19-letter words containing a, c, t
- asbestos cork award — (humour) Once, long ago at MIT, there was a flamer so consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed, had made, and distributed posters announcing that said flamer had been nominated for the "asbestos cork award". (Any reader in doubt as to the intended application of the cork should consult the etymology under flame.) Since then, it is agreed that only a select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn this dubious dignity - but there is no agreement on *which* few.
- assistant principal — a person who assists a principal in their work
- assistant secretary — a person who assists a secretary in their work
- associate professor — An associate professor is a college teacher who ranks above an assistant professor but below a professor.
- associative storage — a storage device in which the information is identified by content rather than by an address
- asymmetric war-fare — warfare in which opposing groups or nations have unequal military resources, and the weaker opponent uses unconventional weapons and tactics, as terrorism, to exploit the vulnerabilities of the enemy.
- at bus architecture — Industry Standard Architecture
- at once/all at once — If a number of different things happen at once or all at once, they all happen at the same time.
- at one's discretion — as one wishes
- at sb's convenience — If something is arranged to happen at your convenience, it happens at a time which is most suitable for you.
- at your convenience — at a time suitable to you
- atherton technology — (company) The comapny that developed the Software BackPlane CASE framework. Their Atherton Tool Integration Services were the basis for the ATIS standard.
- atmospheric braking — a technique of reentry in which the vehicle is maneuvered in the upper atmosphere so as to lose velocity by utilizing drag without overheating.
- attachment disorder — an emotional and behavioral disorder arising from a failure to form a strong bond with one’s primary caregiver in early childhood and affecting one’s social relationships in later childhood and adulthood. See also attachment (def 3a).
- attendance register — an official list of people who are present at an institution such as a school
- attractive nuisance — Law. a doctrine of tort law under which a person who creates or permits to exist on his or her land a dangerous condition attractive to children, as an unfenced swimming pool, is liable for their resulting injuries, even though the injured are trespassers.
- augmented cognition — the study of the augmenting of human mental functions by computer programs
- auriculoventricular — atrioventricular.
- autoerotic asphyxia — asphyxia caused by intentionally strangling oneself while masturbating in order to intensify the orgasm through reduced oxygen flow to the brain.
- avogadro's constant — the number of atoms or molecules in a mole of a substance, equal to 6.022 52 × 1023
- axiomatic semantics — (theory) A set of assertions about properties of a system and how they are effected by program execution. The axiomatic semantics of a program could include pre- and post-conditions for operations. In particular if you view the program as a state transformer (or collection of state transformers), the axiomatic semantics is a set of invariants on the state which the state transformer satisfies. E.g. for a function with the type: sort_list :: [T] -> [T] we might give the precondition that the argument of the function is a list, and a postcondition that the return value is a list that is sorted. One interesting use of axiomatic semantics is to have a language that has a finitely computable sublanguage that is used for specifying pre and post conditions, and then have the compiler prove that the program will satisfy those conditions. See also operational semantics, denotational semantics.
- bacillary dysentery — shigellosis.
- backward compatible — backward compatibility
- backward somersault — a somersault performed in a backward direction with the legs leading the rest of the body
- bacteriochlorophyll — a pale blue-gray form of chlorophyll that is unique to the photosynthetic but anaerobic purple bacteria.
- balance of payments — A country's balance of payments is the difference, over a period of time, between the payments it makes to other countries for imports and the payments it receives from other countries for exports.
- balfour declaration — the statement made by Arthur Balfour in 1917 of British support for the setting up of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, provided that the rights of "existing non-Jewish communities" in Palestine could be safeguarded
- ballistocardiograph — an instrument that records the slight recoil of the body, while on a special bed, caused by the contractions of the heart: used to measure cardiac pumping power and the elasticity of the aorta
- bank reconciliation — A bank reconciliation is the process of adjusting a bank statement to show transactions that have occurred since the date of issue, or a document showing this.
- banker's acceptance — a draft or bill of exchange drawn on a bank and accepted by it
- bankruptcy petition — an official request for protection under bankruptcy laws, which initiates bankruptcy proceedings
- barometric gradient — pressure gradient
- barometric pressure — atmospheric pressure as indicated by a barometer
- basic object system — (programming) (BOS) A C-callable library that implements the notion of object and which uses Tcl as its interpreter for interpreted methods (you can have "compiled" methods in C, and mix compiled and interpreted methods in the same object, plus lots more). You can subclass and mix in existing objects using BOS to extend, among other things, the set of tk widgets. BOS is a class-free object system, also called a prototype-based object system; it is modelled loosely on the Self system from Stanford University. Version 1.31 by Sean Levy <[email protected]>.
- batterie de cuisine — cooking utensils collectively; pots and pans, etc
- baudotbetical order — (algorithm) /baw do bet' i k*l/ Sorted into an order where numerics and special characters are intermixed by sorting a 5-bit Baudot code file ignoring the numeric shift and unshift codes.
- be burnt to a crisp — If something is burnt to a crisp, it is completely burnt.
- behavioral genetics — an interdisciplinary field studying the effects of genetics and hereditary factors on animal and human behavior.
- belgian east africa — a former Belgian trust territory in Africa, also (1924–62) Ruanda-Urundi, now the independent countries of Rwanda and Burundi.
- benefit performance — a theatrical or musical performance in aid of charity
- benzylidene acetone — a colorless, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C 10 H 10 O, having a vanillalike odor, used chiefly as a scent in the manufacture of perfume.
- betamethyl acrolein — crotonaldehyde.
- bicarbonate of soda — Bicarbonate of soda is a white powder which is used in baking to make cakes rise, and also as a medicine for your stomach.
- bilingual education — schooling in which those not fluent in the standard or national language are taught in their own language.
- bill of particulars — an itemized statement of claims or counterclaims provided to the opposing party of a lawsuit
- binary large object — (database) (BLOB) A large block of data stored in a database, such as an image or sound file. A BLOB has no structure which can be interpreted by the database management system but is known only by its size and location.
- binocular disparity — the small differences in the positions of the parts of the images falling on each eye that results when each eye views the scene from a slightly different position; these differences make stereoscopic vision possible
- black carpenter ant — a large, black ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, that lives in damp wood in nature or in houses, where it can cause considerable damage by boring or tunneling.
- black carpet beetle — any of several small beetles of the family Dermestidae, the larvae of which are household pests, feeding on rugs and other woolen fabrics, especially Anthrenus scrophulariae (buffalo carpet beetle) and Attagenus piceus (black carpet beetle)
- black forest gateau — a chocolate sponge cake containing morello cherries and whipped cream, with a topping of chocolate icing