0%

18-letter words containing a, g, m, e, n

  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
  • 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
  • datacenter manager — (job)   A person who plans and directs all computer and peripheral operations, data entry, data control scheduling and quality control.
  • dead man's fingers — a soft coral, Alcyonium digitatum, with long finger-like polyps
  • dead-man's fingers — any of various fungi, sponges, plant roots, animal parts, etc., having fingerlike projections and a pale or dull color, as the gray-black woodland fungus Xylaria polymorpha or the whitish spongy gills of a food crab.
  • definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
  • 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).
  • dependency grammar — a type of generative grammar in which grammatical structure is determined by the relationship between a governor and its dependents
  • determinate growth — growth of a plant stem that is terminated early by the formation of a bud
  • 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.
  • domain engineering — (systems analysis)   1. The development and evolution of domain specific knowledge and artifacts to support the development and evolution of systems in the domain. Domain engineering includes engineering of domain models, components, methods and tools and may also include asset management. 2. The engineering process of analysing and modelling a domain, designing and modelling a generic solution architecture for a product line within that domain, implementing and using reusable components of that architecture and maintaining and evolving the domain, architecture and implementation models. 3. A reuse-based approach to defining the scope (domain definition), specifying the structure (domain architecture) and building the Assets (requirements, designs, software code, documentation) for a class of systems, subsystems or applications. Domain engineering can include domain definition, domain analysis, developing the domain architecture domain implementation.
  • dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
  • drug on the market — Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
  • economic geography — a branch of geography that deals with the relation of physical and economic conditions to the production and utilization of raw materials and their manufacture into finished products.
  • electroretinograms — Plural form of electroretinogram.
  • endowment mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a life assurance policy and only the interest to the mortgagee during the term of the policy. The loan is repaid by the policy either when it matures or on the prior death of the policyholder
  • environment agency — an official agency providing information on environmental issues, esp rivers, flooding and pollution
  • ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
  • exchange programme — an arrangement in which people from different countries visit each other's country, perhaps to strengthen links between them or to improve foreign language skills
  • farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
  • federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • ferdinand magellan — Ferdinand, c1480–1521, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Straits of Magellan 1520 and the Philippines 1521.
  • flower arrangement — floral display
  • fluegelman, andrew — Andrew Fluegelman
  • foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
  • fragile x syndrome — a widespread form of mental retardation caused by a faulty gene on the X chromosome.
  • fragile-x syndrome — an inherited condition characterized by learning disability: affected individuals have an X-chromosome that is easily damaged under certain conditions
  • fragmentation bomb — a bomb designed to break into many small, high-velocity fragments when detonated.
  • fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
  • gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
  • gamal abdel nasser — Gamal Abdel [guh-mahl ab-doo l,, juh-] /gəˈmɑl ˈæb dʊl,, dʒə-/ (Show IPA), 1918–70, Egyptian military and political leader: prime minister of Egypt 1954–56; president of Egypt 1956–58; president of the United Arab Republic 1958–70.
  • gamblers anonymous — an organization that holds group meetings to help people who are addicted to gambling
  • gas-permeable lens — a semisoft contact lens, usually removed each day, that allows air to pass through to the eye and affords a wider range of vision corrections than a soft contact lens.
  • gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
  • gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
  • general san martin — a city in E Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
  • generative grammar — a linguistic theory that attempts to describe the tacit knowledge that a native speaker has of a language by establishing a set of explicit, formalized rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable sentences. Compare transformational grammar.
  • genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
  • genital mutilation — any type of cutting or removal of all or some of the genital organs, especially excision of the clitoris.
  • gensym corporation — (company)   A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
  • gentleman-commoner — (formerly) a member of a class of commoners enjoying special privileges at Oxford University.
  • german east africa — a former German territory in E Africa, the area now comprised of continental Tanzania and the independent republics of Rwanda and Burundi.
  • get someone's goat — to cause annoyance to someone
  • giant peacock moth — the largest European moth, an emperor, Saturnia pyri, reaching 15 cm (6 in.) in wingspan. It is mottled brown with a prominent ocellus on each wing and being night-flying can be mistaken for a bat
  • give someone a row — to scold someone; tell someone off
  • give someone pause — to make someone hesitant or uncertain
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?