18-letter words containing a, e, g, n
- central government — the government of a state or country
- centrifugal clutch — an automatic clutch in which the friction surfaces are engaged by weighted levers acting under centrifugal force at a certain speed of rotation
- cervical screening — a screening for cervical cancer
- chandelier earring — one of a pair of long and ornate earrings that dangle from the earlobes, usually dropping from more than one level.
- change one's spots — to reform one's character
- change the subject — to select a new topic of conversation
- changement de pied — a jump in which the dancer's feet are reversed from the starting position.
- character encoding — (character) (Or "character encoding scheme") A mapping between binary data values and character code positions (or "code points"). Early systems stored characters in a variety of ways, e.g. four six-bit characters in a 24-bit word, but around 1960, eight-bit bytes started to become the most common data storage layout, with each character stored in one byte, typically in the ASCII character set. In the case of ASCII, the character encoding is an identity mapping: code position 65 maps to the byte value 65. This is possible because ASCII uses only code positions representable as single bytes, i.e., values between 0 and 255. (US-ASCII only uses values 0 to 127, in fact.) From the late 1990s, there was increased use of larger character sets such as Unicode and many CJK coded character sets. These can represent characters from many languages and more symbols.
- character-building — improving certain good or useful traits in a person's character, esp self-reliance, endurance, and courage
- charge conjugation — the mathematical operation of replacing every elementary particle by its antiparticle. Symbol: C.
- chartered engineer — (in Britain) an engineer who is registered with the Engineering Council as having the scientific and technical knowledge and practical experience to satisfy its professional requirements
- chattering classes — The chattering classes are people such as journalists, broadcasters, or public figures who comment on events but have little or no influence over them.
- chemical machining — the shaping of a metal part by controlled removal of unwanted metal by a flow of chemical solutions
- chemical pregnancy — a pregnancy that is confirmed by a pregnancy test but not by clinical signs and terminates before clinical signs can be observed.
- cigar-store indian — a wooden statue of an American Indian, traditionally displayed at the entrance of cigar stores.
- circular breathing — a technique for sustaining a phrase on a wind instrument, using the cheeks to force air out of the mouth while breathing in through the nose
- circulating medium — currency serving as a medium of exchange
- climbing hydrangea — a woody vine, Hydrangea anomala, of eastern Asia, having shiny, egg-shaped leaves and flat-topped white flower clusters, and climbing by aerial rootlets.
- cling like a leech — to cling or adhere persistently to something
- clobbering machine — pressure to conform with accepted standards
- clothing allowance — an amount of money to compensate for the purchase of clothes for work, school, etc
- collagen injection — an injection of collagen into the lip in order to give it a fuller appearance
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- collision coverage — Collision coverage is insurance cover for vehicle accidents.
- commanding officer — A commanding officer is an officer who is in charge of a military unit.
- commodity exchange — an exchange where commodities are traded
- commonwealth games — an event held every four years in which sportspeople from the countries of the Commonwealth compete
- community language — a language spoken by members of a minority group or community within a majority language context
- compartmentalizing — Present participle of compartmentalize.
- compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
- complementary gene — one of a pair of genes, each from different loci, that together are required for the expression of a certain characteristic
- computer-generated — produced by a computer program
- concussion grenade — a grenade designed to inflict damage by the force of its detonation rather than by the fragmentation of its casing.
- 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.
- congregate housing — a type of housing in which each individual or family has a private bedroom or living quarters but shares with other residents a common dining room, recreational room, or other facilities.
- congregationalists — a form of Protestant church government in which each local religious society is independent and self-governing.
- congress of vienna — the European conference held at Vienna from 1814–15 to settle the territorial problems left by the Napoleonic Wars
- conjugate solution — a system of liquids, each partially miscible in the other, existing with a common interface, consisting of a saturated solution of one in the other.
- conjugated protein — a biochemical compound consisting of a sequence of amino acids making up a simple protein to which another nonprotein group (a prosthetic group), such as a carbohydrate or lipid group, is attached
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- consecrated ground — ground that has been made or declared sacred or holy, and is therefore suitable for Christian burial
- conservation grade — relating to food produced using traditional methods where possible, and following strict specifications regarding animal feeds and welfare, the use of chemical fertilizers, wildlife conservation, and land management
- continental margin — the offshore zone, consisting of the continental shelf, slope, and rise, that separates the dry-land portion of a continent from the deep ocean floor.
- cooking facilities — equipment necessary for cooking
- cooling degree-day — a degree-day above the standard temperature of 75°F (24°C), used in estimating the energy requirements for air conditioning and refrigeration.
- counter-aggression — the action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly its territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like: The army is prepared to stop any foreign aggression.
- 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
- countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
- credibility rating — a supposed measure of how far a person can be believed or trusted
- 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.