19-letter words containing a, c, u
- diplomatic immunity — exemption from taxation, searches, arrest, etc., enjoyed by diplomatic officials and their dependent families under international law, and usually on a reciprocal basis.
- directional coupler — (communications) (tap) A passive device used in cable systems to divide and combine radio frequency signals. A directional coupler has at least three ports: line in, line out, and the tap. The signal passes between line in and line out ports with loss referred to as the insertion loss. A small portion of the signal power applied to the line in port passes to the tap port. A signal applied to the tap port is passed to the line in port less the tap attenuation value. The tap signals are isolated from the line out port to prevent reflections. A signal applied to the line out port passes to the line in port and is isolated from the tap port. Some devices provide more than one tap output line (multi-taps).
- discretionary trust — a trust in which the beneficiaries' shares are not fixed in the trust deed but are left to the discretion of other persons, often the trustees
- discriminated union — (theory) The discriminated union of two sets A and B is A + B = {(inA, a) | a in A} U {(inB, b)| b in B} where inA and inB are arbitrary tags which specify which summand an element originates from. A type (especially an algebraic data type) might be described as a discriminated union if it is a sum type whose objects consist of a tag to say which part of the union they belong to and a value of the corresponding type.
- distance university — a degree-granting institution operating wholly or mainly by correspondence courses for students not resident on or within commuting distance of the campus.
- distillation column — a type of still fitted with interior baffles, used for fractional distillation. Compare still2 (def 1).
- distinctive feature — a feature of the sound system of a language that serves as the crucial distinguishing mark between two phonemes, as the distinctive feature of voicing, which distinguishes b from p in English, or nasality, which distinguishes m from b and p.
- domain architecture — (systems analysis) A generic, organisational structure or design for software systems in a domain. The domain architecture contains the designs that are intended to satisfy requirements specified in the domain model. A domain architecture can be adapted to create designs for software systems within a domain and also provides a framework for configuring assets within individual software systems.
- double-helical gear — herringbone gear.
- draw the curtain on — to end
- dry-bulk cargo ship — a ship that carries an unpackaged dry cargo such as coal or grain; bulk carrier
- duplicating machine — a duplicator, especially one for making identical copies of documents, letters, etc.
- dutchman's-breeches — a plant, Dicentra cucullaria, of the fumitory family, having long clusters of pale-yellow, two-spurred flowers.
- early purple orchid — a Eurasian orchid, Orchis mascula, with purplish-crimson flowers and stems marked with blackish-purple spots
- earthquake coverage — Earthquake coverage is insurance coverage for damage caused by earthquakes.
- eat someone's lunch — to take into the mouth and swallow for nourishment; chew and swallow (food).
- ecumenical movement — See under ecumenical (def 4).
- education committee — a committee that discusses the education of children in a particular local authority
- educational adviser — a person who provides advice and training to teachers about teaching methods and educational policies
- elastomeric closure — An elastomeric closure is a component that closes a piece of packaging. An elastomeric closure is made from a material that is able to resume its original shape when it is removed from the packaging and may be in direct contact with the drug enclosed in the pack.
- electrostatic units — the system of CGS electric and magnetic units that assigns the value of one to the dielectric constant of a vacuum
- electrotherapeutics — (medicine) the use of electricity in therapeutics.
- endowment assurance — a form of life insurance that provides for the payment of a specified sum directly to the policyholder at a designated date or to his beneficiary should he die before this date
- endowment insurance — Endowment insurance is a type of life insurance that pays a particular sum directly to the policyholder at a stated date, or to a beneficiary if the policyholder dies before this date.
- entry qualification — the qualifications and conditions required to join an organization, club, etc
- euclidean algorithm — Euclid's Algorithm
- european commission — the executive body of the European Union formed in 1967, which initiates action in the EU and mediates between member governments
- executive agreement — an agreement made between the US President and the head of a foreign state, having the effect of a treaty
- executive secretary — supports executives or departments
- factitious disorder — any of various syndromes, as Münchausen syndrome, characterized by physical or psychological symptoms intentionally produced by a person and under voluntary control.
- facultative apomict — a plant that can reproduce sexually or asexually.
- false consciousness — a Marxist theory that people are unable to see things, especially exploitation, oppression, and social relations, as they really are; the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances.
- fellow countrywoman — a fellow countrywoman is a female citizen of the same state as the person speaking, writing, or being referred to
- female circumcision — clitoridectomy.
- financial ombudsman — any of five British ombudsmen: the Banking Ombudsman, set up in 1986 to investigate complaints from bank customers; the Building Society Ombudsman, set up in 1987 to investigate complaints from building society customers; the Insurance Ombudsman, set up in 1981 to investigate complaints by policyholders (since 1988 this ombudsman has also operated a Unit Trust Ombudsman scheme); the Investment Ombudsman set up in 1989 to investigate complaints by investors (the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman is responsible for investigating complaints by personal investors); and the Pensions Ombudsman, set up in 1993 to investigate complaints regarding pension schemes
- flannelmouth sucker — a sucker, Catostomus latipinnis, of the Colorado River and its tributaries.
- fluophosphoric acid — fluorophosphoric acid.
- focal plane shutter — an opaque shield in a camera, lying in the focal plane of the lens, that, when tripped, admits light to expose the film or plate for a predetermined period, usually a fraction of a second
- focal-plane shutter — a camera shutter situated directly in front of the film.
- forensic accountant — an accountant who specializes in applying accountancy skills to the purposes of the law
- foundation subjects — the subjects studied as part of the National Curriculum, including the compulsory core subjects
- four-o'clock family — the plant family Nyctaginaceae, characterized by chiefly tropical herbaceous plants and shrubs having colored, petallike bracts beneath petalless flowers and winged or grooved dry fruit, and including the bougainvillea and four-o'clock.
- fractional currency — coins or paper money of a smaller denomination than the basic monetary unit.
- franco-prussian war — the war between France and Prussia, 1870–71.
- fraternal insurance — insurance underwritten by a fraternal society, under either a legal reserve plan or an assessment plan.
- full-wave rectifier — a rectifier that transmits both halves of a cycle of alternating current as a direct current.
- functional analysis — the branch of mathematics that deals with the theory of vector spaces and linear functionals.
- functional calculus — the branch of symbolic logic that includes the sentential calculus and that deals with sentential functions and quantifiers and with logical relations between sentences containing quantifiers.
- functional currency — Functional currency is the main currency used by a business.
- functional database — (database, language) A database which uses a functional language as its query language. Databases would seem to be an inappropriate application for functional languages since, a purely functional language would have to return a new copy of the entire database every time (part of) it was updated. To be practically scalable, the update mechanism must clearly be destructive rather than functional; however it is quite feasible for the query language to be purely functional so long as the database is considered as an argument. One approach to the update problem would use a monad to encapsulate database access and ensure it was single threaded. Alternative approaches have been suggested by Trinder, who suggests non-destructive updating with shared data structures, and Sutton who uses a variant of a Phil Wadler's linear type system. There are two main classes of functional database languages. The first is based upon Backus' FP language, of which FQL is probably the best known example. Adaplan is a more recent language which falls into this category. More recently, people have been working on languages which are syntactically very similar to modern functional programming languages, but which also provide all of the features of a database language, e.g. bulk data structures which can be incrementally updated, type systems which can be incrementally updated, and all data persisting in a database. Examples are PFL [Poulovassilis&Small, VLDB-91], and Machiavelli [Ohori et al, ACM SIGMOD Conference, 1998].