18-letter words containing a, p, e, r, i
- calcium propionate — a white, water-soluble powder, CaC 6 H 10 O 4 , used in bakery products to inhibit the growth of fungi.
- calliper compasses — an instrument for measuring internal or external dimensions, consisting of two steel legs hinged together
- campaign furniture — furniture, as chests or desks, having metal hinges on the corners and handles on the sides.
- cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
- carthaginian peace — the treaty by which Rome reduced Carthage to the status of a puppet state in 201 b.c.
- cassiopeia's chair — the five brightest stars in the constellation Cassiopeia that seem to form the shape of a W or M
- castration complex — an unconscious fear of having one's genitals removed, as a punishment for wishing to have sex with a parent
- caterpillar hunter — any of various carabid beetles of the genus Calosoma, of Europe and North America, which prey on the larvae of moths and butterflies
- central projection — a projection of one plane onto a second plane such that a point on the first plane and its image on the second plane lie on a straight line through a fixed point not on either plane.
- cepheid (variable) — any of a class of pulsating, yellow, supergiant stars whose brightness varies in regular periods: from the period-luminosity relation, the distance of such a star can be determined
- chagos archipelago — group of islands in the Indian Ocean 1,180 mi (1,899 km) northeast of Mauritius, comprising the British Indian Ocean Territory: chief island, Diego Garcia
- character graphics — ASCII art
- checkpoint charlie — a crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War
- chemical pregnancy — a pregnancy that is confirmed by a pregnancy test but not by clinical signs and terminates before clinical signs can be observed.
- christine de pisan — ?1364–?1430, French poet and prose writer, born in Venice. Her works include ballads, rondeaux, lays, and a biography of Charles V of France
- chromolithographer — One engaged in chromolithography.
- citizenship papers — the document stating that a naturalized person has been formally declared a citizen
- closed corporation — a corporation the stock of which is owned by a small number of persons and is rarely traded on the open market
- closed scholarship — a scholarship for which only certain people, such as those from a particular school or with a particular surname, are eligible
- combined operation — a military operation carried out jointly by allied forces
- commando operation — a major operation for treatment of cancer of the head and neck, involving removal of many facial structures and subsequent surgical reconstruction
- comparative method — a body of procedures and criteria used by linguists to determine whether and how two or more languages are related and to reconstruct forms of their hypothetical parent language.
- comparison shopper — an employee of a retail store hired to visit competing stores in order to gather information regarding styles, quality, prices, etc., of merchandise offered by competitors.
- compartmentalizing — Present participle of compartmentalize.
- compensation award — an amount of money awarded as compensation in a court case
- compensation order — (in Britain) the requirement of a court that an offender pay compensation for injury, loss, or damage resulting from an offence, either in preference to or as well as a fine
- complementarianism — The doctrine that genders in a society should have complementary roles.
- complexity measure — (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
- compliance officer — a specialist, usually a lawyer, employed by a financial group operating in a variety of fields and for multiple clients to ensure that no conflict of interest arises and that all obligations and regulations are complied with
- compressor station — A compressor station is a facility with several compressors (= devices that increase the pressure of air or natural gas) and other equipment to pump natural gas under pressure over long distances.
- computer animation — animated film or video that is generated by computers
- concentration camp — A concentration camp is a prison in which large numbers of ordinary people are kept in very bad conditions, usually during a war.
- concentration span — the length of time a person can concentrate on something
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
- conjugated protein — a biochemical compound consisting of a sequence of amino acids making up a simple protein to which another nonprotein group (a prosthetic group), such as a carbohydrate or lipid group, is attached
- conservative party — The Conservative Party is the main right-of-centre party in Britain.
- constituency party — a branch of a political party operating within a constituency
- construction paper — Construction paper is a type of stiff, colored paper that children use for drawing and for making things.
- controllable-pitch — (of a marine or aircraft propeller) having blades whose pitch can be changed during navigation or flight; variable-pitch.
- conversation piece — something, esp an unusual object, that provokes conversation
- cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
- corporate anorexia — a malaise of a business organization resulting from making too many creative people redundant in efforts to cut costs
- corporate identity — business brand
- counter-adaptation — the act of adapting.
- 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
- countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
- 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.
- creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently