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19-letter words containing a, b, l, n, c

  • cudgel one's brains — to think hard about a problem
  • current liabilities — business liabilities maturing within a year
  • darby and joan club — a club for elderly people
  • detective constable — a police officer who investigates crime and who is of the lowest rank
  • devils-on-horseback — a savoury of prunes wrapped in bacon slices and served on toast
  • differential backup — (operating system)   A kind of backup that copies all files that have changed since the last full backup. Each differential backup will include all files in previous differential backups since the full backup so to restore a version of a file, you only need to search the full backup and the relevant differential backup. Some systems support differential backup by associating an "Archive" flag with each file and setting this flag whenever the file is modified to indicate that it should be included in the next backup. A differential backup does not change this flag, whereas an incremental backup resets it.
  • dobsonian telescope — a relatively inexpensive Newtonian telescope, suitable for visual but not photographic use, in which the tube assembly slips freely in the lower base.
  • effervescent tablet — Effervescent tablets break down quickly when they are dropped into water or another liquid.
  • electro-shock baton — a baton used as a weapon to pass an electric current through part of the body
  • electronic keyboard — a typewriter keyboard used to operate an electronic device such as a computer, word processor, etc
  • emotional blackmail — a way of persuading someone to do something they do not want to do by making them feel guilty about it
  • enabling technology — technology that enables the user to perform a task or to improve his or her overall performance: e.g. the internet
  • exhibitionistically — In an exhibitionistic manner.
  • financial ombudsman — any of five British ombudsmen: the Banking Ombudsman, set up in 1986 to investigate complaints from bank customers; the Building Society Ombudsman, set up in 1987 to investigate complaints from building society customers; the Insurance Ombudsman, set up in 1981 to investigate complaints by policyholders (since 1988 this ombudsman has also operated a Unit Trust Ombudsman scheme); the Investment Ombudsman set up in 1989 to investigate complaints by investors (the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman is responsible for investigating complaints by personal investors); and the Pensions Ombudsman, set up in 1993 to investigate complaints regarding pension schemes
  • functional database — (database, language)   A database which uses a functional language as its query language. Databases would seem to be an inappropriate application for functional languages since, a purely functional language would have to return a new copy of the entire database every time (part of) it was updated. To be practically scalable, the update mechanism must clearly be destructive rather than functional; however it is quite feasible for the query language to be purely functional so long as the database is considered as an argument. One approach to the update problem would use a monad to encapsulate database access and ensure it was single threaded. Alternative approaches have been suggested by Trinder, who suggests non-destructive updating with shared data structures, and Sutton who uses a variant of a Phil Wadler's linear type system. There are two main classes of functional database languages. The first is based upon Backus' FP language, of which FQL is probably the best known example. Adaplan is a more recent language which falls into this category. More recently, people have been working on languages which are syntactically very similar to modern functional programming languages, but which also provide all of the features of a database language, e.g. bulk data structures which can be incrementally updated, type systems which can be incrementally updated, and all data persisting in a database. Examples are PFL [Poulovassilis&Small, VLDB-91], and Machiavelli [Ohori et al, ACM SIGMOD Conference, 1998].
  • giraldus cambrensis — literary name of Gerald de Barri. ?1146–?1223, Welsh chronicler and churchman, noted for his accounts of his travels in Ireland and Wales
  • goldbach conjecture — an unproved theorem that every even integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers.
  • handlebar moustache — a man's moustache having long, curved ends that resemble the handlebars of a bicycle.
  • hang in the balance — to fasten or attach (a thing) so that it is supported only from above or at a point near its own top; suspend.
  • heptachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twenty-four isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing seven chlorine atoms.
  • honorable discharge — a discharge from military service of a person who has fulfilled obligations efficiently, honorably, and faithfully.
  • hydrostatic balance — a balance for finding the weight of an object submerged in water in order to determine the upthrust on it and thus determine its relative density
  • hyperbolic cosecant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of hyperbolic sine
  • incommensurableness — (rare) Incommensurability.
  • incomplete abortion — a miscarriage in which some fetal or placental tissue remains in the uterus.
  • interchangeableness — Quality of being interchangeable.
  • internal-combustion — of or relating to an internal-combustion engine.
  • intervertebral disc — any of the cartilaginous discs between individual vertebrae, acting as shock absorbers
  • japanese black pine — a pine, Pinus thunbergiana, of Japan, grown as a seaside ornamental in the U.S.
  • kellogg-briand pact — a treaty renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and urging peaceful means for the settlement of international disputes, originally signed in 1928 by 15 nations, later joined by 49 others.
  • lean over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
  • liability insurance — insurance covering the insured against losses arising from injury or damage to another person or property.
  • library of congress — one of the major library collections in the world, located in Washington, D.C., and functioning in some ways as the national library of the U.S. although not officially designated as such: established by Congress in 1800 for service to its members, but now also serving government agencies, other libraries, and the public.
  • logical unit number — (storage)   (LUN) A 3-bit identifier used on a SCSI bus to distinguish between up to eight devices (logical units) with the same SCSI ID.
  • malleable cast iron — white cast iron that has been malleablized.
  • mary mcleod bethune — Mary McLeod [muh-kloud] /məˈklaʊd/ (Show IPA), 1875–1955, U.S. educator and civil-rights leader.
  • mexican bean beetle — a ladybird beetle, Epilachna varivestis, introduced into the U.S. from Mexico, that feeds on the foliage of the bean plant.
  • monoclonal antibody — antibody produced by a laboratory-grown cell clone, either of a hybridoma or a virus-transformed lymphocyte, that is more abundant and uniform than natural antibody and is able to bind specifically to a single site on almost any chosen antigen or reveal previously unknown antigen sites: used as an analytic tool in scientific research and medical diagnosis and potentially important in the treatment of certain diseases. Abbreviation: MAb.
  • mordvinian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
  • municipal bond fund — a mutual fund that invests in municipal bonds.
  • naberezhniye chelny — city in E European Russia, on the Kama River: pop. 514,000
  • national coal board — a statutory corporation set up to run Britain's nationalised coal mining industry between 1947 and 1994, at which time the industry was privatized
  • neville chamberlain — (Arthur) Neville, 1869–1940, British statesman: prime minister 1937–40.
  • not by a long chalk — by no means; not possibly
  • obsolescence clause — a clause in an insurance policy that takes account of the obsolescence of the item insured in order to lower the amount to be paid out in the event of a claim
  • once in a blue moon — very rarely; almost never
  • oxyacetylene burner — a blowpipe for cutting or welding metals at high temperatures
  • paradichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
  • party-column ballot — Indiana ballot.
  • phenylthiocarbamide — a crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 6 H 5 NHCSNH 2 , that is either tasteless or bitter, depending upon the heredity of the taster, and is used in medical genetics and as a diagnostic.
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