17-letter words containing a, c, e, d, s
- contradistinctive — distinction by opposition or contrast: plants and animals in contradistinction to humans.
- coordinate clause — one of two or more clauses in a sentence having the same status and introduced by coordinating conjunctions
- coordinate system — a system of coordinates that uses numbers to represent a point, line, or the like.
- count one's beads — to pray with a rosary
- cracked gas dryer — A cracked gas dryer is a piece of equipment for removing water vapor from natural gas, for example, using adsorbers and membranes.
- credit facilities — a type of loan made by a bank
- cushing's disease — a rare condition caused by excess corticosteroid hormones in the body, characterized chiefly by obesity of the trunk and face, high blood pressure, fatigue, and loss of calcium from the bones
- cut a person dead — to ignore a person completely
- d&o insurance — D&O insurance is a personal liability insurance that provides cover to the directors and senior executives of a company.
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- damp-proof course — A damp-proof course is the same as a damp course.
- daphnis and chloe — two lovers in pastoral literature, esp in a prose idyll attributed to the Greek writer Longus
- data service unit — (communications) (DSU or "data service unit") A device used in digital transmission for connecting a CSU (Channel Service Unit) to Data Terminal Equipment (a terminal or computer), in the same way that a modem is used for connection to an analogue medium. A DSU provides a standard interface to a user's terminal which is compatible with modems and handles such functions as signal translation, regeneration, reformatting, and timing. The transmitting portion of the DSU processeses the customers' signal into bipolar pulses suitable for transmission over the digital facility. The receiving portion of the DSU is used both to extract timing information and to regenerate mark and space information from the received bipolar signal.
- de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
- de-specialization — the act of specializing, or pursuing a particular line of study or work: Medical students with high student loans often feel driven into specialization.
- decriminalisation — (chiefly, British) Alternative form of decriminalization.
- deductible clause — a clause in an insurance policy stipulating that the insured will be liable for a specified initial amount of each loss, injury, etc., and that the insurance company will be liable for any additional costs up to the insured amount.
- defence mechanism — A defence mechanism is a way of behaving or thinking which is not conscious or deliberate and is an automatic reaction to unpleasant experiences or feelings such as anxiety and fear.
- defence secretary — the member of a government who is responsible for the country's armed forces
- defense mechanism — A defense mechanism is a way of behaving or thinking which is not conscious or deliberate and is an automatic reaction to unpleasant experiences or feelings such as anxiety and fear.
- dehistoricization — The process or result of dehistoricizing.
- dehydrochlorinase — an enzyme that catalyzes the removal of hydrogen and chlorine atoms or ions from chlorinated hydrocarbons.
- delay instruction — delayed control-transfer
- denial of service — a deliberate interruption in access to a computer system or network, esp by using multiple computers to generate an unmanageable volume of traffic (distributed denial of service)
- denial-of-service — pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service: a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- dephlogisticating — Present participle of dephlogisticate.
- despotic monarchy — absolute monarchy.
- dessert chocolate — cooking chocolate
- desynchronisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of desynchronization.
- desynchronization — to cause to indicate the same time, as one timepiece with another: Synchronize your watches.
- deterministically — the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws.
- deucalion's flood — a flood sent by Zeus that wiped out the entire population of the earth, except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha
- devil's food cake — a rich chocolate cake
- diatonic semitone — the pitch difference between certain adjacent degrees of the diatonic scale
- diaz del castillo — Bernal [ber-nahl] /bɛrˈnɑl/ (Show IPA), 1492–1581, Spanish soldier-historian of the conquest of Mexico.
- dipterocarpaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae, a family of trees chiefly native to tropical SE Asia, having two-winged fruits. Many species yield useful timber and resins
- disability clause — a clause in a life-insurance policy providing for waiver of premium and sometimes payment of monthly income if the policyholder becomes totally and permanently disabled.
- disaster recovery — (business) (DR) Planning and implementation of procedures and facilities for use when essential systems are not available for a period long enough to have a significant impact on the business, e.g. when the head office is blown up. Disasters include natural: fire, flood, lightning, hurricane; hardware: power failure, component failure, head crash; software failure: bugs, resources; vandalism: arson, bombing, cracking, theft; data corruption or loss: human error, media failure; communications: computer network equipment, network storm, telephones; security: passwords compromised, computer virus; legal: change in legislation; personnel: unavailability of essential staff, industrial action. Companies need to plan for disaster: before: risk analysis, preventive measures, training; during: how should staff and systems respond; after: recovery measures, post mortem analysis. Hardware can usually be replaced and is usually insured. Software and data needs to be backed up off site. Alternative communication systems should be arranged in case of network failure or inaccessible premises, e.g. emergency telephone number, home working, alternative data center.
- discreditableness — Quality of being discreditable.
- discrete variable — a variable that may assume only a countable, and usually finite, number of values.
- disidentification — The act of disidentifying, or rejecting a personal or group identity.
- displacement hull — a hull that displaces a significant volume of water when under way.
- disposable income — the part of a person's income remaining after deducting personal income taxes.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- disruptive action — action performed by protestors, workers, etc that causes the disruption of a service
- dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
- distance learning — education in which students receive instruction over the Internet, from a video, etc., instead of going to school.
- distance teaching — teaching via correspondence or the internet, where students are not physically present in a classroom
- district attorney — an officer who acts as attorney for the people or government within a specified district.