0%

24-letter words containing a, e, r, i, l

  • cerebrospinal meningitis — an acute infectious form of meningitis caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis, characterized by high fever, skin rash, delirium, stupor, and sometimes coma
  • cerebrovascular accident — a sudden interruption of the blood supply to the brain caused by rupture of an artery in the brain (cerebral haemorrhage) or the blocking of a blood vessel, as by a clot of blood (cerebral occlusion)
  • circuit court of appeals — court of appeals (sense 2)
  • coal-fired power station — a power station that generates electricity by the burning of coal
  • colony collapse disorder — a pathological condition affecting a large number of honeybee colonies, in which various stresses may lead to the abrupt disappearance of worker bees from the hive, leaving only the queen and newly hatched bees behind and thus causing the colony to stop functioning. Abbreviation: CCD.
  • command-line interpreter — command interpreter
  • common information model — (standard)   (CIM) An open systems management standard driven by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).
  • compensatory lengthening — the lengthening of a vowel when a following consonant is weakened or lost, as the change from Old English niht [nikht] /nɪxt/ (Show IPA) to night [nahyt] /naɪt/ (Show IPA) with loss of [kh] /x/ (Show IPA) and lengthening of [i] /ɪ/ (Show IPA) to a vowel that eventually became [ahy] /aɪ/ (Show IPA).
  • compiler target language — (CTL) The intermediate language used by the ALICE parallel machine.
  • complexometric titration — a titration in which a coloured complex is formed, usually by the use of a chelating agent, such as EDTA, the end point being marked by a sharp decrease in the concentration of free metal ions
  • computer design language — (language)   An ALGOL-like language for computer design.
  • confederate memorial day — a day set aside in the South to pay tribute to those who served with the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. It is observed on April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; on May 10 in North Carolina and South Carolina; on May 30 in Virginia; and on June 3 in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee.
  • congestive heart failure — heart failure characterized by weakness, breathlessness, and abnormal congestion in the circulatory system, esp. in the lungs or lower legs
  • consonantal alliteration — the use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word or each stressed syllable in a line of verse, as in around the rock the ragged rascal ran
  • constant linear velocity — (storage)   (CLV) A way of controlling the rotation of the disks in a disk drive in which the linear velocity of the disk surface relative to the read/write heads is kept constant. In order to achieve constant linear velocity, the disk must rotate faster (at a higher angular velocity) when reading or writing tracks closer to the centre. Having a constant linear read/write speed along the track means that the electrical signal to and from the heads has a constant data rate (bits per second), thus simplifying the timing of the drive electronics somewhat. However, rotating at less than the maximum possible rate sacrifices some potential performance compared to the alternative, constant angular velocity. Also, varying the rate causes more vibration and consumes more energy.
  • constantinopolitan creed — a formal statement of the chief tenets of Christian belief, adopted by the first Nicene Council.
  • consultant paediatrician — a paediatrician who has attained the rank of consultant
  • cooperative multitasking — (parallel, operating system)   A form of multitasking where it is the responsibility of the currently running task to give up the processor to allow other tasks to run. This contrasts with pre-emptive multitasking where the task scheduler periodically suspends the running task and restarts another. Cooperative multitasking requires the programmer to place calls at suitable points in his code to allow his task to be descheduled which is not always easy if there is no obvious top-level main loop or some routines run for a long time. If a task does not allow itself to be descheduled all other tasks on the system will appear to "freeze" and will not respond to user action. The advantage of cooperative multitasking is that the programmer knows where the program will be descheduled and can make sure that this will not cause unwanted interaction with other processes. Under pre-emptive multitasking, the scheduler must ensure that sufficient state for each process is saved and restored that they will not interfere. Thus cooperative multitasking can have lower overheads than pre-emptive multitasking because of the greater control it offers over when a task may be descheduled. Cooperative multitasking is used in RISC OS, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh System 7.
  • curiosity killed the cat — You say 'Curiosity killed the cat' in order to tell someone that they should not try to find out about something which does not concern them.
  • dead white european male — a man whose importance and talents may have been exaggerated because he belonged to a historically dominant gender and ethnic group
  • decentralized processing — the use of word processing or data processing units in stand-alone or localized situations
  • definite relative clause — a relative clause with a definite relative pronoun as subordinating word, as that they said in We heard the things that they said.
  • descriptive bibliography — the aspect of bibliography concerned with the close physical study and description of books and other works.
  • destructive distillation — the decomposition of a complex substance, such as wood or coal, by heating it in the absence of air and collecting the volatile products
  • differential association — a theory that criminal and deviant behavior is learned through close and frequent association with criminal or deviant behavior patterns, norms, and values.
  • differential coefficient — derivative (def 6).
  • digital switched network — (communications)   (DSN) The completely digital version of the PSTN.
  • diphenylaminechlorarsine — adamsite.
  • disestablishmentarianism — a person who favors the separation of church and state, especially the withdrawal of special rights, status, and support granted an established church by a state; an advocate of disestablishing a state church.
  • display screen equipment — Visual Display Unit
  • domestic relations court — in some states, a court with jurisdiction over matters involving relations within the family or household, as between husband and wife or parent and child
  • domestic-relations court — court of domestic relations.
  • ecole normale superieure — (body)   (ENS) A higher education and research institution in Paris, France.
  • electrocardiographically — By means of electrocardiography.
  • electromagnetic spectrum — the complete range of electromagnetic radiation from the longest radio waves (wavelength 105 metres) to the shortest gamma radiation (wavelength 10–13 metre)
  • electronic configuration — the arrangement of electrons in the orbitals of an atom or molecule
  • electronic point of sale — a computerized system for recording sales in retail shops, using a laser scanner at the cash till to read bar codes on the packages of the items sold
  • electronic whiteboarding — audiographic teleconferencing
  • emotional roller coaster — a situation or experience that alternates between making you feel excited, exhilarated, or happy and making you feel sad, disappointed, or desperate
  • endotracheal anaesthesia — a method of administering gaseous anaesthetics to animals through a tube inserted into the trachea
  • english springer spaniel — breed of dog
  • environmental assessment — a formal assessment of the impact a project will have on the environment
  • environmental management — controlled and planned management of the environment
  • environmentally friendly — that has no or the least possible impact on the environment
  • equivalence partitioning — equivalence class partitioning
  • erythroblastosis fetalis — an anaemic blood disease of a fetus or newborn child, characterized by erythroblasts in the circulating blood: caused by a blood incompatibility between mother and fetus
  • ethyl-para-aminobenzoate — benzocaine
  • evolutionary computation — Computer-based problem solving systems that use computational models of evolutionary processes as the key elements in design and implementation. A number of evolutionary computational models have been proposed, including evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms, the evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, and artificial life.
  • evolutionary programming — (EP) A stochastic optimisation strategy originally conceived by Lawrence J. Fogel in 1960. An initially random population of individuals (trial solutions) is created. Mutations are then applied to each individual to create new individuals. Mutations vary in the severity of their effect on the behaviour of the individual. The new individuals are then compared in a "tournament" to select which should survive to form the new population. EP is similar to a genetic algorithm, but models only the behavioural linkage between parents and their offspring, rather than seeking to emulate specific genetic operators from nature such as the encoding of behaviour in a genome and recombination by genetic crossover. EP is also similar to an evolution strategy (ES) although the two approaches developed independently. In EP, selection is by comparison with a randomly chosen set of other individuals whereas ES typically uses deterministic selection in which the worst individuals are purged from the population.
  • exponential distribution — a continuous single-parameter distribution used esp when making statements about the length of life of certain materials or waiting times between randomly occurring events. Its density function is p(x) = λe–λx for positive λ and nonnegative x, and it is a special case of the gamma distribution
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?