glossary  :  A    
 
 

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symbol & abbreviation

  A : symbol and abbreviation of ampere, SI unit of electric current.

ampere

acronym

  AAAS : American Association for the Advancement of Science

Latin                    abbreviation

  ab init. : ab initio : from the beginning
    abode : a place of residence; a dwelling; a habitation.

materials

  ABS : polyacrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene; amorphous engineering thermoplastic, relatively hard and reasonably tough; brand names: Cycolac, Lustran, Novodur, Ronfalin.
    abundance : physical quantity introduced to measure the size of a physical system (an object) in terms of system's (object's) constituents. It is primarily intended to measure the amount of substance expressed as a number of chemical species (atoms, ions, molecules) in the given volume, but it could be used to measure the size of any system as a number of system's constituents.
      Abundance is a basic quantity in SI; unit: mole (abbr. mol)

SI

basic quantity

mol

    acceleration : physical quantity introduced to measure velocity change with time, i.e. acceleration is the rate of velocity change; vector quantity; SI unit (derived unit): m s-2.

velocity

derived unit

acronym

  ACGIH : American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygenists : an organization open to all practitioners in industrial hygiene, occupational health, environmental health, or safety.

botany & gardening

  achene : a small, dry, hard, one-seeded fruit that does not open when mature.

Latin                         acronym

  ACN (or a.C.n.) : Ante Christum Natum : see  AD (Anno Domini)
    acre : the area of a square measuring approximately 209 feet on a side; 1 acre = 43,560 square feet = 4047 sq meter = 0.4047 hectare.
    acre-foot : a common unit to measure volumes of water, typically for use in irrigation. One acre-foot is the volume of water sufficient to cover an acre of land to a depth of 1 foot (43,560 cubic feet, approximately 325,851 U.S. gallons, or approximately 1,233.48 cubic meters). On average, 1 acre-foot of water is enough to meet the demands of 4 people for a year.
    acronym : a word formed from the initial letters of other words in the same sequence; for example, the acronym NATO is formed from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

computing & web

  ActiveX : a software component used in browsers (traditionally Internet Explorer, but also others) to display embedded web content. Most often, ActiveX controls are used to install additional functionality into the browser, such as the ability to play Flash or Shockwave content.

Flash

Shockwave

    acute angle : an angle that is less than 90 degrees.

Latin                         acronym

  AD : Anno Domini (In the Year of the Lord); more completely: Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi (In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ) : the conventional designation used to number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars; it defines an epoch based on the traditionally reckoned year of the birth of Jesus. Originally, years before the epoch were denoted ACN (or a.C.n.) for Ante Christum Natum (before the birth of Christ), but BC (Before Christ) is now usually used in English. While it is increasingly common to place AD after a date (e.g.,135 AD), by analogy to the use of BC, formal English usage adheres to the traditional practice of placing the abbreviation before the year, as in Latin (e.g., 586 BC, but AD 135).

Latin                    abbreviation

  ad inf. : ad infinitum : to infinity

Latin                    abbreviation

  ad init. : ad initium : at the beginning

Latin                    abbreviation

  ad int. : ad interim : in the meantime

Latin                    abbreviation

  ad lib. : ad libitum : at will

Latin                    abbreviation

  ad loc. : ad locum : at the place

botany & gardening

  adventitious : appearing in an abnormal or unusual position or place, as a root.
    aerobic : an organism, environment, or cellular process that requires oxygen.
    aerosol : a suspension of liquid or solid particles in air.

Latin                    abbreviation

  aet. : aetatis : aged
    aging : permanent loss of capacity due either to repeated use or to passage of time.
    agriculture : the production of plants and animals useful to humans, involving soil cultivation and the breeding and the management of crops and livestock.
    air : composition : mixture of gases, approx. 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with small amount of water vapor (humidity), argon, and carbon dioxide, and traces of neon, methane, and various other components; it is usually modeled as a uniform (no variations or fluctuations) gas with properties that are averaged from all the individual components. The composition of air is unchanged until the height of approx. 10 km. See  [HANDBOOK].

humidity

   

air : density : at temperature T (K) and absolute pressure P (Pa), the air density D (kg/m3 = g/L) is

D = P / (R * T)

where universal gas constant R = 8.314472 J mol-1 K-1 = 287.05 J kg-1 K-1 for dry air. Sometimes it is more practical to calculate air density as related to normal atmospheric pressure at sea level Po and temperature To = 273.15 K = 0oC.

airDensity1

Note: temperature T  has to be expressed in oC, while P and Po could be in any units as long as both are expressed in same units. For the value of normal pressure Po see atmospheric pressure.
      Dry air density at 25oC :  sea level   D = 1.18393 g/L
                                           Boulder     D = 0.97611 g/L

acronym

  ALARA As Low As Reasonably Achievable;  most often used in reference to chemical or radiation exposure levels; ALARA is not simply a phrase, but a work principle, a mindset, a culture of professional excellence.
    algorithm : a set of instructions, like a recipe, that performs functions or solves mathematical problems.

linguistics : phonetics          noun

  allophone :  predictable phonetic variant of a phoneme; any of various acoustically different forms of the same phoneme. For example, the aspirated t of top, the unaspirated t of stop, and the tt (pronounced as a flap) of batter are allophones of the English phoneme /t/.

phoneme

    alphabet : a collection of symbols that, in the context of a particular written language, represent the sounds of that language. The correspondence between symbols and sounds may be either more or less exact; most alphabets do not exhibit a one-to-one correspondence between distinct sounds (phonemes) and distinct symbols (graphemes).

phoneme

grapheme

    alphabet, Latin : the alphabet of the ancient Romans, consisting of 21 letters; the ancestor of the modern alphabets of western European languages (j, u, w, y, and z lacking when compared to the modern English alphabet); the term is also used to distinguish these western alphabets from such forms as the Greek, Cyrillic, and Hebrew alphabets.

botany & gardening

  alternate : arranged not opposite each other on the central stem, but singly at regular intervals at different levels; placed singly at different heights on the axis, on each side in succession, or at definite angular distances from one another, as leaves.
    ambient temperature : the average temperature of the surroundings; in research and development it is commonly assumed as 20oC, unless stated otherwise.
      NOTE: The term "ambient temperature" is nowadays replacing older term "room temperature".

botany & gardening

  ament (also: amentum) : a dry  scaly spike of small, closely clustered flowers, usually unisexual, such as the inflorescences of willows, birches, poplars; commonly known as a catkin.
    Amerindian (American Indian) : a name for the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Many English terms have been used or considered for such purposes, such as American Indians (or simply Indians), Native Americans, First Nations, Indigenous Peoples of America, Amerindians, Amerinds, and more. However, none have found universal acceptance; an ongoing controversy over the acceptable ways to refer to the indigenous peoples of the Americas has much to do with connotations more than with the meanings of the words. Once-common term ‘Indian’ remain in use, despite political correctness having preferred ‘Native American’ since the 1980s; the term ‘Amerindian’ is preferred in this website.
    amount of substance : see abundance

SI

measurement unit

  ampere : SI unit of electric current; symbolized: A; basic unit;

basic unit

measurement unit

  ampere-hour (Ah) : a unit for the quantity of electric charge ('electricity', less precise term), obtained by integrating current flow in amperes over the time in hours for its flow; used as a measure of battery capacity; abbreviated: Ah. NOTE: Do not use obsolete abbreviation amp-hr.
    ampersand : the name for the character & .

measurement unit

  AMU (amu) : atomic mass unit : a mass unit that is exactly 1/12th the mass of a carbon 12 (C12) atom (approx. 1.67 E-24 g).

computing & web

  anchor (also referred to as a bookmark by Microsoft applications) : the destination of a hyperlink within a Web page. Anchors are common on single Web pages containing lots of text where the text section titles appear at the top of the page and clicking the link causes the browser to jump down the page and display the selected portion of text.

botany & gardening

  angiosperm : a plant having its seeds enclosed in an ovary; a flowering plant.

acronym

  ANSI : American National Standards Institute : a private, non-profit organization representing over 1,000 public and private organizations, businesses and government agencies; they seek to develop technical, political and policy consensus among various groups.

ANSI does not develop American National Standards (ANS's), but they accredit qualified groups to do so in their areas of technical expertise; there are over 14,000 ANSI-approved standards in use today. ANSI-approved standards are voluntary, however it is possible that some of the content of these standards could be made into law by a governmental body. ANSI is the official US representative to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). 

computing & web

  ANSI : the Microsoft collective name for all Windows code pages; sometimes used specifically for code page 1252, which is a superset of ISO/IEC 8859-1.

botany & gardening

  anther : the pollen-bearing part of a stamen.

computing & web

  antialias : to blend the edges of text or an image with its background so it looks smoother. In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing aliasing (jagged, blocky or moiré patterns, popping, strobing, or unwanted sparkling) when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution.
    antonym : a word opposite in meaning to another, e.g. fast is an antonym of slow.

botany & gardening

  apetalous : having no petals.
    apex (Lat. apex, a point) : the tip, point, or summit of anything.

botany & gardening

  apex : the end farthest from the point of attachment, or from the base, of an plant organ. 

computing & web        acronym

  API : Application Programming Interface : an interface between the user and an application that enables the developer to change (customize) the user interface with scripting or another application.
    apophthegm (apothegm) : a short, pithy, instructive saying; a terse remark or aphorism.

computing & web

  applet : a small application written in Java that is embedded in a web page and requires the user to have the plug-in control installed. An applet can perform calculations, display graphics, and do other simple tasks without accessing the server.
    archetype : the original pattern or model of a work, or the model from which all things of the same kind are made; a generic, idealized model of a person, object, or concept from which similar instances are derived, copied, patterned, or emulated.

botany & gardening

  arista : a bristlelike appendage of the spikelets of grains or grasses; having a 'beard', an awn.

botany & gardening

  aristate : having stiff bristle-shaped appendages, aristae; awned.
    Armageddon : (in the Bible) the scene of a the final conflict between the forces of good and evil at the end of the world, an apocalyptic catastrophe mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament; (informal) any decisive conflict.

geography : toponym

  Arroyo : the Spanish word for 'creek' or its bed appears in place names like Arroyo Alta ('upper creek', Alameda Co., California) and Arroyo de en Medio ('in-between creek', San Mateo Co., California); it has become a generic term in the southwestern US and is frequently applied in pace of 'creek' or 'canyon'; sometimes the word seco ('dry') is added to indicate the lack of water.
    artifact (also: artefact) : any object or process resulting from human activity; 
    archipelago : a group or chain of islands.

botany & gardening

  arista

computing & web

  ASCII : (1) The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a 7-bit coded character set for information interchange. It is the U.S. national variant of ISO/IEC 646, and is formally the U.S. standard ANSI X3.4. It was proposed by ANSI  in 1963 and finalized in 1968. (2) The set of 128 Unicode characters from U+0000 to U+007F, including control codes, as well as graphic characters. (3) ASCII has been incorrectly used to refer to various 8-bit character encodings that include ASCII characters in the first 128 positions.

ANSI

economics

  assets : a business accounting term : everything that an economic agent owns and which has a money value; total assets being equal to total liabilities. liabilities

acronym

  ASTER : Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer :

acronym

  ASTM : American Society for Testing and Materials : a not-for-profit organization that develops and provides voluntary consensus standards, related technical information, and services having internationally recognized quality and applicability.
    atmospheric pressure, normal

normal pressure

atm Pa bar mm Hg in Hg psi

sea level

1 101,325 1.01325 760 29.92126 14.69595

Boulder, CO

0.82447 83,539 0.83539 626.6 24.66918 12.11634

Note: mm Hg = torr; pound/inch2 = psi;

    atomic number : the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom; this determines an element's structure, properties and location on the periodic table of elements.
atomic time : a highly accurate time scale based on atomic or molecular resonance phenomena. Passage of time is measured by counting cycles of a frequency linked to an atomic or molecular transition. Other scales reference mechanical devices such as quartz crystals or are based on the rotation rate of the earth. See also: International Atomic Time (TAI).

game : tennis             acronym

  ATP : Association of Tennis Professionals : professional men's tennis association; formed in 1972 to protect the interests of male professional tennis players by managing ATP tour; the association releases a weekly ranking of the players performance in the tour: entry ranking and race to championship ranking. As of 2005, the ranking of a player is based on 18 performances in the ATP tour: the four Grand Slams (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open), the nine Tennis Masters Series events (Indian Wells, Calif.; Miami, Fla.; Monte-Carlo, Monaco; Rome, Italy; Hamburg, Germany; Toronto, Canada; Cincinnati, Ohio; Madrid, Spain and Paris, France) and his best five additional results from International Series and International Series Gold events.

game : tennis

  ATP entry ranking : a rolling 52-week points calculation based on 18 performances in the ATP tour (same as for race ranking) to determine seedings and tournament entry status. The Race ranking, while indicating the hottest players in the game at any stage, does not necessarily indicate an overall standing in the game which is the intend of tournament entry status; this is especially valid at the start of the year when early tournament winners may well be leading the Race but are not yet established top players for the purposes of seeding and tournament entry.

game : tennis

  ATP race ranking : ATP champions race ranking : points calculation method on a calendar-year basis; the player who accumulates the most points by season's end is the 'World Number 1'. Every player, regardless of his performances in the previous year, starts with zero points; as of 2005, players count 18 performances in the ATP tour; the Tennis Masters Cup will count as an additional 19th tournament for the eight players who qualify.
    average, weighted : an average in which each item in the series being averaged is multiplied by a 'weight' relevant to its importance, the result summed and the total divided by the sum of the weights.
avoirdupois (weight) : a system of weights based on the pound of 16 ounces and the ounce of 16 drams.

social slogan              acronym

AWIS : Another World Is Possible : the main political slogan of the alter-globalization movement World Social Forum.

botany & gardening

awn : a bristle-shaped appendage of a plant, as seen on the glumes of many grasses; such appendages collectively, as those forming the beard of wheat and barley.

botany & gardening

axil : the angle formed between two parts of a plant, e.g. between the upper side of a leaf or stem and the supporting stem or branch.
 
 

UPDATED : 2007-05-12

WEBSITE  EDITOR : Krešimir J. Adamić