16-letter words containing a, c, o, e, n, s
- cowichan sweater — a heavy sweater of grey, unbleached wool with distinctive designs that were originally black-and-white but are now sometimes coloured: knitted originally by Cowichan Indians in British Columbia
- craftspersonship — The body of activities, skills, techniques, knowledge, and expertise pertinent to (a) particular craft(s).
- creation science — teaching and research based upon the belief that the biblical account of the creation of the world is scientific fact
- creative commons — Sometimes, creative commons. a set of various licenses that allow people to share their copyrighted work to be copied, edited, built upon, etc., while retaining the copyright to the original work (often used attributively): We’re happy for other sites to share these photos under Creative Commons; a creative commons license.
- creative tension — a situation where disagreement or discord ultimately gives rise to better ideas or outcomes
- crime of passion — a crime, often a murder, committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- crime passionnel — a crime committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- critical section — A non-re-entrant piece of code that can only be executed by one process at a time. It will usually terminate in bounded time and a process will only have to wait a bounded time to enter it. Some synchronisation mechanism is required at the entry and exit of the critical section to ensure exclusive use.
- cross-resistance — immunologic resistance to the pathogenic effects of a microorganism because of previous exposure to another species or type having cross-reactive antigens.
- crosscontaminate — Alternative spelling of cross-contaminate.
- crossopterygians — Plural form of crossopterygian.
- cryopreservation — the storage of blood or living tissues at extremely cold temperatures, often -196 degrees Celsius.
- customary tenant — a tenant occupying a property under the customs of the manor, often a low-status tenant with little security of tenure
- cut one's throat — to bring about one's own ruin
- cute as a button — very sweet, adorable
- data compression — the act of compressing.
- davidson current — a winter countercurrent that flows N along the W coast of the U.S.
- debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- decentralisation — Alternative spelling of decentralization.
- declassification — to remove the classification from (information, a document, etc.) that restricts access in terms of secrecy, confidentiality, etc. Compare classification (def 5).
- delta conversion — delta reduction
- demoiselle crane — a gray crane, Anthropoides virgo, of northern Africa, Europe, and Asia, having long, white plumes behind each eye.
- devonshire cream — clotted cream.
- diagonal process — a form of argument in which a new member of a set is constructed from a list of its known members by making the nth term of the new member differ from the nth term of the nth member. The new member is thus different from every member of the list
- disaccreditation — to take away the accreditation or authorization of: to disaccredit a diplomat.
- disclosing agent — a vegetable dye, administered as a liquid or in tablet form (disclosing tablet), that stains plaque, making it readily apparent on the teeth
- disconsolateness — (uncountable) The state of being disconsolate; gloom.
- discountenancing — Present participle of discountenance.
- displaced person — a person driven or expelled from his or her homeland by war, famine, tyranny, etc. Abbreviation: DP, D.P.
- displacement ton — a unit for measuring the displacement of a vessel, equal to a long ton of 2240 pounds (1016 kg) or 35 cu. ft. (1 cu. m) of seawater.
- distance modulus — a measure of the distance, r, of a celestial object too far away to show measurable parallax. It is given by m–M = 5 log(r/10), where m is its apparent magnitude (corrected for interstellar absorption) and M is its absolute magnitude
- diversifications — Plural form of diversification.
- do the necessary — to do something that is necessary in a particular situation
- domain selection — (systems analysis) The prioritisation and selection of one or more domains for which specific software reuse engineering projects are to be initiated.
- domestic partner — either member of an unmarried, cohabiting, and especially homosexual couple that seeks benefits usually available only to spouses.
- domestic servant — person employed to do household chores
- dynamic response — The dynamic response of a machine, structure, or process is how it reacts over time to something that is done to it.
- easter communion — the act of receiving communion in church on Easter Day - considered special because of the primacy of Easter among Christian festivals and because many people regard taking Easter communion as a basic token of membership of their church
- economy of scale — a fall in average costs resulting from an increase in the scale of production
- eicosapentaenoic — Of or pertaining to eicosapentaenoic acid or its derivatives.
- electromagnetics — Electricity and magnetism, collectively, as a field of study.
- electromagnetism — The interaction of electric currents or fields and magnetic fields.
- electromechanics — the engineering aspects of devices that are controlled by either static or magnetic electric charges
- electronic flash — Photography
- emancipationists — Plural form of emancipationist.
- enantioselective — (chemistry) (of a catalyst) that catalyzes the reaction of only one of a pair of enantiomers.
- endarterectomies — Plural form of endarterectomy.
- endocannabinoids — Plural form of endocannabinoid.
- endocranial cast — a cast made of the inside of a cranial cavity to show the size and shape of the brain: used esp in anthropology