18-letter words containing a, c, d
- justice department — the United States federal department for enforcing federal laws
- keep at a distance — to be reserved or cool toward; treat aloofly
- kitchen-sink drama — a type of drama of the 1950s depicting the sordid aspects of domestic reality
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- labeled bracketing — a representation of the constituent structure of a string, as a word or sentence, comparable to a tree diagram, in which each constituent is shown in brackets and given a subscript grammatical label, with each bracketed item corresponding to a node in a tree diagram.
- lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
- land grant college — a state university established with a grant of public land
- land-grant college — a U.S. college or university (land-grant university) entitled to support from the federal government under the provisions of the Morrill Acts.
- landscape gardener — sb who designs gardens
- landscape painting — art: depicting natural scenery
- light displacement — the weight of a ship with all its permanent equipment, excluding the weight of cargo, persons, ballast, dunnage, and fuel, but usually including the weight of permanent ballast and water used to operate steam machinery.
- limiting adjective — (in English and some other languages) one of a small group of adjectives that modify the nouns to which they are applied by restricting rather than describing or qualifying. This, some, and certain are limiting adjectives.
- lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- lipopolysaccharide — any of a class of polysaccharides to which lipids are attached.
- little spotted cat — a small New World tiger cat, Felis tigrinus, ranging from Costa Rica to northern Argentina.
- long-distance call — phone call: not local area
- madagascar jasmine — a Madagascan twining, woody vine, Stephanotis floribunda, of the milkweed family, having waxy-white, fragrant flowers.
- magnetic induction — Also called magnetic flux density. a vector quantity used as a measure of a magnetic field. Symbol: B.
- magnetic recording — the process of recording sound or other data on magnetic tape, wire, etc.
- magnetogasdynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- make no difference — to have no effect; not matter
- malicious wounding — the intentional violent wounding or injuring of someone
- manhattan district — (during World War II) the code name for a unit of US army engineers established in 1942 to construct secret sites for the development of the atomic bomb
- manufactured goods — products made by machine
- master boot record — (operating system, storage) A special area on a computer's main hard disk that gives the location of the disk's boot block or bootable partition where the operating system is installed.
- mathematical model — a representation of a system, process, etc, in mathematical terms
- matthias schleiden — Matthias Jakob [mah-tee-ahs yah-kawp] /mɑˈti ɑs ˈyɑ kɔp/ (Show IPA), 1804–81, German botanist.
- mechanical drawing — drawing, as of machinery, done with the aid of rulers, scales, compasses, etc.
- medical dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering terms used in the health professions by doctors, nurses, and others involved in allied health care services. A dictionary with authoritative spellings and definitions is a particularly crucial resource in medicine, where a misspelling or misunderstanding can have unfortunate consequences for people under care. Print dictionaries in this field may be sorted alphabetically or may be categorized according to medical specializations or by the various systems in the body, as the immune system and the respiratory system. The online Medical Dictionary on Dictionary.com allows alphabetical browsing in the combined electronic versions of more than one authoritative medical reference, insuring access to correct spellings, as well as immediate, direct access to a known search term typed into the search box on the site: A medical dictionary reveals that large numbers of medical terms are formed from the same Latin and Greek parts combined and recombined.
- medical profession — the body of people who work as doctors of medicine
- medical technician — a person, not a qualified doctor, who does practical work in a hospital
- medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
- medium of exchange — anything generally accepted as representing a standard of value and exchangeable for goods or services.
- mercury delay line — (storage, history) An archaic first-in first-out fixed time period data storage device using acoustic transducers to transmit data as waves in a trough or tube of mercury. EDSAC (Cambridge) and UNIVAC I used delay lines.
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- mexican gold poppy — an annual wildflower, Eschscholzia mexicana, having orange-gold, cup-shaped flowers, found in dry, mountainous regions of western North America.
- microwave detector — a device for recording the speed of a motorist
- mid-atlantic ridge — a north-south suboceanic ridge in the Atlantic Ocean from Iceland to Antarctica on whose crest are several groups of islands; shown by plate tectonics to be the axis along which North America has split away from Eurasia, and along which South America has split away from Africa.
- middle paleolithic — See under Paleolithic.
- mineralocorticoids — Plural form of mineralocorticoid.
- misplaced modifier — Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause that seems to refer to or modify an unintended word because of its placement in a sentence, as when young in When young, circuses appeal to all of us.
- modular arithmetic — arithmetic in which numbers that are congruent modulo a given number are treated as the same. Compare congruence (def 2), modulo, modulus (def 2b).
- molecular medicine — the study of disease or injury at the molecular or cellular level.
- monte carlo method — a technique for numerically approximating the solution of a mathematical problem by studying the distribution of some random variable, often generated by a computer.
- mordovian 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)
- morphine addiction — the fact or condition of being addicted to morphine
- moving bed reactor — A moving bed reactor is a reactor in which a layer of catalyst in the form of granules is moved between a reaction area and a regeneration area.
- mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
- multimedia machine — machines that allow users to control and manipulate sound, video, text and graphics
- muscular dystrophy — a hereditary disease characterized by gradual wasting of the muscles with replacement by scar tissue and fat, sometimes also affecting the heart.