18-letter words containing a, c, u, m
- common-law husband — a man considered to be a woman's husband after the couple have cohabited for several years
- communication cord — a cord or chain in a train which may be pulled by a passenger to stop the train in an emergency
- communication line — a line carrying communications
- community hospital — (in the US) a local hospital
- community language — a language spoken by members of a minority group or community within a majority language context
- commutation ticket — a ticket entitling the holder to travel over the same route, as on a railroad, a specified number of times at a reduced rate
- compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
- complexity measure — (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
- computer animation — animated film or video that is generated by computers
- computer-generated — produced by a computer program
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
- 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.
- 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.
- cool as a cucumber — very calm; self-possessed
- costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
- counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
- counterprogramming — the practice of scheduling a program opposite another program, esp. a popular one, that appeals to a different kind of audience, as in placing a romantic film directed at women opposite a sports program mainly watched by men
- counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
- court of st. james — the British royal court
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
- cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
- cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
- data communication — electronic transmission of information that has been encoded for storage and processing by computers.
- dermot macmurrough — ?1110–71, king of Leinster, who, by enlisting the support of the English to win back his kingdom, was responsible for the English conquest of Ireland
- destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
- diazonium compound — any of a series of compounds that contain the group ArN 2 –, in which Ar represents an aryl group.
- dicalcium silicate — a component of cement, 2CaO⋅SiO 2 , also used to neutralize acid soils.
- diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
- dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
- dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
- domremy-la-pucelle — a village in Lorraine, NE France, SW of Nancy: birthplace of Joan of Arc.
- double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
- dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
- eau de vie de marc — marc (def 2).
- ecumenical council — a solemn assembly in the Roman Catholic Church, convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- euclid's algorithm — (algorithm) (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
- european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
- executive chairman — the most senior internal position within a company, combining the duties of chairman and chief executive
- fascicular cambium — cambium that develops within the vascular bundles, producing secondary xylem and phloem.
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- first class module — (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.