affray

In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of two or more persons in a public place to the terror (in French: à l'effroi) of ordinary people (the lieges). Depending on their actions, and the laws of the prevailing jurisdiction, those engaged in an affray may also render themselves liable to prosecution for assault, unlawful assembly, or riot; if so, it is for one of these offences that they are usually charged.

gription

gription (uncountable)

The property of gripping and providing traction.

Hellbanned

Hellbanned:

A form of punishment for web trolls:

A hellbanned user is invisible to all other users, but crucially, not himself. From their perspective, they are participating normally in the community but nobody ever responds to them. They can no longer disrupt the community because they are effectively a ghost. It's a clever way of enforcing the "don't feed the troll" rule in the community. When nothing they post ever gets a response, a hellbanned user is likely to get bored or frustrated and leave.

Egosyntonic

Egosyntonic is a psychological term referring to behaviors, values, feelings that are in harmony with or acceptable to the needs and goals of the ego, or consistent with one's ideal self-image.

Egodystonic is the opposite of egosyntonic and refers to thoughts and behaviors (e.g., dreams, impulses, compulsions, desires, etc.) that are in conflict, or dissonant, with the needs and goals of the ego, or, further, in conflict with a person's ideal self-image: 'some of the literature uses the term "ego alien"'.

Genderqueer

Genderqueer (GQ; alternatively non-binary) is a catch-all term for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and heteronormativity. People who identify as genderqueer may think of themselves as one or more of the following:

• both man and woman (bigender, pangender);
• neither man nor woman (genderless, agender);
• moving between genders (genderfluid);
• third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender;
• having an overlap of, or blurred lines between, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Some genderqueer people also identify as transgender, and may or may not wish for physical modification or hormones to suit their preferred expression. Many genderqueer people see gender and sex as separable aspects of a person and sometimes identify as a male woman, a female man, or a male/female/intersex genderqueer person. Gender identity is defined as one's internal sense of being male, female, both, or neither, while sexual identity refers to an individual's enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to others. As such, genderqueer people may be a variety of sexual orientations, as with transgender and cisgender people. Genderqueer identification may also occur for political reasons.

Mermen

Mermen are mythical male equivalents of mermaids – legendary creatures who have the form of a human from the waist up and are fish-like from the waist down.

Gear

Gear

Commonly used in the UK and some regions of the US to refer to heroin and the necessary supplies, such as the needle, spoon, cotton, etc.

Vernacular for a drug of choice.

trenchant

trenchant

Keen; biting; vigorously effective and articulate; severe; as, trenchant wit.

misocapnist

misocapnist

(rare) One who hates tobacco smoke.

Porosity

Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e., "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0–1, or as a percentage between 0–100%. The term is used in multiple fields including pharmaceutics, ceramics, metallurgy, materials, manufacturing, earth sciences and construction.

hypergiant

A hypergiant (luminosity class 0) is a star with a tremendous mass and luminosity, showing signs of a very high rate of mass loss.

The word "hypergiant" is commonly used as a loose term for the most massive stars found, even though there are more precise definitions. In 1956, the astronomers Feast and Thackeray used the term super-supergiant (later changed into hypergiant) for stars with an absolute magnitude greater than M_V = −7. In 1971, Keenan suggested that the term would be used only for supergiants showing at least one broad emission component in Hα, indicating an extended stellar atmosphere or a relatively large mass loss rate. The Keenan criterion is the one most commonly used by scientists today. This means that a hypergiant does not necessarily have to be more massive than a similar supergiant. Still, the most massive stars are considered to be hypergiants, and can have masses ranging up to 100–265 solar masses.

cuboctahedron

In geometry, a cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with eight triangular faces and six square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with two triangles and two squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such it is a quasiregular polyhedron, i.e. an Archimedean solid, being vertex-transitive and edge-transitive.

Its dual polyhedron is the rhombic dodecahedron.

airfoil

An airfoil (in American English) or aerofoil (in British English) is the shape of a wing or blade (of a propeller, rotor or turbine) or sail as seen in cross-section.

An airfoil-shaped body moved through a fluid produces an aerodynamic force. The component of this force perpendicular to the direction of motion is called lift. The component parallel to the direction of motion is called drag. Subsonic flight airfoils have a characteristic shape with a rounded leading edge, followed by a sharp trailing edge, often with asymmetric camber. Foils of similar function designed with water as the working fluid are called hydrofoils.

rime

Hard rime is a white ice that forms when the water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects. It is often seen on trees atop mountains and ridges in winter, when low-hanging clouds cause freezing fog. This fog freezes to the windward (wind-facing) side of tree branches, buildings, or any other solid objects, usually with high wind velocities and air temperatures between −2 °C (28 °F) and −8 °C (18 °F).

Hard rime formations are difficult to shake off; they have a comb-like appearance, unlike soft rime, which looks feathery or spiky, or clear ice, which looks homogeneous and transparent.

Scientists at meteorologically extreme places such as Mount Washington in New Hampshire often have to break huge chunks of hard rime off weather equipment, in order to keep anemometers and other measuring instruments operating.

Graupel

Graupel (also called soft hail or snow pellets) refers to precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water are collected and freeze on a falling snowflake, forming a 2–5 mm ball of rime. The term graupel is the German word for this meteorological phenomenon. Graupel is sometimes referred to as small hail, although the World Meteorological Organization defines small hail as snow pellets encapsulated by ice, a precipitation halfway between graupel and hail.

Meteorology

Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries. After the development of the computer in the latter half of the 20th century, breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved.

Ephemera

Ephemera are transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters, pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, stock certificates, tickets and zines. Decks of personality identification playing cards from the war in Iraq are a recent example.

Orz

Orz

Orz (also seen as Or2, on_, OTZ, OTL, STO, JTO, _no, ＿冂○, 囧rz, O7Z, _|7O, Sto, O|¯|_, orz, and Jto) is an emoticon representing a kneeling or bowing person, with the "o" being the head, the "r" being the arms and part of the body, and the "z" being part of the body and the legs. This stick figure represents failure and despair. It is also commonly used for representing a great admiration (sometimes with an overtone of sarcasm) for someone else's view or action.

nasal

A nasal consonan, or just nasal is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are [n] and [m], in words such as nose and mouth.

Elision

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect.

In English, elision is often unintentional, giving a result that may in some cases be impressionistically described as "slurred" or "muted." Often, however, the elision is deliberate, as in the use of contractions.

syzygy

In poetry, a syzygy is the combination of two metrical feet into a single unit, similar to an elision.

Consonantal or phonetic syzygy is also similar to the effect of alliteration, where one consonant is used repeatedly throughout a passage, but not necessarily at the beginning of each word.

syzygy

In mathematics, a syzygy is a relation between the generators of a module M. The set of all such relations is called the "first syzygy module of M". A relation between generators of the first syzygy module is called a "second syzygy" of M, and the set of all such relations is called the "second syzygy module of M". Continuing in this way, we derive the nth syzygy module of M by taking the set of all relations between generators of the (n − 1)^th syzygy module of M. If M is finitely generated over a polynomial ring over a field, this process terminates after a finite number of steps; i.e., eventually there will be no more syzygies (see Hilbert's syzygy theorem). The syzygy modules of M are not unique, for they depend on the choice of generators at each step.

syzygy

In many Gnostic systems, the various emanations of God, who is also known by such names as the One, the Monad, Aion teleos (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek βυθός), Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek προαρχή), the Arkhe ("the beginning", Greek ἀρχή), are called Aeons. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism. In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες huiotetes; sing.: υἱότης huiotes); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called syzygies (Greek συζυγίαι, from σύζυγοι syzygoi, lit. "yokings together").

syzygy

In astronomy, a syzygy is a straight line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system. The word is usually used in reference to the Sun, the Earth and either the Moon or a planet, where the latter is in conjunction or opposition. Solar and lunar eclipses occur at times of syzygy, as do transits and occultations. The term is also applied to each instance of new moon or full moon when the Sun and Moon are in conjunction or opposition, even though they are not precisely on one line with the Earth.

cephalophore

A cephalophore (from the Greek for "head-carrier") is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading. Handling the halo in this circumstance offers a unique challenge for the artist. Some put the halo where the head used to be; others have the saint carrying the halo along with the head.

The term "cephalophore" was first used in a French article by Marcel Hébert, "Les martyrs céphalophores Euchaire, Elophe et Libaire", in Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles, v. 19 (1914).

Lisztomania

Lisztomania or Liszt fever is a term used to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward Franz Liszt during his performances. This frenzy first occurred in Berlin in 1841 and was later coined by Heinrich Heine in a feuilleton he wrote on April 25, 1844, discussing the 1844 Parisian concert season. Lisztomania was characterized by intense levels of hysteria demonstrated by fans.

fakenger

fakenger

A bike riding poseur who dresses in messenger gear and rides a fixed gear but is not a messenger.

Cummingtonite

Cummingtonite is a metamorphic amphibole with the chemical composition (Mg,Fe)₇Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂, magnesium iron silicate hydroxide.

Monoclinic cummingtonite is compositionally similar and polymorphic with orthorhombic anthophyllite, which is a much more common form of magnesium-rich amphibole, the latter being metastable.

Cummingtonite shares few compositional similarities with alkali amphiboles such as arfvedsonite, glaucophane-riebeckite. There is little solubility between these minerals due to different crystal habit and inability of substitution between alkali elements and ferro-magnesian elements within the amphibole structure.

baculum

The baculum (also penis bone, penile bone or os penis) is a bone found in the penis of most mammals. It is absent in humans, but present in other primates, such as the gorilla and chimpanzee. The bone aids in sexual intercourse.

Conservatorship

Conservatorship is a legal concept in the United States of America, where an entity or organization is subjected to the legal control of an external entity or organization, known as a conservator. Conservatorship is established either by court order (with regards to individuals) or via a statutory or regulatory authority (with regards to organizations). When referring to government control of private corporations such as Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, conservatorship implies a more temporary control than does nationalisation. In other legal terms, a conservatorship may refer to the legal responsibilities over a person who is mentally ill, including those who are psychotic, suicidal, incapacitated or is in some other way unable to make legal, medical or financial decisions on behalf of themselves.

Ecophysiology

Ecophysiology (from Greek οἶκος, oikos, "house(hold)"; φύσις, physis, "nature, origin"; and -λογία, -logia) or environmental physiology is a biological discipline which studies the adaptation of organism's physiology to environmental conditions. It is closely related to comparative physiology and evolutionary physiology.