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20-letter words containing a, c, h, t

  • commonwealth hackish — (jargon)   Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
  • communication theory — information theory.
  • complex carbohydrate — a carbohydrate, as sucrose or starch, that consists of two or more monosaccharide units.
  • composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
  • 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.
  • consultant physician — a physician who has attained the rank of consultant in a particular speciality
  • contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
  • contradistinguishing — Present participle of contradistinguish.
  • convective discharge — the repulsion of ions of a gas by a highly charged body, creating a discernible wind.
  • craft apprenticeship — a period of training for a skilled trade in industry, such as for a plumber or electrician
  • craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
  • crime and punishment — a novel (1866) by Feodor Dostoevsky.
  • cross someone's path — to meet or thwart someone
  • curry favour with sb — If one person tries to curry favour with another, they do things in order to try to gain their support or co-operation.
  • cut one's own throat — to be the means of one's own ruin
  • cut the gordian knot — to find a quick, bold solution for a perplexing problem
  • cylinder head gasket — (in an automobile engine) a gasket placed between the cylinder and the cylinder heads to avoid leaks of coolant and compression
  • death of ivan ilyich — a short novel (1884) by Leo Tolstoy.
  • decahydronaphthalene — a colorless, aromatic liquid, C 10 H 18 , insoluble in water and soluble in alcohol and ether: used as a solvent for oils, fats, etc., in cleaning fluids, lubricants, etc.
  • demographic timebomb — a predicted shortage of school-leavers and consequently of available workers, caused by an earlier drop in the birth rate, resulting in an older workforce
  • deontological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing with right action and the nature of duty, without regard to the goodness or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
  • diabetic retinopathy — a disorder of the blood vessels of the retina occurring as a complication of poorly controlled diabetes mellitus and often leading to blindness.
  • dialectical theology — a form of neoorthodox theology emphasizing the infinite tensions, paradoxes, and basic ambiguities inherent in Christian existence, and holding, against rationalism, that God is unknowable to humans except through divine grace and revelation.
  • dichloroethyl formal — a colorless liquid, C 5 H 10 O 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent and in the manufacture of certain synthetic rubbers.
  • discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
  • disruptive discharge — the sudden, large increase in current through an insulating medium resulting from complete failure of the medium under electrostatic stress.
  • distress merchandise — goods sold below the prevailing price in order to raise cash quickly or to meet some other financial emergency.
  • distribution channel — trade: retailer
  • domestic heating oil — a liquid petroleum product used to fuel residential building furnaces or boilers
  • double-aspect theory — a monistic theory that holds that mind and body are not distinct substances but merely different aspects of a single substance
  • ecumenical patriarch — the patriarch of Constantinople, regarded as the highest dignitary of the Greek Orthodox Church.
  • edward the confessor — Saint, 1002?–66, English king 1042–66: founder of Westminster Abbey.
  • electrocardiographic — Of or pertaining to an electrocardiogram (ECG) or electrocardiograph.
  • electroencephalogram — A test or record of brain activity produced by electroencephalography.
  • electrohydrodynamics — (physics) the study of the dynamics of electrically conducting fluid.
  • electrophysiological — Of or pertaining to electrophysiology.
  • electroshock therapy — a form of shock therapy in which electric current is applied to the brain
  • erythema infectiosum — a mild infectious disease of childhood, caused by a virus, characterized by fever and a red rash spreading from the cheeks to the limbs and trunk
  • father of the chapel — (in British trade unions in the publishing and printing industries) a shop steward
  • feather in one's cap — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
  • fermentation alcohol — alcohol (def 1).
  • fermentation-alcohol — Also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, ethanol, fermentation alcohol. a colorless, limpid, volatile, flammable, water-miscible liquid, C 2 H 5 OH, having an etherlike odor and pungent, burning taste, the intoxicating principle of fermented liquors, produced by yeast fermentation of certain carbohydrates, as grains, molasses, starch, or sugar, or obtained synthetically by hydration of ethylene or as a by-product of certain hydrocarbon syntheses: used chiefly as a solvent in the extraction of specific substances, in beverages, medicines, organic synthesis, lotions, tonics, colognes, rubbing compounds, as an automobile radiator antifreeze, and as a rocket fuel. Compare denatured alcohol, methyl alcohol.
  • finite state machine — (mathematics, algorithm, theory)   (FSM or "Finite State Automaton", "transducer") An abstract machine consisting of a set of states (including the initial state), a set of input events, a set of output events, and a state transition function. The function takes the current state and an input event and returns the new set of output events and the next state. Some states may be designated as "terminal states". The state machine can also be viewed as a function which maps an ordered sequence of input events into a corresponding sequence of (sets of) output events. A deterministic FSM (DFA) is one where the next state is uniquely determinied by a single input event. The next state of a nondeterministic FSM (NFA) depends not only on the current input event, but also on an arbitrary number of subsequent input events. Until these subsequent events occur it is not possible to determine which state the machine is in. It is possible to automatically translate any nondeterministic FSM into a deterministic one which will produce the same output given the same input. Each state in the DFA represents the set of states the NFA might be in at a given time. In a probabilistic FSM [proper name?], there is a predetermined probability of each next state given the current state and input (compare Markov chain). The terms "acceptor" and "transducer" are used particularly in language theory where automata are often considered as abstract machines capable of recognising a language (certain sequences of input events). An acceptor has a single Boolean output and accepts or rejects the input sequence by outputting true or false respectively, whereas a transducer translates the input into a sequence of output events. FSMs are used in computability theory and in some practical applications such as regular expressions and digital logic design. See also state transition diagram, Turing Machine.
  • flight data recorder — a recording device that records relevant data during an aircraft's flight
  • florence nightingale — Florence ("the Lady with the Lamp") 1820–1910, English nurse: reformer of hospital conditions and procedures; reorganizer of nurse's training programs.
  • 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.
  • freefall parachuting — a variety of parachuting in which the jumper manoeuvres in free fall before opening the parachute
  • frosting on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
  • fundamental research — research carried out to deepen understanding of the fundamental or basic principles of something
  • gaff-topsail catfish — a sea catfish, Bagre marinus, occurring in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from Cape Cod to Panama, and having the spine of the dorsal fin greatly prolonged and flattened.
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