16-letter words containing a, g, s, i
- commission agent — a person who sells goods and services for a fee
- configurationism — Gestalt psychology
- congressionalist — of or relating to a congress.
- consanguineously — In a consanguineous fashion; by blood relationship.
- consenting adult — a male person over the age of sixteen, who may legally engage in homosexual behaviour in private
- considering that — You use considering that to indicate that you are thinking about a particular fact when making a judgment or giving an opinion.
- constant folding — (compiler) A compiler optimisation technique where constant subexpressions are evaluated at compile time. This is usually only applied to built-in numerical and boolean operators whereas partial evaluation is more general in that expressions involving user-defined functions may also be evaluated at compile time.
- constant mapping — (networking) A precursor to ARP used by some TCP software in which the destination Ethernet address is constructed from the top 24 bits of the source Ethernet address followed by the low 24 bits of the (class A) destination Internet address. For this scheme the top 24 bits of the Ethernet address must be the same on all hosts on the network.
- contagious magic — magic that attempts to affect a person through something once connected with him or her, as a shirt once worn by the person or a footprint left in the sand; a branch of sympathetic magic based on the belief that things once in contact are in some way permanently so, however separated physically they may subsequently become.
- coping mechanism — something a person does to deal with a difficult situation
- corona discharge — an electrical discharge appearing on and around the surface of a charged conductor, caused by ionization of the surrounding gas
- cottage hospital — a small rural hospital
- cottage industry — A cottage industry is a small business that is run from someone's home, especially one that involves a craft such as knitting or pottery.
- counterespionage — Counterespionage is the same as counterintelligence.
- countersignature — second signature
- crossopterygians — Plural form of crossopterygian.
- crystallographic — of, relating to, or dealing with crystals or crystallography.
- dagwood sandwich — a thick sandwich filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, dressings, and condiments.
- data warehousing — the use of large amounts of data taken from multiple sources to create reports and for data analysis
- de broglie waves — the set of waves that represent the behaviour of an elementary particle, or some atoms and molecules, under certain conditions. The de Broglie wavelength, λ, is given by λ = h/mv, where h is the Planck constant, m the mass, and v the velocity of the particle
- dearborn heights — city in SE Mich.: suburb of Detroit: pop. 58,000
- debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
- dechristianizing — Present participle of dechristianize.
- deep-sea fishing — the activity of catching fish that live in the deep parts of the sea
- delaying tactics — techniques used to delay sth
- dental hygienist — a dentist's assistant skilled in dental hygiene
- departure signal — a piece of equipment beside a railway which indicates to train drivers whether they should depart or not
- dephlogisticated — Simple past tense and past participle of dephlogisticate.
- depression glass — cheap glassware mass-produced during the Depression of the 1930s, usually molded in patterns in pale colors, and collectible since the early 1970s
- destigmatization — The process or act of destigmatizing.
- destroying angel — a white slender very poisonous basidiomycetous toadstool, Amanita virosa, having a pronounced volva, frilled, shaggy stalk, and sickly smell
- devil's triangle — Bermuda Triangle.
- diagonal process — a form of argument in which a new member of a set is constructed from a list of its known members by making the nth term of the new member differ from the nth term of the nth member. The new member is thus different from every member of the list
- digital research — (company) The company which developed CP/M, the operating system used on many of the first generation 8-bit microprocessor-based personal computers. Digital Research also produced DR-DOS. Address: Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
- dinosaurs mating — (humour) The activity said to occur when yet another big iron merger or buy-out occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the mainframe industry. Also described as "elephants mating": lots of noise and action at a high level, with an eventual outcome in the somewhat distant future. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was "IBM and the Seven Dwarves": Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. Early on, RCA sold out to Univac and GE also sold out, and it was "IBM and the BUNCH" (an acronym for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out by Bull. Univac in turn merged with Sperry to form Sperry/Univac, which was later merged (although the employees of Sperry called it a hostile takeover) with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1986 (this was when the phrase "dinosaurs mating" was coined). In 1991 AT&T absorbed NCR, only to spit it out again in 1996. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988 and later others. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.
- diphthongisation — The process by which a single vowel sound (monophthong) shifts to a two-vowel vocalization (diphthong).
- disagreeableness — (uncountable) The state or quality of being disagreeable.
- disappearing act — magic trick
- discharging arch — an arch for taking some of the weight from a structural member beneath it.
- disclosing agent — a vegetable dye, administered as a liquid or in tablet form (disclosing tablet), that stains plaque, making it readily apparent on the teeth
- discographically — In terms of discography.
- discombobulating — Present participle of discombobulate.
- discountenancing — Present participle of discountenance.
- discriminatingly — With discrimination.
- disenfranchising — Present participle of disenfranchise.
- dispersing agent — a surface-active substance added to a suspension, usually a colloid, to improve the separation of particles and to prevent settling or clumping
- disposable goods — consumer goods that are used up a short time after purchase, including perishables, newspapers, clothes, etc
- district heating — a heating system in which centrally generated heat is distributed via ducts and pipes to multiple buildings or locations
- division algebra — a linear algebra in which each element of the vector space has a multiplicative inverse.
- double-breasting — the practice of employing nonunion workers, especially in a separate division, to supplement the work of higher-paid union workers.