24-letter words containing y, i, n, a
- quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
- quinacrine hydrochloride — Atabrine
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- rational-emotive therapy — a form of therapy in which a patient is asked to reject irrational attitudes and assumptions in order to deal effectively with stressful situations.
- referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
- repetitive strain injury — overuse strain injury
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
- 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.
- ricardian theory of rent — economic rent.
- rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
- saint ignatius of loyola — Saint Ignatius of (Iñigo López de Loyola) 1491–1556, Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic: founder of the Society of Jesus.
- 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
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- staggered pin grid array — (hardware) (SPGA) A style of integrated circuit socket or pin-out with a staggered grid of pins around the edge of the socket, positioned as several squares, one inside the other. SPGA is commonly used on motherboards for processors, e.g. Socket 5, Socket 7 and Socket 8. See also PGA.
- steak and kidney pudding — beefsteak and kidney in a suet pastry crust, steamed in a basin.
- synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- that goes without saying — that is self-evident
- the way things are going — You can use the way things are going to indicate that you expect something to happen because of the way the present situation is developing.
- to keep something at bay — If you keep something or someone at bay, or hold them at bay, you prevent them from reaching, attacking, or affecting you.
- to lay something to rest — If you lay something such as fears or rumours to rest or if you put them to rest, you succeed in proving that they are not true.
- total quality management — Total quality management is a set of management principles aimed at improving performance throughout a company, especially by involving employees in decision-making. The abbreviation TQM is also used.
- tricyclic antidepressant — pertaining to or embodying three cycles.
- trotskyist international — Fourth International.
- visual component library — (programming) VCL A application framework library for Microsoft Windows and Borland Software Corp.'s Delphi and C++Builder rapid application development software. VCL was originally designed for Delphi but is now also used for C++Builder. This replaces OWL Object Windows Library as Borland's Windows C++ framework of choice. VCL encapsulates the C-based Win32 API into a much easier to use, object-oriented form. Like its direct rival, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), VCL includes classes to create Windows programs. The VCL component class can be inherited to create new VCL components, which are the building blocks of Delphi and C++Builder applications. VCL components are somewhat in competition with ActiveX controls, though a VCL wrapper can be created to make an ActiveX control seem like a VCL component.
- voluntary aid detachment — (in World War I) an organization of British women volunteers who assisted in military hospitals and ambulance duties
- water of crystallization — water of hydration, formerly thought necessary to crystallization: now usually regarded as affecting crystallization only as it forms new molecular combinations.
- ways and means committee — a standing committee of the US House of Representatives that supervises all financial legislation
- 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.
- which way the wind blows — air in natural motion, as that moving horizontally at any velocity along the earth's surface: A gentle wind blew through the valley. High winds were forecast.
- win (or lose) by a neck — to win (or lose) by the length of a horse's head and neck
- wired equivalent privacy — (networking, standard) (WEP) IEEE 802.11:1999. A cryptographic privacy algorithm, based on the RC4 encryption engine, used to provide confidentiality for 802.11 wireless networks. WEP is intended to provide roughly the same level of confidentiality for wireless data as a wired LAN (Ethernet), which is NOT protected by encryption. WEP is often wrongly expanded as "Wireless Encryption Protocol". WEP is a protocol that provides encryption used on wireless networks but that's not what it stands for.
- 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.
- your heart is not in sth — If your heart isn't in the thing you are doing, you have very little enthusiasm for it, usually because you are depressed or are thinking about something else.