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Talk Talk - Communication terms Category: General technical and industrial Date & country: 28/05/2010, UK Words: 18630

Official Secrets Act
UK act of Parliament 1989, prohibiting the disclosure of confidential material from government sources by employees; it remains an absolute offence for a member or former member of the security and intelligence services (or those working closely with them) to disclose information about their work. There is no public-interest defence, and di...

Offenbach, Jacques
French composer. He wrote light opera, initially for presentation at the Bouffes Parisiens. Among his works are Orphée aux enfers/Orpheus in the Underworld (1858, revised 1874), La belle Hélène (1864), and Les contes d'Hoffmann/The Tales of Hoffmann (1881)

Offaly
County of the Republic of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, between Galway and Roscommon in the west and Kildare in the east; county town Tullamore; area 2,000 sq km/772 sq mi; population (2002) 63,700. It is low-lying, with part of the Bog of Allen to the north. It shares its...

Offa
King of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia (west-central England) 757–97. He conquered Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; defeated the Welsh and the West Saxons; and established Mercian supremacy over all England south of the River Humber. He built the earthwork known as Offa's Dyke along the Welsh border to defend his frontie...

offset printing
The most common method of printing, which works on the principle of lithography: that is, that grease and water repel one another. The printing plate is prepared using a photographic technique, resulting in a type image that attracts greasy printing ink. On the printing press the plate is wrapped around a cylinder and wetted and inked in turn. ...

Offa's Dyke
Defensive earthwork dyke along the English–Welsh border, of which there are remains from the mouth of the River Dee to that of the River Severn. It was built about AD 785 by King Offa of Mercia, England, and represents the boundary secured by his wars with Wales. The dyke covered a distance of 240 km/149 mi, of which 130 km/81 mi are s...

office suite
In computing, set of bundled programs designed especially for business use. An office suite will typically contain a spreadsheet, scheduling and presentation software, word processing software, a database, and e-mail facilities. The programs are set up to work individually and together, so that the user can (for example) create a report with ch...

offline browsing
In computing, downloading and copying Web pages onto a computer so that they can be viewed without being connected to the Internet. By taking advantage of off-peak hours, when telephone charges are low and the network responds faster, offline browsing is a thrifty way of using the World Wide Web. Although useful in saving time and money for the...

offline editing
In video and film, process of editing a scratch copy of the footage rather than the expensively created footage itself. Once the edit has been finalized, the real footage is edited by a machine

Ogaden
Desert region in southeastern Ethiopia, between the Ethiopian Highlands and the border with Somalia. It is a desert plateau, rising to 1,000 m/3,280 ft, inhabited mainly by Somali nomads practising arid farming. A claim to the area was made by Somalia in the 1960s, resulting in guerrilla fighting and major Somali advances during 1977. By 1980 E...

Ogun
State of southwestern Nigeria; area 16,762 sq km/6,474 sq mi; capital Abeokuta; population (1991 est) 2,333,700

Ogoni
An ethnic minority of about 500,000 (1990) occupying an impoverished area of about 350 sq mi in the Niger river delta of Nigeria. The Ogoni speak Khana, Gokama, and Eleme languages that form a distinct branch of the Benue-Congo language family. They are fishermen and farmers, yams being the principal crop. In 1958 oil was discovered under their...

Ogasawara-shoto
Group of Japanese islands in the Pacific; see Bonin and Volcano islands

Ohio
(river) River in east-central USA, 1,579 km/981 mi long and 365–1,220 m/1,200–4,005 ft wide; the second-largest tributary of the Mississippi; navigable throughout its length. It is formed by the union of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburgh, Penn...

OHMS
Abbreviation for On Her (His) Majesty's Service

ohm
SI unit of electrical resistance (the property of a conductor that restricts the flow of electrons through it). It was originally defined with reference to the resistance of a column of mercury, but is now taken as the resistance between two points when a potential difference of one volt between them produces a current of one ampere

Ohm's law
Law that states that, for many materials over a wide range of conditions, the current flowing in a conductor maintained at constant temperature is directly proportional to the potential difference (voltage) between its ends. The law was discovered by German physicist Georg Ohm in 1827. He found that if the voltage across a conducting material is ch...

Ohio
(state) Click images to enlargeState in northern central USA, bordered to the west by Indiana, to the north by Michigan's Lower Peninsula and Lake Erie, to the east by Pennsylvania, to the east and southeast by West Virginia, and to the southwest...

oil palm
African palm tree, the fruit of which yields valuable oils, used as food or processed into margarine, soaps, and livestock feeds. (Elaeis guineensis.)

Oise
(river) European river that rises in the Ardennes plateau, Belgium, and flows southwest through France for 300 km/186 mi to join the Seine at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, about 65 km/40 mi south of Paris. It gives its name to the French département of Oise ...

oil
Flammable substance, usually insoluble in water, and composed chiefly of carbon and hydrogen. Oils may be solids (fats and waxes) or liquids. Various plants produce vegetable oils; mineral oils are based on petroleum. The crude oil (unrefined petroleum) found beneath the Earth's surface is fo...

oil crop
Click images to enlargePlant from whose seeds vegetable oils are pressed. Cool temperate areas grow rapeseed and linseed; warm temperate regions produce sunflowers, olives, and soybeans; tropical regions produce groundnuts (peanuts), palm oil, and coconuts. Some of the major vegetable oils, such as soybean oil, pe...

oil spill
Oil discharged from an ocean-going tanker, pipeline, or oil installation, often as a result of damage. An oil spill kills shore life, clogging the feathers of birds and suffocating other creatures. At sea, toxic chemicals spread into the water below, poisoning sea life. Mixed with dust, the oil forms globules that sink to the seabed, poisoning ...

oil refinery
Industrial complex where crude oil is processed into different products using the technique of fractional distillation. The light volatile parts of the oil form petroleum, while the heavier parts make bitumen and petrochemicals. Oil refineries are often located at deep-water ports or near their industrial markets. They need flat land and water ...

oil, cooking
Fat that is liquid at room temperature, extracted from the seeds or fruits of certain plants and used for frying, salad dressings, and sauces and condiments such as mayonnaise and mustard. Plants used for cooking oil include sunflower, olive, maize (corn), soya, peanut, and rape. Vegetable oil is a b...

oil paint
Painting medium in which ground pigment (colour) is bound with oil, usually linseed. It has the advantage of being slow to dry and therefore reworkable. Oil paint can be applied with a brush or a palette knife to a prepared ground, usually stretched canvas. Oil paint was used for decorating houses as early as the 5th century, but its artistic appli...

okra
Plant belonging to the Old World hibiscus family. Its red-and-yellow flowers are followed by long, sticky, green fruits known as ladies' fingers or bhindi. The fruits are cooked in soups and stews. (Hibiscus esculentus, family Malvaceae.)

Okavango Delta
Marshy area in northwest Botswana covering about 20,000 km/7,722 sq mi, fed by the Okavango River, which rises in Angola and flows southeast about 1,600 km/1,000 mi. It is an important area for wildlife as it provides the main area of permanently available water in the Kalahari Desert

Oklahoma City
Capital of Oklahoma, USA, on the North Canadian River; population (2000 est) 506,100. Situated in Oklahoma County, it is a major commercial, service, and distribution centre for a rich oil-producing and agricultural area; its cattle markets are among the largest and busiest in the world. Industries include oil-refining, food-pro...

Oklahoma
State in southern central USA, bordered to the south by Texas, to the west, at the extreme of the Oklahoma panhandle, by New Mexico, to the north by Colorado and Kansas, and to the east by Missouri and Arkansas; area 177,847 sq km/68,667 sq mi; population (2006) 3,579,200; capital Okl...

okapi
Ruminant (cud-chewing) mammal related to the giraffe, although with a much shorter neck and legs, found in the tropical rainforests of central Africa. Its purplish brown body, creamy face, and black and white stripes on the legs and hindquarters provide excellent camouflage. Okapis have remained ...

Okinawa
Group of islands, 520 km/323 mi from the Japanese mainland, forming part of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands in the west Pacific; Okinawa is also the name of the largest island, and of a city on Okinawa; area 2,250 sq km/869 sq mi; population (1995 est) 1,318,000. The capital is Naha

Okhotsk, Sea of
Arm of the North Pacific Ocean between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin, and bordered to the south by the Kuril Islands, and the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido; area 937,000 sq km/361,700 sq mi, average depth 777 m/2,550 ft, maximum depth 3,372 m/11,062 ft. It is free of ice only in summer, and is often fog-bound. Maga...

Okri, Ben
Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, broadcaster, and journalist. He uses magic realism to reflect Nigeria's political turmoil. His novel The Famished Road won the Booker Prize in 1991. Short-story collections include Incidents at the Shrine (1987) and Stars of the New Curfew (1...

Oklahoma Land Run
Race undertaken by American homesteaders to claim plots of land in the former Indian Territory of Oklahoma, USA, on 22 April 1889. Over 800,000 ha/2 million acres of unassigned land in Oklahoma District were purchased from the Plains Indians by the US government in 1889. These were surveyed and divided into 65-ha/160-acre plots. The...

oleander
Evergreen Mediterranean shrub belonging to the dogbane family, with pink or white flowers and aromatic leaves that produce and release the poison oleandrin. (Nerium oleander, family Apocynaceae.)

olive
Evergreen tree belonging to the olive family. Native to Asia but widely cultivated in Mediterranean and subtropical areas, it grows up to 15 m/50 ft high and has twisted branches and lance-shaped silvery leaves that grow opposite each other. The white flowers are followed by small green oval fruits that turn bluish-black when ripe. They...

olivenite
Basic copper arsenate, Cu₂AsO₄(OH), occurring as a mineral in olive-green prisms

olivine
Greenish mineral, magnesium iron silicate, (Mg,Fe)₂SiO₄. It is a rock-forming mineral, present in, for example, peridotite, gabbro, and basalt. Olivine is called peridot when pale green and transparent, and used in jewellery

Olympus
Any of several mountains in Greece and elsewhere, one of which is Mount Olympus in northern Thessaly, Greece, which is 2,918 m/9,577 ft high. The highest point in Greece, Mount Olympus was first ascended in 1913. In Greek mythology, the summit, which was often veiled by clouds, was the home of the Olympian gods. Later the name was also given to...

Olympia
(Greece) Ancient sanctuary in the western Peloponnese, Greece, with a temple of Zeus, stadium (for foot races, boxing, and wrestling) and hippodrome (for chariot and horse races), where the original Olympic Games, founded 776 BC, were held every four years. The gold and ivory statue of Zeus th...

Olivier, Laurence
(Kerr) English actor and director. For many years associated with the Old Vic Theatre, he was director of the National Theatre company 1962–73 (see National Theatre, Royal). His stage roles include Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III, a...

Olives, Mount of
Range of hills east of Jerusalem, associated with the Christian religion: a former chapel (now a mosque) marks the traditional site of Jesus' ascension to heaven, with the Garden of Gethsemane at its foot

Olduvai Gorge
Deep cleft in the Serengeti steppe, Tanzania, where Louis and Mary Leakey found prehistoric stone tools in the 1930s. They discovered Pleistocene remains of early hominids and animals 1958–59. The gorge has given its name to the Olduvai culture, a simple stone-tool culture of prehistoric hominids, dating from 2–0.5 million years ago. ...

Old Testament
Click images to enlargeChristian term for the Hebrew Bible, a collection of Jewish scriptures that form the first part of the Christian Bible. Gathered over many centuries, it contains 39 (according to Christianity) or 24 (according to Judaism) books, which include an account of beliefs about God's creation of the wor...

Old Catholic
One of various breakaway groups from Roman Catholicism, including those in the Netherlands (such as the Church of Utrecht, which separated from Rome in 1724 after accusations of Jansenism); and groups in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Switzerland, which rejected the proclamation of papal infallibility of 1870. Old Catholic clergy are not...

Oligocene epoch
Third epoch of the Tertiary period of geological time, 35.5–3.25 million years ago. The name, from Greek, means `a little recent`, referring to the presence of the remains of some modern types of animals existing at that time

olm
Cave-dwelling aquatic salamander. Olms are found in underground caves along the Adriatic seaboard in southeastern Europe. The adult is permanently larval in form, about 25 cm/10 in long, almost blind, with external gills and underdeveloped limbs. The olm is the only European member of its family; the other members are the North American...

Old World
The continents of the eastern hemisphere, so called because they were familiar to Europeans before the Americas. The term is used as an adjective to describe animals and plants that live in the eastern hemisphere

Old Pretender
Nickname of James Edward Stuart, the son of James II of England

Olympic Games
Sporting contests originally held in Olympia, ancient Greece, every four years during a sacred truce; records were kept from 776 BC. Women were forbidden to be present, and the male contestants were naked. The ancient Games were abolished in AD 394. The present-day games have been held every ...

Olaf
(I) King of Norway from 995. He began the conversion of Norway to Christianity and was killed in a sea battle against the Danes and Swedes

Olaf
(II) King of Norway from 1015. He offended his subjects by his centralizing policy and zeal for Christianity, and was killed in battle by Norwegian rebel chiefs backed by Canute of Denmark. He was declared the patron saint of Norway in 1164

Oldenburg, Claes Thure
Swedish-born US pop artist. He organized happenings and made assemblages, but is best known for `soft sculptures`: gigantic replicas of everyday objects and foods, made of stuffed canvas or vinyl. One characteristic work is Lipstick (1969; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut)

olive branch
Ancient symbol of peace; in the Bible (Genesis 9), an olive branch is brought back by the dove to Noah to show that the flood has abated

olefin
Common name for alkene

oligosaccharide
Carbohydrate comprising a few monosaccharide units linked together. It is a general term used to indicate that a carbohydrate is larger than a simple di- or trisaccharide but not as large as a polysaccharide

Old English
General name for the range of dialects spoken by Germanic settlers in England between the 5th and 12th centuries AD, also known as Anglo-Saxon. The literature of the period includes Beowulf, an epic in West Saxon dialect. See also Old English literature and English language

old-age pension
Regular payment made by the state or a private institution to persons who have reached a specified age and are eligible for such assistance. As part of German chancellor Bismarck's `state socialism` of the 1880s, the Old-Age and Invalidity Insurance Law of 1889 provided pensions, with the costs divided between employers, employees...

oligarchy
Rule of the few, in their own interests. It was first identified as a form of government by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. In modern times there have been a number of oligarchies, sometimes posing as democracies; the paramilitary rule of the Duvalier family in Haiti, 1957–86, is an example

Olaf V
King of Norway from 1957, when he succeeded his father, Haakon VII

oligopoly
In economics, a situation in which a few companies control the major part of a particular market. In an oligopolistic market, firms may join together in a cartel, colluding to fix high prices. Such collusion – an example of a restrictive trade practice – is illegal in the European Union (EU). Oligopoly is characterized by competition on f...

Olmec
First civilization of Mesoamerica and thought to be the mother culture of the Mayans. It developed in the coastal zone south of Vera Cruz and in adjacent Tabasco 1200–400 BC. The Olmecs built a large clay pyramid and several smaller mounds on the island of La Venta. Some gigantic stone heads, vestiges of their religion, also remain. The natura...

Old English literature
Prose and poetry in the various dialects of Old English written between AD 449 and 1066. Poetry (alliterative, without rhyme) was composed and delivered orally; much has therefore been lost. What remains owes its survival to monastic scribes who favoured verse with a Christian motivation or flavour. Prose in Old English was a later achievement,...

Olmert, Ehud
Israeli right-of-centre politician, prime minister from 2006. Deputy prime minister from 2003, he became acting prime minister in January 2006 after Ariel Sharon suffered a severe stroke. Parliamentary elections in March 2006 confirmed him in power. Olmert pledged to achieve lasting peace with the Palestinians, but from March 2006 Hamas, wh...

Omsk
(city) Capital city, economic and cultural centre of Omsk oblast (region), Russian Federation; population (2002) 1,156,800. Omsk is located at the junction of the Om and Irtysh rivers and lies on the Trans-Siberian Railway, 900 km/559 mi east of Yekaterinburg. The city is a major i...

Omdurman
City in Khartoum State, Sudan, on the west bank of the White Nile, now considered a major suburb of Khartoum; population (2007 est) 3,127,800. It trades in hides, textiles, livestock, and handicrafts. It is connected to Khartoum by a bridge over the White Nile. Omdurman was built as a new city to be the residence of the Sudanese ruler known as ...

omnivore
Animal that feeds on both plant and animal material. Omnivores have digestive adaptations intermediate between those of herbivores and carnivores, with relatively unspecialized digestive systems and gut micro-organisms that can digest a variety of foodstuffs. Omnivores include humans, the chimpanzee, the cockroach, and the ant

Oman
Country at the southeastern end of the Arabian peninsula, bounded west by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, southeast by the Arabian Sea, and northeast by the Gulf of Oman. Government Oman has no written constitution, and the hereditary sultan has absolute power, ruling by decree as ...

ombudsman
Official who acts on behalf of the private citizen in investigating complaints against the government. The post is of Scandinavian origin; it was introduced in Sweden in 1809, Denmark in 1954, and Norway in 1962, and spread to other countries from the 1960s

Omar
Alternative spelling of Umar, 2nd caliph of Islam

Om
Sacred word in Hinduism, used to begin prayers and placed at the beginning and end of books. It is composed of three syllables, symbolic of the Hindu Trimurti, or trinity of gods

Omayyad dynasty
Alternative spelling of Umayyad dynasty

Omdurman, Battle of
Victory 2 September 1898 of British and Egyptian troops under General Horatio Kitchener over Sudanese tribesmen (Dervishes) led by the Khalifa Abdullah el Taashi. The Khalifa escaped, to be pursued and later brought to battle and killed

onyx
Semi-precious variety of chalcedonic silica (SiO₂) in which the crystals are too fine to be detected under a microscope, a state known as cryptocrystalline. It has straight parallel bands of different colours: milk-white, black, and red. Sardonyx, an onyx variety, has layers of brown or red carnelian alternating w...

onion
Plant belonging to the lily family, whose bulb has a strong, distinctive smell and taste. Cultivated from ancient times, it may have originated in Asia. The bulb is edible; its pale concentric layers of leaf bases contain an oil that is released into the air when the onion is cut open, causing th...

Ontario, Lake
Smallest and easternmost of the Great Lakes, on the US–Canadian border; area 19,200 sq km/7,400 sq mi. Extending for 310 km/194 mi, it has an average width of about 80 km/50 mi, average depth of 86 m/283 ft, and maximum depth of 244 m/800 ft. It is connected to Lake Erie in the southeast by the Welland Ship Canal and th...

Ontario
Click images to enlargeProvince of southeastern–central Canada, in area the country's second-largest province, and its most populous. It is bounded to the north and northeast by Hudson Bay and James Bay, to the east by Québec (with the Ottawa River forming most of the boundary), and by Manitoba to the we...

Onega, Lake
Lake in the far northwestern Russian Federation, near the Finnish border. With an area of some 9,600 sq km/3,700 sq mi (excluding islands), it is the second-largest lake in Europe. Lake Onega is connected by the River Svir with Lake Ladoga (the largest lake in Europe) and the Baltic Sea, and by artificial waterways with the White Sea and th...

onchocerciasis
Disease found in tropical Africa and Central America. It is transmitted by bloodsucking black flies, which infect the victim with parasitic filarial worms (genus Onchocerca), producing skin disorders and intense itching; some invade the eyes and may cause blindness. It is treated with antiparasitic drugs known as filaricides

online system
In computing, originally a system that allows the computer to work interactively with its users, responding to each instruction as it is given and prompting users for information when necessary. As almost all the computers used now work this way, `online system` is now used to refer to large database, e-mail, and conferencing systems ...

ontogeny
Process of development of a living organism, including the part of development that takes place after hatching or birth. The idea that `ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny` (the development of an organism goes through the same stages as its evolutionary history), proposed by the German scientist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, is now discredited

onomatopoeia
Figure of speech that copies natural sounds. For example, the word `cuckoo` imitates the sound that the cuckoo makes. Such words as bang, crash, ripple, smash, splash, and thump are said to be onomatopoeic. Onomatopoeia works ...

onager
Wild ass found in western Asia. Onagers are sandy brown, lighter underneath, and about the size of a small horse. (Species Equus hemionus.)

oncology
Medical speciality concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of neoplasms, especially cancer

oncogene
Gene that induces a cell to divide abnormally, giving rise to a cancer. Oncogenes arise from mutations in genes (proto-oncogenes) found in all normal cells. In their mutated form, they are found in tumour cells and in viruses that are capable of transforming normal cells to tumour cells. Such viruses are able to insert their oncogenes into the ...

one-party state
State in which one political party dominates, constitutionally or unofficially, to the point where there is no effective opposition. There may be no legal alternative parties, as, for example, in Cuba. In other instances, a few token members of an opposition party may be tolerated, or one party may be permanently in power, with no elections. The on...

onco-mouse
Mouse that has a human oncogene (gene that can cause certain cancers) implanted into its cells by genetic engineering. Such mice are used to test anticancer treatments and were patented within the USA by Harvard University in 1988, thereby protecting its exclusive rights to produce the animal and profit from its research

onset
In grammar, the initial consonant or group of consonants of a word or syllable. Words and syllables beginning with a vowel or vowels have no onset

Onezhskoye Ozero
Russian name for Lake Onega, a lake in the northwestern Russian Federation

oolite
Limestone made up of tiny spherical carbonate particles, called ooliths, cemented together. Ooliths have a concentric structure with a diameter up to 2 mm/0.08 in. They were formed by chemical precipitation and accumulation on ancient sea floors. The surface texture of oolites is rather like that of fish roe. The late Jurassic limestones of the...

ooze
Sediment of fine texture consisting mainly of organic matter found on the ocean floor at depths greater than 2,000 m/6,600 ft. Several kinds of ooze exist, each named after its constituents. Siliceous ooze is composed of the silica shells of tiny marine plants (diatoms) and animals (radiolarians). Calcareous ooze is formed from the calcite shel...

Oostende
Flemish form (meaning `east end`) of Ostend

oosphere
Another name for the female gamete, or ovum, of certain plants such as algae

Oort, Jan Hendrik
Dutch astronomer. In 1927 he calculated the mass and size of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, and the Sun's distance from its centre, from the observed movements of stars around the Galaxy's centre. In 1950 Oort proposed that comets exist in a vast swarm, now called the Oort cloud, at the edge of the Solar System. In 1944 Oort's student Hendr...

Oort cloud
Spherical cloud of comets beyond Pluto, extending out to about 100,000 astronomical units (approximately 1.6 light years) from the Sun. The gravitational effect of passing stars and the rest of our Galaxy disturbs comets from the cloud so that they fall in towards the Sun on highly elongated orbits, becoming visible from Earth. As many as 10 trilli...

opuntia
Any cactus belonging to the same group of plants as the prickly pear. They all have showy flowers and fleshy, jointed stems. (Genus Opuntia, family Cactaceae.)

opium
Drug extracted from the unripe seeds of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) of southwestern Asia. An addictive narcotic, it contains several alkaloids, including morphine, one of the most powerful natural painkillers and addictive narcotics known, and codeine, a milder painkiller, which are referred to as opiates. Heroin is a sy...

opposition
In astronomy, moment at which a body in the Solar System lies opposite the Sun in the sky as seen from the Earth and crosses the meridian at about midnight. Although the inferior planets cannot come to opposition, it is the best time for observation of the superior planets as they can then be seen al...

Opium Wars
Two wars, the First Opium War (1839–42) and the Second Opium War (1856–60), waged by Britain against China to enforce the opening of Chinese ports to trade in opium. Opium from British India paid for Britain's imports from China, such as porcelain, silk, and, above all, tea. The First Opium War resulted in the cession of Hong Kong to ...