20-letter words containing a, b, i, l, t

clean-bill-of-health — a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship's crew and at the port from which it has come.
clear air turbulence — turbulent air, not associated with a storm, that affects the flight of aircraft
clear-air turbulence — atmospheric turbulence, sometimes severe, occurring in air devoid of clouds or other visible indicators that turbulence might be present. Abbreviation: CAT.
compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
computability theory — (mathematics) The area of theoretical computer science concerning what problems can be solved by any computer. A function is computable if an algorithm can be implemented which will give the correct output for any valid input. Since computer programs are countable but real numbers are not, it follows that there must exist real numbers that cannot be calculated by any program. Unfortunately, by definition, there isn't an easy way of describing any of them! In fact, there are many tasks (not just calculating real numbers) that computers cannot perform. The most well-known is the halting problem, the busy beaver problem is less famous but just as fascinating.
constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
contingent liability — a possible liability that is dependent on the outcome of a future event
defined benefit plan — A defined benefit plan is a type of pension plan that guarantees a lifetime income upon retirement based on the employee’s income and years of service.
devil's bit scabious — a similar and related Eurasian marsh plant, Succisa pratensis
diisobutyl phthalate — a clear, colorless liquid, C 14 H 26 O 4 , used chiefly as a plasticizer for nitrocellulose.
disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
distribution channel — trade: retailer
distributive lattice — (theory) A lattice for which the least upper bound (lub) and greatest lower bound (glb) operators distribute over one another so that a lub (b glb c) == (a lub c) glb (a lub b) and vice versa. ("lub" and "glb" are written in LateX as \sqcup and \sqcap).
district of columbia — a federal area in the E United States, on the Potomac, coextensive with the federal capital, Washington. 69 sq. mi. (179 sq. km). Abbreviation: DC (for use with zip code), D.C.
double fertilization — the fertilization process characteristic of flowering plants, in which one sperm cell of a pollen grain fertilizes an egg cell while a second fuses with two polar nuclei to produce a triploid body that gives rise to the endosperm.
double-trailer truck — tandem trailer (def 1).
duck-billed platypus — platypus.
effective computable — (theory) A term describing a function for which there is an effective algorithm that correctly calculates the function. The algorithm must consist of a finite sequence of instructions.
electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
elizabeth of hungary — Saint. 1207–31, Hungarian princess who devoted herself to charity and asceticism. Feast day: Nov 17 and 19
employer's liability — an employer's legal responsibility to pay damages to an employee who has been injured or who has contracted an illness because of the work he or she does
enabling legislation — legislation conferring certain specified powers on a person or organization
endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
environment variable — (programming, operating system) A variable that is bound in the current environment. When evaluating an expression in some environment, the evaluation of a variable consists of looking up its name in the environment and substituting its value. Most programming languages have some concept of an environment but in Unix shell scripts it has a specific meaning slightly different from other contexts. In shell scripts, environment variables are one kind of shell variable. They differ from local variables and command line arguments in that they are inheritted by a child process. Examples are the PATH variable that tells the shell the file system paths to search to find command executables and the TZ variable which contains the local time zone. The variable called "SHELL" specifies the type of shell being used. These variables are used by commands or shell scripts to discover things about the environment they are operating in. Environment variables can be changed or created by the user or a program. To see a list of environment variables type "setenv" at the csh or tcsh prompt or "set" at the sh, bash, jsh or ksh prompt. In other programming languages, e.g. functional programming languages, the environment is extended with new bindings when a function's parameters are bound to its actual arguments or when new variables are declared. In a block-structured procedural language, the environment usually consists of a linked list of activation records.
equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
five-a-side football — a version of soccer with five players in each team
fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)
hyperbolic cotangent — a hyperbolic function that is the ratio of cosh to sinh, being the reciprocal of tanh; coth
in a class by itself — unique
in the public domain — able to be discussed and examined freely by the general public
independent variable — Mathematics. a variable in a functional relation whose value determines the value or values of other variables, as x in the relation y = 3 x 2 . Compare dependent variable (def 1).
indistinguishability — The state of being indistinguishable.
information builders — Distributors of LEVEL5 OBJECT. Telephone +1 800 969 INFO.
intelligent database — (database) A database management system which performs data validation and processing traditionally done by application programs. Most DBMSs provide some data validation, e.g. rejecting invalid dates or alphabetic data entered into money fields, but often most processing is done by application programs. There is however no limit to the amount of processing that can be done by an intelligent database as long as the process is a standard function for that data. Examples of techniques used to implement intelligent databases are constraints, triggers and stored procedures. Moving processing to the database aids data integrity because it is guaranteed to be consistent across all uses of the data. Mainframe databases have increasingly become more intelligent and personal computer database systems are rapidly following.
intervening variable — a hypothetical variable postulated to account for the way in which a set of independent variables control a set of dependent variables
intestinal amebiasis — amebic dysentery.
justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
laboratory assistant — laboratory technician, lab assistant
laboratory diagnosis — scientific analysis of a disease
laboratory equipment — apparatus for scientific research and experiments
legislative assembly — the legislature of France 1791–92.
like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
live and breathe sth — be passionately interested in sth
longitude by account — the longitude of the position of a vessel as estimated by dead reckoning.
marginal probability — (in a multivariate distribution) the probability of one variable taking a specific value irrespective of the values of the others
member of parliament — A Member of Parliament is a person who has been elected by the people in a particular area to represent them in a country's parliament. The abbreviation MP is often used.

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