16-letter words containing a, b, m, p
- loop combination — A program transformation where the bodies of two loops are merged into one thus reducing the overhead of manipulating and testing the control variable and branching. Further optimisation of the merged code may then become possible. In horizontal loop combination the bodies of the loops are largely independent so only the loop overhead is saved. Vertical loop combination applies where the results of the first loop are used by the second. Combining the two allows the intermediate results to be used immediately (in registers) rather than requiring them to be stored in an array. The functional equivalent of horizontal and vertical loop combination are tupling and fusion.
- man booker prize — an annual prize for a work of Commonwealth or Irish fiction of £50,000, awarded as the Booker Prize from 1969–2002
- mari el republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Yoshkar-Ola. Pop: 728 000 (2002). Area: 23 200 sq km (8955 sq miles)
- morris plan bank — a private banking organization, formerly common in the U.S., designed primarily to grant small loans to industrial workers.
- north palm beach — a town in E Florida.
- onboard computer — onboard a vehicle, ship, plane, train or spacecraft
- paint-by-numbers — formulaic; showing no original thought or creativity
- patent ambiguity — uncertainty of meaning created by the obscure or ambiguous language appearing on the face of a written instrument.
- performance bond — contract bond.
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- phenoxybenzamine — an alpha blocker, C 1 8 H 2 2 ClNO, used to dilate vascular peripheral blood vessels in the treatment of Raynaud's disease and in pheochromocytoma.
- photograph album — bound book for photos
- pietermaritzburg — a province in the E part of the Republic of South Africa. 35,284 sq. mi. (91,886 sq. km). Capital: Pietermaritzburg.
- platform-balance — a scale with a platform for holding the items to be weighed.
- portable airtime — (communications, wireless) A wireless, digital communications system enabling user-to-user voice communication, "quicknotes", and alphanumeric messaging.
- potato tuberworm — the larva of the potato moth.
- presence chamber — the special room in which a great personage, as a sovereign, receives guests, holds audiences, etc.
- proslambanomenos — the lowest note of the scale in ancient Greek music
- put in mothballs — to postpone work on (a project, activity, etc)
- query by example — (database, language) (QBE) A user-friendly query language developed by Moshé Zloof of IBM in 1975.
- ramen profitable — If a startup business is ramen profitable, it is barely profitable, just enough to allow the founder to live on the cheapest diet.
- schaumburg-lippe — a former state in NW Germany.
- slave labor camp — labor camp (def 1).
- soapberry family — the plant family Sapindaceae, characterized by chiefly tropical trees, shrubs, or herbaceous vines having compound leaves, clustered flowers, and berrylike, fleshy, or capsular fruit, and including the balloon vine, golden rain tree, litchi, and soapberry.
- sodium perborate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble solid, NaBO 2 ⋅3H 2 O or NaBO 3 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a bleaching agent and antiseptic.
- swamp buttonwood — the buttonbush.
- thrombocytopenia — an abnormal decrease in the number of blood platelets.
- transport number — that fraction of the total electric current that anions and cations carry in passing through an electrolytic solution.
- unaccomplishable — to bring to its goal or conclusion; carry out; perform; finish: to accomplish one's mission.
- unimpressionable — easily impressed or influenced; susceptible: an impressionable youngster.
- vapor combustion — Vapor combustion is a closed burn system used for treating liquid waste which contains volatile organic compounds.