18-letter words containing a, c, r, o
- commando operation — a major operation for treatment of cancer of the head and neck, involving removal of many facial structures and subsequent surgical reconstruction
- commedia dell'arte — a form of popular comedy developed in Italy during the 16th to 18th centuries, with stock characters such as Punchinello, Harlequin, and Columbine, in situations improvised from a plot outline
- commercial attache — an attaché in an embassy or legation representing the commercial interests of his or her country.
- commercial college — a college providing tuition in commercial skills, such as shorthand and book-keeping
- commercial vehicle — a vehicle for carrying goods or (less commonly) passengers
- common data format — (library) (CDF) A library and toolkit based on a self-describing data format for scalar and multidimensional data. CDF aims to be platform- and discipline-independent. A scientific data management package (CDF Library) allows developers to manage data and metadata through APIs. CDF has built-in support for data compression (gZip, RLE, Huffman) and files larger than two gigabytes. There are interfaces for C, FORTRAN, Java, Perl, C#, Visual Basic, IDL and MATLAB.
- common denominator — In mathematics, a common denominator is a number which can be divided exactly by all the denominators in a group of fractions.
- common user access — (programming) (CUA) The user interface standard of SAA.
- communication cord — a cord or chain in a train which may be pulled by a passenger to stop the train in an emergency
- comodoro rivadavia — a city in E Argentina.
- comparative method — a body of procedures and criteria used by linguists to determine whether and how two or more languages are related and to reconstruct forms of their hypothetical parent language.
- comparison shopper — an employee of a retail store hired to visit competing stores in order to gather information regarding styles, quality, prices, etc., of merchandise offered by competitors.
- compartmentalizing — Present participle of compartmentalize.
- compensation award — an amount of money awarded as compensation in a court case
- compensation order — (in Britain) the requirement of a court that an offender pay compensation for injury, loss, or damage resulting from an offence, either in preference to or as well as a fine
- complementarianism — The doctrine that genders in a society should have complementary roles.
- complementary base — either of the nucleotide bases linked by a hydrogen bond on opposite strands of DNA or double-stranded RNA: guanine is the complementary base of cytosine, and adenine is the complementary base of thymine in DNA and of uracil in RNA.
- complementary gene — one of a pair of genes, each from different loci, that together are required for the expression of a certain characteristic
- complexity measure — (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
- compliance officer — a specialist, usually a lawyer, employed by a financial group operating in a variety of fields and for multiple clients to ensure that no conflict of interest arises and that all obligations and regulations are complied with
- compressor program — a computer program that compresses data
- compressor station — A compressor station is a facility with several compressors (= devices that increase the pressure of air or natural gas) and other equipment to pump natural gas under pressure over long distances.
- computer animation — animated film or video that is generated by computers
- computer-generated — produced by a computer program
- concentration camp — A concentration camp is a prison in which large numbers of ordinary people are kept in very bad conditions, usually during a war.
- concentration cell — a galvanic cell consisting of two electrodes of the same metal each in different concentrations of a solution of the same salt of that metal.
- concentration span — the length of time a person can concentrate on something
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
- concrete universal — a principle that necessarily has universal import but is also concrete by virtue of its arising in historical situations.
- concussion grenade — a grenade designed to inflict damage by the force of its detonation rather than by the fragmentation of its casing.
- condensation trail — contrail.
- conductivity water — water that has a conductivity of less than 0.043 × 10–6 S cm–1
- configuration item — (jargon) Hardware or software, or an aggregate of both, which is designated by the project configuration manager (or contracting agency) for configuration management.
- congregate housing — a type of housing in which each individual or family has a private bedroom or living quarters but shares with other residents a common dining room, recreational room, or other facilities.
- congregationalists — a form of Protestant church government in which each local religious society is independent and self-governing.
- congress of vienna — the European conference held at Vienna from 1814–15 to settle the territorial problems left by the Napoleonic Wars
- conjugated protein — a biochemical compound consisting of a sequence of amino acids making up a simple protein to which another nonprotein group (a prosthetic group), such as a carbohydrate or lipid group, is attached
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- consecrated ground — ground that has been made or declared sacred or holy, and is therefore suitable for Christian burial
- conservation grade — relating to food produced using traditional methods where possible, and following strict specifications regarding animal feeds and welfare, the use of chemical fertilizers, wildlife conservation, and land management
- conservative party — The Conservative Party is the main right-of-centre party in Britain.
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- consolato del mare — a code of maritime law compiled in the Middle Ages: it drew upon ancient law and has influenced modern law.
- 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.
- contact dermatitis — dermatitis caused by direct contact with an irritating substance, as an allergen or chemical
- container terminal — a transport terminal that handles containerized cargo
- contents insurance — the insurance for the personal property in a household
- continental margin — the offshore zone, consisting of the continental shelf, slope, and rise, that separates the dry-land portion of a continent from the deep ocean floor.
- continued fraction — a number plus a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction, and so on