20-letter words containing a, e, n, o, l
- canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
- cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
- capitation allowance — an amount of money given to a school based on the number of students it has
- carbohydrate loading — the practice of eating high amounts of carbohydrates, sometimes after a period of low carbohydrate intake, for several days immediately before competing in an athletic event, especially a marathon, in order to store glycogen in the body, thereby providing greater reserves of energy.
- carbon tetrachloride — a colourless volatile nonflammable sparingly soluble liquid made from chlorine and carbon disulphide; tetrachloromethane. It is used as a solvent, cleaning fluid, and insecticide. Formula: CCl4
- card up one's sleeve — a plan or resource kept secret or held in reserve
- career limiting move — (jargon) (CLM, Sun) Any action endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly one's job. E.g. "His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He won the prize for "best CLM"." A severe bug discovered by a customer might be a "CLM bug".
- carry all before one — to win unanimous support or approval for oneself
- cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
- catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
- celestial navigation — navigation by observation of the positions of the stars
- cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
- central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
- châlons-en-champagne — a town in NE France, on the River Marne: scene of Attila's defeat by the Romans (451 ad). Pop: 47 339 (1999)
- chebyshev polynomial — a polynomial solution of the Tchebycheff equation, of the form T n (x) = cos(n cos −1 x), where n is an integer.
- checkbook journalism — the practice of paying for a news story or an interview, or for exclusive broadcasting or publishing rights.
- chevalier-montrachet — a white wine from Burgundy.
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- chinese scholar tree — a spreading, round-headed tree, Sophora japonica, of the legume family, native to China and Korea, having yellowish-white flowers in loose, showy clusters, grown widely as a street tree.
- cholestyramine resin — a powdery synthetic resin that binds with and prevents the reabsorption of bile acids, used to reduce cholesterol levels, relieve itching associated with jaundice, etc.
- chrono-logical order — the arrangement of things following one after another in time: Put these documents in chronological order.
- clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
- clean bill of health — a good report of one's physical condition
- clean-bill-of-health — a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship's crew and at the port from which it has come.
- clinical thermometer — a finely calibrated thermometer for determining the temperature of the body, usually placed under the tongue, in the armpit, or in the rectum
- clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
- coalition government — a government containing members of two or more political parties
- cold-weather payment — (in Britain) a payment made by the government to people on low incomes when the temperature falls below a certain level for a specific number of days
- collective agreement — a negotiated agreement, which is not enforceable at law, between an employer and employees' representatives, covering rates of pay or terms and conditions of employment, or both
- college of cardinals — the collective body of cardinals having the function of electing and advising the pope
- college of education — a professional training college for teachers
- collegiate institute — (in certain provinces) a large secondary school with an academic, rather than vocational, emphasis
- colloidal suspension — a mixture having particles of one component, with diameters between 10 −7 and 10 −9 metres, suspended in a continuous phase of another component. The mixture has properties between those of a solution and a fine suspension
- colonial experiencer — affluent young Englishman who gained experience of farming, etc in colonial Australia
- common yellow throat — a widely distributed wood warbler, Geothlypis trichas, of North America and Mexico, in the male having a black facial mask and yellow underparts.
- common-sense realism — naive realism.
- commonwealth hackish — (jargon) Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
- comparative religion — a field of study seeking to derive general principles from a comparison and classification of the growth and influence of various religions.
- compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
- compartmentalization — to divide into categories or compartments.
- compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
- compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- complementary angles — either of two angles that added together produce an angle of 90°.
- complementary colors — any of two colors of the spectrum that, combined in the right intensities, produce white or nearly white light
- complementary colour — one of any pair of colours, such as yellow and blue, that give white or grey when mixed in the correct proportions
- complementary strand — either of the two chains that make up a double helix of DNA, with corresponding positions on the two chains being composed of a pair of complementary bases.
- complete unification — (programming) W.P. Weijland's name for unification without occur check.
- condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
- conformal projection — a map projection in which angles formed by lines are preserved: a map made using this projection preserves the shape of any small area.