18-letter words containing a, g, h
- 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 graphics — ASCII art
- 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.
- charge of quarters — a member of the armed forces who handles administration in his or her unit, esp after duty hours
- 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.
- cholangiocarcinoma — (pathology) Cancer of the bile duct.
- christmas shopping — shopping especially for Christmas presents, but also for Christmas food and drink, and all the other things required over the Christmas period.
- christmas stocking — A Christmas stocking is a long sock which children hang up on Christmas Eve. During the night, parents fill the stocking with small presents.
- chromatic printing — printing from blocks or types inked with various colours
- chromolithographer — One engaged in chromolithography.
- chromolithographic — Pertaining to, or made by, chromolithography.
- chronostratigraphy — The branch of geology concerned with establishing the absolute ages of strata.
- 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
- 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
- clinical pathology — the branch of pathology dealing with the study of disease and disease processes by means of chemical, microscopic, and serologic examinations.
- 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
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- colour photography — the art or process of taking and developing photographs in colour
- 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
- 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.
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- crested wheatgrass — a forage grass, Agropyron cristatum, native to Eurasia and grown in the Great Plains as pasturage, hay, and for erosion control.
- cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
- dagwood (sandwich) — a thick sandwich with a variety of fillings, often of apparently incompatible foods
- deadweight tonnage — the capacity in long tons of cargo, passengers, fuel, stores, etc. (deadweight tons) of a vessel: the difference between the loaded and light displacement tonnage of the vessel.
- demorgan's theorem — (logic) A logical theorem which states that the complement of a conjunction is the disjunction of the complements or vice versa. In symbols: not (x and y) = (not x) or (not y) not (x or y) = (not x) and (not y) E.g. if it is not the case that I am tall and thin then I am either short or fat (or both). The theorem can be extended to combinations of more than two terms in the obvious way. The same laws also apply to sets, replacing logical complement with set complement, conjunction ("and") with set intersection, and disjunction ("or") with set union. A (C) programmer might use this to re-write if (!foo && !bar) ... as if (!(foo || bar)) ... thus saving one operator application (though an optimising compiler should do the same, leaving the programmer free to use whichever form seemed clearest).
- dermot macmurrough — ?1110–71, king of Leinster, who, by enlisting the support of the English to win back his kingdom, was responsible for the English conquest of Ireland
- determinate growth — growth of a plant stem that is terminated early by the formation of a bud
- dielectric heating — the heating of a nonconducting substance caused by dielectric loss when the material is placed in a variable electric field.
- digital humanities — (used with a singular verb) the study of literature, philosophy, etc., as facilitated by computer technology or digital media: Digital humanities uses data analysis to find patterns in large bodies of text. the set of methodologies used in such scholarship.
- digital switchover — the process of changing the method of transmitting television from analogue to digital format
- digital technology — the branch of scientific or engineering knowledge that deals with the creation and practical use of digital or computerized devices, methods, systems, etc.: advances in digital technology.
- diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
- discharge printing — a fabric-printing method in which the material is dyed and then certain areas are discharged so as to permit the original hue or its color replacement to act as a pattern against the colored ground.
- dishwashing liquid — Dishwashing liquid is a thick soapy liquid which you add to hot water to clean dirty dishes.
- distinguishability — to mark off as different (often followed by from or by): He was distinguished from the other boys by his height.
- division algorithm — the theorem that an integer can be written as the sum of the product of two integers, one a given positive integer, added to a positive integer smaller than the given positive integer. Compare Euclidean algorithm.
- do not give a hoot — If you say that you don't give a hoot or don't care two hoots about something, you are emphasizing that you do not care at all about it.
- drinking chocolate — sweetened cocoa powder