16-letter words containing a, n, d, r, o, e
- 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.
- couvade syndrome — a psychosomatic condition in which the spouse or partner of a pregnant woman experiences symptoms of childbirth or pregnancy
- cracked fraction — A cracked fraction is a petroleum fraction (= a portion separated according to a physical property) that has been broken down from a fraction with larger molecules.
- croydon facelift — the tightening effect on the skin of a woman's face caused by securing the hair at the back of the head in a tight ponytail
- cyanogen bromide — a colorless, slightly water-soluble, poisonous, volatile, crystalline solid, BrCN, used chiefly as a fumigant and a pesticide.
- dangling pointer — (programming) A reference that doesn't actually lead anywhere. In C and some other languages, a pointer that doesn't actually point at anything valid. Usually this happens because it formerly pointed to something that has moved or disappeared, e.g. a heap-allocated block which has been freed and reused. Used as jargon in a generalisation of its technical meaning; for example, a local phone number for a person who has since moved is a dangling pointer.
- dark of the moon — the period during which the moon is not visible.
- darwinian theory — Darwin's theory of evolution, which holds that all species of plants and animals developed from earlier forms by hereditary transmission of slight variations in successive generations, and that natural selection determines which forms will survive
- data compression — the act of compressing.
- data preparation — the process of converting data or information into a form that can be read by a computer, so that the data can then be entered into the computer
- data warehousing — the use of large amounts of data taken from multiple sources to create reports and for data analysis
- davidson current — a winter countercurrent that flows N along the W coast of the U.S.
- day of reckoning — If someone talks about the day of reckoning, they mean a day or time in the future when people will be forced to deal with an unpleasant situation which they have avoided until now.
- de morgan's laws — (in formal logic and set theory) the principles that conjunction and disjunction, or union and intersection, are dual. Thus the negation of P & Q is equivalent to not-P or not-Q
- de-concentration — to reduce the power or control of (a corporation, industry, etc.); decentralize.
- dear john letter — a letter from someone (esp to a man) breaking off a love affair
- dearborn heights — city in SE Mich.: suburb of Detroit: pop. 58,000
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- decentralisation — Alternative spelling of decentralization.
- decentralization — to distribute the administrative powers or functions of (a central authority) over a less concentrated area: to decentralize the national government.
- decimal fraction — a fraction whose denominator is some power of 10, usually indicated by a dot (decimal point or point) written before the numerator: as 0.4 = 4/10; 0.126 = 126/1000.
- declare war (on) — to make a formal declaration of being at war (with)
- deflationary gap — a situation in which total spending in an economy is insufficient to buy all the output that can be produced with full employment
- delayed reaction — response after an interval
- delta conversion — delta reduction
- dementia praecox — schizophrenia
- demilitarisation — The removal of a military force, usually at the end of hostilities or as part of a treaty.
- demilitarization — to deprive of military character; free from militarism.
- demineralisation — Alternative spelling of demineralization.
- demineralization — to remove minerals from; deprive of mineral content.
- demoiselle crane — a gray crane, Anthropoides virgo, of northern Africa, Europe, and Asia, having long, white plumes behind each eye.
- demonstrableness — The quality of being demonstrable.
- denaturalization — The act or process of denaturalizing, of changing or destroying the quality (nature) of a thing.
- denuclearization — The act or process of denuclearizing.
- department store — A department store is a large shop which sells many different kinds of goods.
- departure lounge — In an airport, the departure lounge is the place where passengers wait before they get onto their plane.
- depolymerisation — (chemistry) alternative spelling of depolymerization.
- depolymerization — (chemistry) The decomposition of a polymer into smaller fragments.
- 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
- depressurization — to remove the air pressure from (a pressurized compartment of an aircraft or spacecraft).
- deradicalization — the practice of encouraging those with extreme and violent religious or political ideologies to adopt more moderate views
- destroying angel — a white slender very poisonous basidiomycetous toadstool, Amanita virosa, having a pronounced volva, frilled, shaggy stalk, and sickly smell
- deuterocanonical — of or constituting a second or subsequent canon; specif., designating certain Biblical books accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, but held by Protestants to be apocryphal
- development area — (in Britain) an area suffering from high unemployment and economic depression, because of the decline of its main industries, that is given government help to establish new industries
- devonshire cream — clotted cream.
- dew-point spread — the degrees of difference between the air temperature and the dew point
- dextromethorphan — (pharmaceutical drug) An antitussive drug (a cough suppressant) that is found in many over-the-counter cold and cough preparations.
- diacetylmorphine — heroin.
- 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
- dictionary flame — [Usenet] An attempt to sidetrack a debate away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise. A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to disputes about reality. Compare spelling flame.