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16-letter words containing a, c, o, s

  • atmospheric tide — a movement of atmospheric masses caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon and by daily solar heating.
  • atomic mass unit — a unit of mass used to express atomic and molecular weights that is equal to one twelfth of the mass of an atom of carbon-12. It is equivalent to 1.66 × 10–27 kg
  • atomic physicist — a scientist specializing in atomic physics
  • atomic structure — the concept of an atom as a central positively charged nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons surrounded by a number of electrons. The number of electrons is equal to the number of protons: the whole entity is thus electrically neutral
  • atwood's machine — a device consisting of two unequal masses connected by a string passed over a pulley, used to illustrate the laws of motion.
  • auditory vesicle — the pouch that is formed by the invagination of an ectodermal placode and that develops into the internal ear.
  • australopithecus — an extinct genus of small-brained,large-toothed bipedal hominids that lived in Africa between one and four million years ago.
  • autofluorescence — (biology, microscopy) Self-induced fluorescence.
  • automatic pistol — a type of pistol having a mechanism that throws out the empty shell, puts in a new one, and prepares the pistol to be fired again.
  • autostereoscopic — Of or pertaining to autostereoscopy.
  • bachelor of arts — a degree conferred on a person who has successfully completed his or her undergraduate studies, usually in a branch of the liberal arts or humanities
  • bachelor-at-arms — bachelor (def 4).
  • background music — music of any kind that is played while some other activity is going on, so that people do not actively attend to it
  • background noise — any type of noise that is not the sound that you are specifically listening to or monitoring
  • backus-naur form — (language, grammar)   (BNF, originally "Backus Normal Form") A formal metasyntax used to express context-free grammars. Backus Normal Form was renamed Backus-Naur Form at the suggestion of Donald Knuth. BNF is one of the most commonly used metasyntactic notations for specifying the syntax of programming languages, command sets, and the like. It is widely used for language descriptions but seldom documented anywhere (how do you document a metasyntax?), so that it must usually be learned by osmosis (but see RFC 2234). Consider this BNF for a US postal address: ::= ::= | "." ::= [] | ::= [] ::= "," This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a zip-code part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or an initial followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional "jr-part" (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use multiple first and middle names and/or initials). A street address consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consists of a town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note that many things (such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These lexical details are presumed to be obvious from context or specified somewhere nearby. There are many variants and extensions of BNF, possibly containing some or all of the regexp wild cards such as "*" or "+". EBNF is a common one. In fact the example above isn't the pure form invented for the ALGOL 60 report. "[]" was introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I definition but is now universally recognised. ABNF is another extension.
  • barbecue stopper — a controversial current-affairs issue
  • bargaining scope — the range of topics within the scope of a particular set of negotiations leading to a collective agreement
  • basement complex — the undifferentiated assemblage of rock (basement rock) underlying the oldest stratified rocks in any region: usually crystalline, metamorphosed, and mostly, but not necessarily, Precambrian in age.
  • basic dichromate — an orange-red, amorphous, water-insoluble powder, Bi 2 O 3 ⋅2CrO 3 , used chiefly as a pigment in paints.
  • basic vocabulary — the set of lexical items in a language that are most resistant to replacement, referring to the most common and universal elements of human experience, such as parts of the body (foot, eye), universal features of the environment (water, star), common activities (eat, sleep), and the lowest numerals.
  • basque provinces — an autonomous region of N Spain, comprising the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya: inhabited mainly by Basques, who retained virtual autonomy from the 9th to the 19th century. Pop: 1 840 700 (2003 est). Area: about 7250 sq km (2800 sq miles)
  • batch processing — manufacturing products or treating materials in batches, by passing the output of one process to subsequent processes
  • be of assistance — Someone or something that is of assistance to you is helpful or useful to you.
  • bear one's cross — a structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, used to execute persons in ancient times.
  • beta abstraction — [lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest becomes its body. E.g. 4+1 --> (\ x . x+1) 4 The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
  • bicapitalisation — The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare studlycaps.
  • binocular fusion — fusion (def 5a).
  • binocular-fusion — the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.
  • blow one's stack — to lose one's temper; fly into a rage
  • bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
  • borosilicic acid — any of several hypothetical acids that form borosilicates.
  • boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
  • bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
  • bracknell forest — a unitary authority in SE England, in E Berkshire. Pop: 110 100 (2003 est). Area: 109 sq km (42 sq miles)
  • branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
  • break one's back — to overwork or work very hard
  • break one's neck — to exert oneself greatly, esp by hurrying, in order to do something
  • british columbia — a province of W Canada, on the Pacific coast: largely mountainous with extensive forests, rich mineral resources, and important fisheries. Capital: Victoria. Pop: 4 400 057 (2011 est). Area: 930 532 sq km (359 279 sq miles)
  • bronchial asthma — asthma.
  • business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
  • bypass capacitor — a capacitor which provides a low-impedance path for alternating current while not passing any direct current
  • cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
  • cache on a stick — (architecture)   (COAST) Intel Corporation attempt to's standardise the modular L2 cache subsystem in Pentium-based computers. A COAST module should be about 4.35" wide by 1.14" high. According to earlier specifications from Motorola, a module between 4.33" and 4.36" wide, and between 1.12" and 1.16" high is within the COAST standard. Some module vendors, including some major motherboard suppliers, greatly violate the height specification. Another COAST specification violated by many suppliers concerns clock distribution in synchronous modules. The specification requires that the clock tree to each synchronous chip be balanced, i.e. equal length from edge of the connector to individual chips. An unbalanced clock tree increases reflections and noise. For a 256 kilobyte cache module the standard requires the same clock be used for both chips but some vendors use separate clocks to reduce loading on the clock driver and hence increase the clock speed. However, this creates unbalanced loading in other motherboard configurations, such as motherboards with soldered caches in the system.
  • call in question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
  • call one's shots — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
  • call to quarters — a bugle call shortly before taps, notifying soldiers to retire to their quarters
  • camomile shampoo — a liquid or cream preparation of soap or detergent with camomile extract to wash the hair
  • canadian soldier — the mayfly.
  • cannonball serve — (in tennis) a very fast low serve
  • cantankerousness — disagreeable to deal with; contentious; peevish: a cantankerous, argumentative man.
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