17-letter words containing a, c, l, i
- counter-complaint — an expression of discontent, regret, pain, censure, resentment, or grief; lament; faultfinding: his complaint about poor schools.
- courtship display — behaviour that is aimed at attracting a mate
- credit facilities — a type of loan made by a bank
- creeping elegance — Describes a tendency for parts of a design to become elegant past the point of diminishing return, something which often happens at the expense of the less interesting parts of the design, the schedule, and other things deemed important in the Real World. See also creeping featurism, second-system effect, tense.
- criminal contempt — any seriously disrespectful act committed against the dignity or authority of a court.
- criminally insane — habitually criminal because of a psychological illness
- critical constant — any of three constants associated with the critical point of a pure element or compound.
- critical pressure — the pressure of a gas or the saturated vapour pressure of a substance in its critical state
- critical thinking — disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence: The questions are intended to develop your critical thinking.
- cromwellian chair — an upright oaken chair, often with arms, having all pieces turned and a seat and back panel of leather or cloth attached with brass-headed nails.
- cross of lorraine — a cross with two horizontal bars above and below the midpoint of the vertical bar, the lower longer than the upper
- cross-correlation — the correlation between two sequences of random variables in a time series
- cross-lot bracing — bracing extending from one side of an excavation to the opposite to retain the earth on both sides.
- cross-pollination — the transfer of pollen from the anthers of one flower to the stigma of another flower by the action of wind, insects, etc
- cross-utilization — to make use of in an additional or different way.
- cruciate ligament — A cruciate ligament is either of a pair of ligaments that cross at the knee.
- crude oil cracker — A crude oil cracker is the part of a refinery and the equipment used for changing crude oil to its fractions, using heat and pressure.
- cryptoclimatology — See under microclimatology.
- cryptocrystalline — (of rocks) composed of crystals that can be distinguished individually only by the use of a polarizing microscope
- cryptographically — In a cryptographic manner; using cryptography; for cryptographic purposes.
- culpable homicide — manslaughter
- culture-fair test — a test, usually for intelligence, that does not put anyone taking it at a disadvantage, esp regarding material or cultural background
- cumulative voting — a system of voting in which each elector has as many votes as there are candidates in his constituency. Votes may all be cast for one candidate or distributed among several
- cyanogen chloride — a colorless, volatile, poisonous liquid, CNCl, used chiefly in the synthesis of compounds containing the cyano group.
- cylinder capacity — the cylinder volume that is swept by the pistons of an internal-combustion engine
- cypriot syllabary — a syllabic script in use on Cyprus in the first millennium b.c., used for the writing of Greek and of an unknown language.
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- cytomegaloviruses — Plural form of cytomegalovirus.
- cytotrophoblastic — Relating to, or containing, cytotrophoblasts.
- 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)
- daphnis and chloe — two lovers in pastoral literature, esp in a prose idyll attributed to the Greek writer Longus
- dark-complexioned — (of a person) having a dark complexion
- david copperfield — a novel (1850) by Charles Dickens.
- 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.
- decellularization — (biology, medicine) The loss of cells from tissue.
- decontextualizing — to remove (a linguistic element, an action, etc.) from a context: decontextualized works of art displayed in museums.
- decriminalisation — (chiefly, British) Alternative form of decriminalization.
- decriminalization — to eliminate criminal penalties for or remove legal restrictions against: to decriminalize marijuana.
- 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.
- deductive tableau — (tool) A theorem proof system consisting of a table whose rows contain assertions or goals. Variables in assertions are implicitly universally quantified and variables in goals are implicitly existentially quantified. The declarative meaning of a tableau is that if every instance of every assertion is true then some instance of at least one of the goals is true.
- dehydrochlorinase — an enzyme that catalyzes the removal of hydrogen and chlorine atoms or ions from chlorinated hydrocarbons.
- dehydrochlorinate — to remove hydrogen chloride or chlorine and hydrogen from (a substance).
- delay instruction — delayed control-transfer
- dendroclimatology — The science that uses dendrochronology to reconstruct historical climate conditions.
- 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.
- dental technician — a person who constructs and repairs artificial teeth
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- dephlogisticating — Present participle of dephlogisticate.
- deterministically — the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws.