20-letter words containing a, p, i, e
- black-bellied plover — a large plover, Pluvialis squatarola, of both the New and Old Worlds, having black underparts when in nuptial plumage.
- blow up in sb's face — If something that you have planned blows up in your face, it goes wrong unexpectedly, with the result that you suffer.
- board of supervisors — the governing body of a county in many U.S. states, especially in the Midwest and the East, consisting of from 15 to 100 members elected from towns, townships, cities, or wards.
- bomb disposal expert — an expert in bomb disposal
- brachiocephalic vein — either of two major veins, formed by the merger of the subclavian and internal jugular veins, that drain blood from the head and arms.
- brain fingerprinting — a technique in which sensors worn on the head are used to measure the involuntary brain activity of someone in response to certain images or pieces of evidence pertaining to a crime
- calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
- calcium permanganate — a violet, crystalline, deliquescent solid, Ca(MnO 4) 2 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a disinfectant and deodorizer.
- canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
- capacitive crosstalk — Capacitive crosstalk is a situation in which a signal on one line can cause a smaller version of the same signal on an adjacent line because of the capacitance between the lines.
- capacitive reactance — the opposition of capacitance to alternating current, equal to the reciprocal of the product of the angular frequency of the current times the capacitance. Symbol: X C.
- cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
- capital transfer tax — (in Britain) a tax payable from 1974 to 1986 at progressive rates on the cumulative total of gifts of money or property made during the donor's lifetime or after his death. It was replaced by inheritance tax
- capitation allowance — an amount of money given to a school based on the number of students it has
- casing head pressure — The casing head pressure is the pressure on the casing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
- cat's-tail speedwell — a widely cultivated Eurasian plant, Veronica spicata, of the figwort family, having blue flowers in long, spikelike clusters.
- catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
- catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
- cavendish experiment — the experiment, conducted by Henry Cavendish, that determined the constant of gravitation by using a torsion balance and measuring the torsion produced by two masses placed at given distances from the masses on the balance.
- cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
- centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
- chapter of accidents — a series of misfortunes
- character repertoire — (character) The set of all characters onto which a coded character set maps integers (code positions). For example, consider these two simple coded character sets: Coded Character Set One: integer 0 -> the character "A" integer 1 -> the character "B" Coded Character Set Two: integer 0 -> the character "B" integer 1 -> the character "A" Both of these coded character sets map to the characters "A" and "B", so they have the same character repertoire. But since the mapping is different (and obviously incompatible), these are different coded character sets.
- chebyshev polynomial — a polynomial solution of the Tchebycheff equation, of the form T n (x) = cos(n cos −1 x), where n is an integer.
- chemical fingerprint — a distinctive characteristic or pattern indicating the presence of a certain molecule, used to identify a chemical.
- chemically dependent — addicted to a drug or drugs
- chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
- chemotherapeutically — By means of chemotherapy.
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- chip scale packaging — (hardware) (CSP) A type of surface mount integrated circuit packaging that provides pre-speed-sorted, pre-tested and pre-packaged die without requiring special testing. An example is Motorola's Micro SMT packaging. See also: chip-on-board, flip chip, multichip module, known good die, ball grid array.
- christopher strachey — (person) Professor of Computation at Oxford, England, born 1916, died May 1975. He invented the term "currying". See also: General Purpose Macro-generator.
- clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
- cleansing department — the department of a local authority that collects refuse
- co-operative society — In Britain, a co-operative society is a commercial organization with several shops in a particular district. Customers can join this organization and get a share of its profits.
- colloidal suspension — a mixture having particles of one component, with diameters between 10 −7 and 10 −9 metres, suspended in a continuous phase of another component. The mixture has properties between those of a solution and a fine suspension
- colonial experiencer — affluent young Englishman who gained experience of farming, etc in colonial Australia
- comparative judgment — any judgment about whether there is a difference between two or more stimuli
- comparative religion — a field of study seeking to derive general principles from a comparison and classification of the growth and influence of various religions.
- compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
- compartmentalization — to divide into categories or compartments.
- compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
- compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
- compensation package — the sum of compensation awarded in a legal case
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- complete unification — (programming) W.P. Weijland's name for unification without occur check.
- composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
- computability theory — (mathematics) The area of theoretical computer science concerning what problems can be solved by any computer. A function is computable if an algorithm can be implemented which will give the correct output for any valid input. Since computer programs are countable but real numbers are not, it follows that there must exist real numbers that cannot be calculated by any program. Unfortunately, by definition, there isn't an easy way of describing any of them! In fact, there are many tasks (not just calculating real numbers) that computers cannot perform. The most well-known is the halting problem, the busy beaver problem is less famous but just as fascinating.
- computer programming — the activity or profession of writing computer programs
- conformal projection — a map projection in which angles formed by lines are preserved: a map made using this projection preserves the shape of any small area.