pecuniary

pecuniary: Of, or relating to, money; monetary.

Rankine

Rankine is a thermodynamic (absolute) temperature scale named after the Scottish engineer and physicist William John Macquorn Rankine, who proposed it in 1859.

The symbol is R (or Ra if to distinguish it from the Rømer and Réaumur scales). As with the Kelvin scale (symbol: K), zero on the Rankine scale is absolute zero, but the Rankine degree is defined as equal to one degree Fahrenheit, rather than the one degree Celsius used by the Kelvin scale. A temperature of
-459.67 °F is exactly equal to 0 R.

hypervisor

A hypervisor, also called virtual machine monitor (VMM), is a computer software/hardware platform virtualization software that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer concurrently.

microkernel

In computer science, a microkernel is a computer kernel that provides the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system, such as low-level address space management, thread management, and inter-process communication. If the hardware provides multiple privilege levels, then the microkernel is the only software executing at the most privileged level (generally referred to as supervisor or kernel mode). Actual operating system services, such as device drivers, protocol stacks, file systems and user interface code are contained in user space.

Devotee

Devotee: In the paraphilia, the attracted ("devotees") are specifically aroused by disabled people, simply because of their disability. The disability may be minor like missing fingers, profound like blindness and (stereotypically) amputation, or quadriplegia. Some devotees desire people with cognitive disabilities.

abonnement

abonnement: "subscription"

Pinniped

Pinnipeds (from Latin pinna, wing or fin, and ped-, foot) or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae (walruses), Otariidae (eared seals, including sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae (earless seals). Formerly classified as a separate biological suborder, Pinnipedia is now sometimes considered a superfamily within Caniformia, a suborder in the Carnivora order.

Bendir

The bendir (Arabic: بندير‎; plural banadir, بنادير; also called erbeni or arbani) is a frame drum used as a traditional instrument throughout North Africa, more specifically in Morocco. Unlike the tambourine, it has no jingles but most often has a snare (usually made of gut) stretched across its head, which when the drum is struck with the fingers or palm gives the tone a buzzing quality. The bendir is a frame drum with a wooden frame and a membrane. It creates different tones according to the spreading of the shockwaves moving across the skins itself.

Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party. His politics differed sharply from Stalinism, most importantly in declaring the need for an international proletarian revolution, rather than socialism in one country, and unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the proletariat based on democratic principles.

Trotsky's followers maintain that, together with Lenin, Trotsky was the most important leader of the Russian Revolution and the international Communist movement in 1917 and the following years. Nowadays, numerous groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist, although they have developed Trotsky's ideas in different ways. A follower of Trotskyist ideas is usually called a "Trotskyist" or (in an informal or pejorative way) a "Trotskyite" or "Trot".

iwan

An iwan (Persian: إيوان eyvān) is defined as a vaulted hall or space, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open.

Iwans were common in the Sassanid architecture of Persia, later finding their way into Islamic architecture. This transition reached its peak during the Seljuki era, when iwans became established as a fundamental design unit in Islamic architecture.

Typically, iwans open on to a central courtyard, and have been used in both public and residential architecture.

caravanserai

A caravanserai (Persian: كاروانسرا kārvānsarā, Turkish kervansaray) was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and South-Eastern Europe.


Most typically a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. The courtyard was almost always open to the sky, and the inside walls of the enclosure were outfitted with a number of identical stalls, bays, niches, or chambers to accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise.

whirligig

A whirligig is a punitive or torture contraption comprising a suspended cage-like device. The victim would be placed in the cage, which was spun violently in order to cause severe nausea.

This was used as a military punishment, as by the British Army. For example, in Tangiers, the whirligig was reportedly used on women, by whom it was more feared than the pillory, stocks and wooden horse.

halfback

A halfback or tailback is an offensive position in American, and college football who lines up in the backfield and generally is responsible for carrying the ball on run plays.

Repowering

Repowering is the process of replacing old steam generation equipment in a power plant with new technologies. An example of this would be changing a coal fired electricity plant to run on biomass.

Cofiring

Cofiring is the combustion of two different types of materials at the same time. One of the advantages of cofiring is that an existing plant can be used to burn a new fuel, which may be cheaper or more environmentally friendly. For example, biomass is sometimes cofired in existing coal plants instead of new biomass plants. Cofiring can also be used to improve the combustion of fuels with low energy content. For example, landfill gas contains a large amount of carbon dioxide, which is non-combustible. If the landfill gas is burned without removing the carbon dioxide, the equipment may not perform properly or emissions of pollutants may increase. Cofiring it with natural gas increases the heat content of the fuel and improves combustion and equipment performance. As long as the electricity or heat produced with the biomass and landfill gas was otherwise going to be produced with non-renewable fuels, the benefits are essentially equivalent whether they are cofired or combusted alone. Also, cofiring can be used to lower the emission of some pollutants. For example, cofiring biomass with coal results in less sulfur emissions than burning coal by itself.

voussoir

A voussoir is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, used in building an arch.

Although each unit of stone in an arch or vault is known as a voussoir, there are two specified voussoir components of an arch: the keystone and the springer. The keystone is the center stone or masonry unit at the apex of an arch, often decorated, embellished or exaggerated in size. No true arching action occurs until this unit is in place. The springer is the lowermost voussoir, located where the curve of the arch springs from the vertical support or abuttment of the wall or pier.

Temporocentrism

Temporocentrism is the view that one's own time is more important than other periods in history. This can be expressed via the viewpoint that humans are more intelligent today than they were at any point within the past fifty thousand years, even though there is no evidence that homo erectus' intelligence has varied greatly over that time frame.



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Svengali

Svengali is the name of a fictional character in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby. A sensation in its day, the novel created a stereotype of the evil hypnotist that persists to this day.

The word "Svengali" has entered the language meaning a person who, with evil intent, manipulates another into doing what is desired. It is frequently used for any kind of coach who seems to exercise an extreme degree of domination over a performer (especially if the person is female or believes he or she can only perform in the presence of the coach).

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw upon Western classical art and culture (usually that of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome). These movements were dominant during the mid 18th to the end of the 19th century. This article addresses what these "neoclassicisms" have in common.

Oromo

The Oromo (Oromo: Oromoo “The Powerful”, Amharic: ኦሮሞ ’Oromo) are an ethnic group found in Ethiopia and to a lesser extent in northern Kenya. They are the largest single ethnic group in Ethiopia, at 34.49% of the population according to the 2007 census, and today number over 25 million. Their native language is the Oromo language (also called Afaan Oromoo and Oromiffa).

Chronotropic

Chronotropic effects (from chrono-, meaning time) are those that change the heart rate.

Emblazon

Emblazon

1. To adorn with prominent markings.
2. To inscribe upon.
3. To draw (a coat of arms).
4. To celebrate or extol as with deeds or merit.

Rapacious

Rapacious

1. Voracious; avaricious.
2. Given to taking by force or plundering.
3. Said of an animal, usually a bird, that subsists off of live prey.

Cupidity

Cupidity is the excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of money, wealth, power, food. It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism.

bijection

In mathematics, a bijection, or a bijective function is a function f from a set X to a set Y with the property that, for every y in Y, there is exactly one x in X such that
f(x) = y.

Chrominance

Chrominance (chroma for short), is the signal used in video systems to convey the color information of the picture, separately from the accompanying luma signal. Chrominance is usually represented as two color-difference components: B'–Y' (blue – luma) and R'–Y' (red – luma). Each of these difference components may have scale factors and offsets applied to them, as specified by the applicable video standard.

In composite video signals, the so-called U and V signals modulate a color carrier signal, and the result is referred to as the chrominance signal; the phase and amplitude of this modulated chrominance signal correspond approximately to the hue and saturation of the color. In digital-video and still-image colorspaces such as Y'CbCr, the luma and chrominance components are digital sample values.

Heteronormativity

Heteronormativity is a term describing the marginalization of non-heterosexual lifestyles and the view that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation. Instances of this include the idea that people fall into two distinct and complementary categories (male and female), that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between people of different sexes, and that each sex has certain natural roles in life. The heteronormative view is that physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should, in any given person, align to either all-male or all-female cultural norms.

The norms that this term describes might be explicit or implied. Those who identify and criticize heteronormativity say that it distorts discourse by stigmatizing some forms of sexuality and gender, and makes certain types of self-expression more difficult when that expression violates the norm. Individuals not considered heteronormative include homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, intersex individuals, people who are transgender, and people who are married to more than one partner such as polygamists.

Hizzonor

Hizzonor: a truncated form of "his honour."

waldo

A remote manipulator, also known as a telefactor, telemanipulator, or waldo (after the short story "Waldo" by Robert A. Heinlein which features a man who invents and uses such devices), is a device which, through electronic, hydraulic, or mechanical linkages, allows a hand-like mechanism to be controlled by a human operator. The purpose of such a device is usually to move or manipulate hazardous materials for reasons of safety.

thagomizer

The thagomizer, or tail spikes, is an arrangement of four to ten spikes on the tails of particular dinosaurs of the clade Stegosauria, of which Stegosaurus stenops is the most familiar. The tail arrangement is believed to have been a defensive weapon against predators.