20-letter words containing a, d, e
- deontological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing with right action and the nature of duty, without regard to the goodness or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
- department of energy — the department of the U.S. federal government that sets forth and maintains the national energy policy, including energy conservation, environmental protection, etc. Abbreviation: DOE.
- department of health — government ministry for health matters
- dependency allowance — an allowance paid by a government to a person who cares for dependants
- depreciation expense — A depreciation expense is the amount deducted from gross profit to allow for a reduction in the value of something because of its age or how much it has been used.
- descriptive notation — a method of denoting the squares on the chessboard in which each player names the files from the pieces that stand on them at the opening and numbers the ranks away from himself
- desmopressin acetate — a vasopressin analogue, C 46 H 64 N 14 O 12 S 2 , used in the treatment of diabetes insipidus.
- determinate cleavage — cell division in a fertilized or unfertilized egg resulting in daughter cells that are no longer able to produce a complete embryo by themselves
- deterritorialization — The eradication of social, political, or cultural practices from their native places and populations.
- developing-out paper — a sensitized printing paper requiring development in order to bring out the image. Abbreviation: D.O.P.
- development planning — the planning of the development of an area of land
- devil's bit scabious — a similar and related Eurasian marsh plant, Succisa pratensis
- dewey decimal system — a frequently used system of library book classification and arrangement with ten main subject classes
- diabetic retinopathy — a disorder of the blood vessels of the retina occurring as a complication of poorly controlled diabetes mellitus and often leading to blindness.
- dialectical theology — a form of neoorthodox theology emphasizing the infinite tensions, paradoxes, and basic ambiguities inherent in Christian existence, and holding, against rationalism, that God is unknowable to humans except through divine grace and revelation.
- diammonium phosphate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble compound, (NH 4) 2 HPO 4 , used as fertilizer, in fire extinguishers, etc.
- diamond in the rough — a diamond in its natural state
- diamond skin disease — a form of swine erysipelas in which diamond-shaped skin inflammations appear, often accompanied by swollen joints.
- diamondback terrapin — 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
- dichloroethyl formal — a colorless liquid, C 5 H 10 O 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent and in the manufacture of certain synthetic rubbers.
- dickless workstation — (abuse) Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
- dictionary catalogue — a catalogue of the authors, titles, and subjects of books in one alphabetical sequence
- diels-alder reaction — the reaction in which a conjugated diene combines with a double or triple bond of a given compound to form a ring of six carbon atoms.
- difference amplifier — A difference amplifier is a device that amplifies the difference between two inputs, rejecting any signals common to both.
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- differential pricing — a situation in which different prices are charged for the same product or service
- digital data service — (communications) (DDS) The class of service offered by telecommunications companies for transmitting digital data as opposed to voice.
- digital lempel ziv 1 — (algorithm) (DLZ1) A Lempel-Ziv compression algorithm which maps variable length input strings to variable length output symbols. During compression, the algorithm builds a dictionary of strings which is accessed by means of a hash table. Compression occurs when input data matches a string in the table and is replaced with the output symbol. DLZ1 is used on Digital Linear Tape.
- digital media player — Digital Technology. a portable electronic device or a software program that plays and stores digital audio or video files in various formats.
- digital service unit — data service unit
- diisobutyl phthalate — a clear, colorless liquid, C 14 H 26 O 4 , used chiefly as a plasticizer for nitrocellulose.
- dimensional analysis — a method for comparing the dimensions of the physical quantities occurring in a problem to find relationships between the quantities without having to solve the problem completely. Compare dimension (def 6).
- dimethylanthranilate — a colorless or pale-yellow liquid, C 9 H 11 NO 2 , having a grape odor: used chiefly in perfumes, flavorings, and drugs.
- diophantine analysis — any of several methods for finding integral solutions for equations with more than one variable whose coefficients are integers.
- diophantine equation — an equation involving more than one variable in which the coefficients of the variables are integers and for which integral solutions are sought.
- diplomatic secretary — secretary (def 5).
- diplomatic-secretary — secretary (def 5).
- dirac delta function — delta function.
- direct memory access — (architecture) (DMA) A facility of some architectures which allows a peripheral to read and write memory without intervention by the CPU. DMA is a limited form of bus mastering.
- directional drilling — a method of drilling for oil in which the well is not drilled vertically, as when a number of wells are to be drilled from a single platform to reach different areas of an oil field
- directory assistance — a telephone company service that furnishes telephone directory information over the telephone.
- directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.
- disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
- disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
- disciplinary hearing — a hearing at which the conduct of a member of an organization, profession etc is examined and a punishment may be handed down
- discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
- discretionary income — money for luxuries
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- dispersion hardening — the strengthening of an alloy as a result of the presence of fine particles in the lattice
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.