
- 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.
- negative electricity — the electricity present in a body or substance that has an excess of electrons, as the electricity developed on a resin when rubbed with flannel.
- neurophysiologically — In terms of, or with regard to, neurophysiology.
- neuropsychologically — In terms of or by means of neuropsychology.
- new england theology — Calvinism as modified and interpreted by the descendants of the Puritans in New England, especially Jonathan Edwards, becoming the dominant theology there from about 1730 to 1880.
- omega-3 (fatty acid) — a type of polyunsaturated fatty acid in fish oil, shellfish, soybeans, etc., linked to low cholesterol and low LDL levels
- operational strategy — a plan or set of plans for successfully running a business, etc
- orthognathic surgery — the surgical correction of deformities or malpositions of the jaw.
- oxyacetylene welding — welding using an oxyacetylene burner
- pan-american highway — a road system proposed in the 1920s linking nations of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Alaska to Santiago, Chile, with some gaps remaining in Panama and Colombia. The section between Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Panama City is known as the Inter-American Highway Total length about 16,000 miles (25,744 km).
- paper chromatography — the separation of mixtures into their constituents by preferential adsorption by a solid, as a column of silica (column chromatography) or a strip of filter paper (paper chromatography) or by a gel.