17-letter words containing a, d, r, t
- data transmission — the act of sending data electronically over a communications network
- daughter language — a language that has evolved from another specified language.
- de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
- dead in the water — If you say that someone or something is dead in the water, you are emphasizing that they have failed, and that there is little hope of them being successful in the future.
- dead to the world — unaware of one's surroundings, esp fast asleep or very drunk
- dead tree edition — dead tree
- death certificate — A death certificate is an official certificate signed by a doctor which states the cause of a person's death.
- debrett's peerage — a list of the British aristocracy
- decellularization — (biology, medicine) The loss of cells from tissue.
- decriminalisation — (chiefly, British) Alternative form of decriminalization.
- decriminalization — to eliminate criminal penalties for or remove legal restrictions against: to decriminalize marijuana.
- dedifferentiating — Present participle of dedifferentiate.
- dedifferentiation — the reversion of the cells of differentiated tissue to a less specialized form
- deepwater horizon — an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, 40 miles (64km) south-east off the coast of Louisiana, that suffered a massive oil spill following an explosion in April 2010
- defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
- defamiliarization — Art, Literature. a theory and technique, originating in the early 20th century, in which an artistic or literary work presents familiar objects or situations in an unfamiliar way, prolonging the perceptive process and allowing for a fresh perspective.
- defence secretary — the member of a government who is responsible for the country's armed forces
- definite integral — the evaluation of the indefinite integral between two limits, representing the area between the given function and the x-axis between these two values of x
- degenerate matter — the highly compressed state of matter, esp in white dwarfs and neutron stars, supported against gravitational collapse by quantum mechanical effects
- dehistoricization — The process or result of dehistoricizing.
- dehydrochlorinate — to remove hydrogen chloride or chlorine and hydrogen from (a substance).
- deindustrializing — Present participle of deindustrialize.
- delay instruction — delayed control-transfer
- dematerialisation — The act or process of dematerializing.
- dematerialization — The act or process of dematerializing.
- demonstrativeness — The state or quality of being demonstrative.
- denatured alcohol — ethanol rendered unfit for human consumption by the addition of a noxious substance, as in methylated spirits
- dendroclimatology — The science that uses dendrochronology to reconstruct historical climate conditions.
- denominate number — a number associated with a unit of measurement.
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- depersonalisation — Alternative spelling of depersonalization.
- depersonalization — the act or an instance of depersonalizing
- dephosphorylation — the removal of a phosphate group from an organic compound, as in the changing of ATP to ADP.
- deportation order — a notification that a foreign national is legally required to leave the country
- designated driver — The designated driver in a group of people travelling together is the one who has agreed to drive, or who is insured to drive.
- designated hitter — In baseball, a designated hitter is a player who bats in place of the pitcher.
- despotic monarchy — absolute monarchy.
- dessert chocolate — cooking chocolate
- destination store — A destination store draws customers by selling unusual items, or having a friendly atmosphere, special pricing, and other desirable characteristics.
- desynchronisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of desynchronization.
- desynchronization — to cause to indicate the same time, as one timepiece with another: Synchronize your watches.
- deterministically — the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws.
- development grant — a grant awarded, esp by a government, to a person or company in order to fund the development of a new product
- dextroamphetamine — a dextrorotatory amphetamine, used to suppress appetite
- dialect geography — linguistic geography
- diaphragm shutter — a camera shutter having a group of overlapping blades that open and close at the center when exposing film.
- diaphragmatically — By use of the diaphragm; in a diaphragmatic way.
- dictionary attack — an attempt to hack into a computer or network by submitting every word in a dictionary as a possible password
- dictionary-making — the work or activity of compiling dictionaries
- diethyltryptamine — a synthetic derivative of tryptamine with hallucinogenic and psychotogenic effects. Abbreviation: DET.