18-letter words containing a, c, e, s, p, r
- conservative party — The Conservative Party is the main right-of-centre party in Britain.
- constituency party — a branch of a political party operating within a constituency
- construction paper — Construction paper is a type of stiff, colored paper that children use for drawing and for making things.
- conversation piece — something, esp an unusual object, that provokes conversation
- cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
- corpuscular theory — the theory, originally proposed by Newton, and revived with the development of the quantum theory, that light consists of a stream of particles
- correspondent bank — A correspondent bank is a bank that provides services such as accepting deposits for another bank.
- costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently
- crookes dark space — the dark space between the cathode glow and the negative glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
- depth-first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which extends the current path as far as possible before backtracking to the last choice point and trying the next alternative path. Depth-first search may fail to find a solution if it enters a cycle in the graph. This can be avoided if we never extend a path to a node which it already contains. Opposite of breadth first search. See also iterative deepening.
- descriptive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
- diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
- diplomatic service — diplomatic corps
- discharge printing — a fabric-printing method in which the material is dyed and then certain areas are discharged so as to permit the original hue or its color replacement to act as a pattern against the colored ground.
- due process of law — the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles
- eclipsing variable — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- egg and spoon race — a novelty race in which contestants each carry an egg in a spoon to the finish line, the winner being the first to finish without dropping or breaking the egg.
- egg-and-spoon race — a race in which runners carry an egg balanced in a spoon
- eggshell porcelain — a type of very thin translucent porcelain originally made in China
- electron transport — the metabolic process in mitochondria or chloroplasts, in which electrons are transferred in stages from energy-rich compounds to molecular oxygen with liberation of energy
- endangered species — animal, plant becoming extinct
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
- excess profits tax — a tax on profits exceeding a certain amount
- exercise programme — a programme detailing a range of physical exercises and the amount of time each exercise should be performed, used especially in gymnasiums, where they are typically tailored to individuals' needs
- faraday dark space — the dark region between the negative glow and the positive column in a vacuum tube occurring when the pressure is low.
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
- flat address space — (architecture) The memory architecture in which any memory location can be selected from a single contiguous block by a single integer offset. Almost all popular processors have a flat address space, but the Intel x86 family has a segmented address space. A flat address space greatly simplifies programming because of the simple correspondence between addresses (pointers) and integers.
- ftp software, inc. — (company) Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
- funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
- general precession — the precession that results from both lunisolar precession and planetary precession; precession of the equinoxes.
- gensym corporation — (company) A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
- geometrical optics — the branch of optics dealing with light as rays, especially in the study of the effects of lenses and mirrors on light beams and of their combination in optical instruments.
- gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
- great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
- helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
- hippocratic facies — the sallow facial expression, with listless staring eyes, often regarded as denoting approaching death
- historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
- hypercholesteremia — Alternative spelling of hypercholesteraemia.
- hypernationalistic — a person devoted to nationalism.
- hypogastric artery — iliac artery (def 3).
- in the first place — firstly
- inspector of taxes — an official of HMRC whose work is to assess individuals' income tax liability