12-letter words containing a, c, y
- buck's party — a party for men only, esp one held for a man before he is married
- buoyancy aid — a type of usually foam-filled lifejacket designed for use in sports such as canoeing
- butyric acid — type of acid
- cable-laying — involved in or connected to the activity of laying cables
- cache memory — a small area of memory in a computer that can be accessed very quickly
- cachinnatory — Pertaining to loud or immoderate laughter.
- cadaverously — In a cadaverous manner.
- cafe society — people, esp intellectuals and artists who meet in cafés
- calamitously — In a calamitous manner.
- calcareously — in a calcareous manner
- calculatedly — in a calculated manner
- calendar day — the period from one midnight to the following midnight.
- caliginosity — darkness
- call of duty — responsibilities
- call-by-name — (reduction) (CBN) (Normal order reduction, leftmost, outermost reduction). An argument passing convention (first provided by ALGOL 60?) where argument expressions are passed unevaluated. This is usually implemented by passing a pointer to a thunk - some code which will return the value of the argument and an environment giving the values of its free variables. This evaluation strategy is guaranteed to reach a normal form if one exists. When used to implement functional programming languages, call-by-name is usually combined with graph reduction to avoid repeated evaluation of the same expression. This is then known as call-by-need. The opposite of call-by-name is call-by-value where arguments are evaluated before they are passed to a function. This is more efficient but is less likely to terminate in the presence of infinite data structures and recursive functions. Arguments to macros are usually passed using call-by-name.
- call-by-need — (reduction) A reduction strategy which delays evaluation of function arguments until their values are needed. A value is needed if it is an argument to a primitive function or it is the condition in a conditional. Call-by-need is one aspect of lazy evaluation. The term first appears in Chris Wadsworth's thesis "Semantics and Pragmatics of the Lambda calculus" (Oxford, 1971, p. 183). It was used later, by J. Vuillemin in his thesis (Stanford, 1973).
- calumet city — a city in NE Illinois, near Chicago.
- calumniatory — of, involving, or using calumny; slanderous; defamatory.
- calumniously — in a calumnious manner
- calvin cycle — a series of reactions, occurring during photosynthesis, in which glucose is synthesized from carbon dioxide
- calycanthemy — the abnormal development of the calyx of a flower into a structure resembling a corolla
- calycoideous — calycoid
- cam ranh bay — an inlet of the South China Sea, on the SE coast of Vietnam: U. S. military facility during the Vietnam War.
- camera ready — (publication) A final edition of a document or graphic (e.g. a newspaper advertisement or a technical paper for a journal) that is of suitable quality for mass reproduction by making printing plates from the negatives by photoengraving.
- caméra stylo — the use of the camera as a means of personal expression, esp as practised by some directors of the New Wave
- camera-ready — designating or of copy, artwork, etc. that is ready to be photographed for making into a plate for printing
- canary grass — any of various grasses of the genus Phalaris, esp P. canariensis, that is native to Europe and N Africa and has straw-coloured seeds used as birdseed
- candy stripe — a pattern of bright stripes of one color against a plain background, used chiefly in fabrics.
- candygrammar — (language) A programming-language grammar that is mostly syntactic sugar; a play on "candygram". COBOL, Apple Computer's Hypertalk language, and many 4GLs share this property. The intent is to be as English-like as possible and thus easier for unskilled people to program. However, syntax isn't what makes programming hard; it's the mental effort and organisation required to specify an algorithm precisely. Thus "candygrammar" languages are just as difficult to program in, and far more painful for the experienced hacker.
- cantillatory — involving chanting or incantation
- canyoneering — (US) Canyoning, a hybrid outdoor sport involving the traversal of river canyons.
- capacitively — (physics, electronics) In relation to or in terms of capacitance.
- cape cod bay — a part of Massachusetts Bay, enclosed by the Cape Cod peninsula.
- cape nordkyn — a cape in N Norway: the northernmost point of the European mainland
- caper family — the plant family Capparidaceae (or Capparaceae), characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees having alternate, simple, or palmate leaves, irregular flowers with four petals, and fruit in the form of elongated capsules or berries, including the caper and cleome.
- capital city — the seat of government of a country or other political unit
- capital levy — a tax on capital or property as contrasted with a tax on income
- capitulatory — the act of capitulating.
- capraldehyde — (chemistry) decanal.
- capriciously — subject to, led by, or indicative of a sudden, odd notion or unpredictable change; erratic: He's such a capricious boss I never know how he'll react.
- car industry — the industry concerned with the manufacture and selling of automobiles
- caraway seed — the pungent aromatic one-seeded fruit of this plant, used in cooking and in medicine
- carbamylurea — biuret.
- carbohydrase — a digestive enzyme that breaks down carbohydrates through hydrolysis
- carbohydrate — Carbohydrates are substances, found in certain kinds of food, that provide you with energy. Foods such as sugar and bread that contain these substances can also be referred to as carbohydrates.
- carbon cycle — the circulation of carbon between living organisms and their surroundings. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is synthesized by plants into plant tissue, which is ingested and metabolized by animals and converted to carbon dioxide again during respiration and decay
- carboxylated — Simple past tense and past participle of carboxylate.
- cardigan bay — an inlet of St George's Channel, on the W coast of Wales
- cardiography — electrocardiograph.
- cardiomegaly — abnormal enlargement of the heart.