22-letter words containing a, p, t, e
- categorical imperative — (in the ethics of Kant) the unconditional moral principle that one's behaviour should accord with universalizable maxims which respect persons as ends in themselves; the obligation to do one's duty for its own sake and not in pursuit of further ends
- central african empire — a former name (1976–79) of Central African Republic.
- certificate of deposit — a negotiable certificate issued by a bank in return for a deposit of money for a term of up to five years
- challenge to the polls — an objection by counsel to one or more of the individual jurors called to a trial
- chemical sympathectomy — the chemical destruction of one or more parts of the sympathetic nervous system
- chemical-sympathectomy — sympathectomy (def 2).
- client-centred therapy — a form of psychotherapy in which the therapist makes no attempt to interpret what the patient says but encourages him or her to develop his or her own attitudes and insights, often by questioning
- color graphics adapter — (hardware, graphics) (CGA) One of IBM's earliest hardware video display standards for use in IBM PCs. CGA can display 80*25 or 40*25 text in 16 colors, 640*200 pixels of graphics in two colors or 320*200 in four colors (IBM PC video modes 0-6). It is now obsolete.
- colorado potato beetle — a black and yellow leaf beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata, originally of Colorado and neighboring states but now a common pest in all potato-growing regions of the U.S.
- comma separated values — (file format) (CSV) A file format used as a portable representation of a database. Each line is one entry or record and the fields in a record are separated by commas. Commas may be followed by arbitrary space and/or tab characters which are ignored. If field includes a comma, the whole field must be surrounded with double quotes.
- common snapping turtle — a large aggressive North American river turtle, Chelydra serpentina, having powerful hooked jaws and a rough shell
- compactness preserving — (theory) In domain theory, a function f is compactness preserving if f c is compact whenever c is.
- company sergeant major — the senior Warrant Officer II in a British or Commonwealth regiment or battalion, responsible under the company second in command for all aspects of duty and discipline of the NCOs and men in that subunit
- comparative government — the study and comparison of different forms of government.
- comparative literature — the comparative study of various national literatures, stressing their influence one upon another, their use of similar forms, their treatment of similar themes, etc.
- comparative musicology — ethnomusicology.
- comparative psychology — the study of the similarities and differences in the behaviour of different species
- compass deviation card — a card, sheet, or the like, with two compass roses printed on it concentrically, for recording, on a given voyage, the amount of deviation for which the navigator must compensate in using the ship's compass to steer a magnetic course.
- complementary medicine — the treatment, alleviation, or prevention of disease by such techniques as osteopathy, homeopathy, aromatherapy, and acupuncture, allied with attention to such factors as diet and emotional stability, which can affect a person's wellbeing
- complete metamorphosis — physical changes in the development of certain insects that include egg, larva, pupa, and adult stages, as in beetles, moths, or bees
- complete quadrilateral — a polygon consisting of four lines and their six points of intersection
- component architecture — (programming) A notion in object-oriented programming where "components" of a program are completely generic. Instead of having a specialised set of methods and fields they have generic methods through which the component can advertise the functionality it supports to the system into which it is loaded. This enables completely dynamic loading of objects. JavaBeans is an example of a component architecture. See also design pattern.
- compound annual return — the total return available from an investment, deposit, etc, when the interest earned is used to augment the capital
- compuserve corporation — (company) The parent organisation of CompuServe Information Service, CompuServe Network Services and CompuServe Remote Computing Services. CompuServe was owned by H.R. Block but is now (1999) owned by America On-Line.
- computational geometry — (mathematics) The study of algorithms for combinatorial, topological, and metric problems concerning sets of points, typically in Euclidean space. Representative areas of research include geometric search, convexity, proximity, intersection, and linear programming.
- computational learning — grammatical inference
- concurrent massey hope — (language, functional programming) An extension of Massey Hope, by Peter Burgess, Robert Pointon, and Nigel Perry <[email protected]> of Massey University, NZ, that provides multithreading and typed inter-thread communication. It uses C for intermediate code rather than assembly language.
- conservation of parity — the principle that the parity of the total wave function describing a system of elementary particles is conserved. In fact it is not conserved in weak interactions
- continental philosophy — a general term for related philosophical traditions that originated in 20th-century continental Europe, including critical theory, deconstruction, existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and structuralism (contrasted with analytic philosophy).
- contract of employment — a written agreement between an employer and an employee, that, taken together with the rights of each under statute and common law, determines the employment relations between them
- corporate headquarters — the main offices of a corporation, from where it runs its business
- corporate manslaughter — the death of someone caused by an act of corporate negligence
- corrupt practices acts — laws limiting contributions to and expenditures in election campaigns, making illegal certain methods of influencing voters, etc.
- counterinterpretations — Plural form of counterinterpretation.
- curvature of the spine — a condition in which the spine is abnormally curved
- cytidine monophosphate — a nucleotide constituent of ribonucleic acids; a phosphoric acid ester of cytidine. Abbreviation: CMP.
- d'alembert's principle — the principle that for a moving body the external forces are in equilibrium with the inertial forces; a generalization of Newton's third law of motion
- damn with faint praise — If someone damns something with faint praise, they say something about it which sounds quite nice but is not enthusiastic, and shows that they do not have a high opinion of it.
- decompartmentalization — the act of decompartmentalizing
- dehydroepiandrosterone — the most abundant steroid in the human body, that is involved in the manufacture of testosterone, oestrogen, progesterone, and corticosterone
- department of commerce — the department of the U.S. federal government that promotes and administers domestic and foreign commerce. Abbreviation: DOC.
- descriptive cataloging — the aspect of cataloging concerned with the bibliographic and physical description of a book, recording, or other work, accounting for such items as author or performer, title, edition, and imprint as opposed to subject content.
- descriptive statistics — the use of statistics to describe a set of known data in a clear and concise manner, as in terms of its mean and variance, or diagrammatically, as by a histogram
- developmental disorder — any condition, such as autism or dyslexia, that appears in childhood and is characterized by delay in the development of one or more psychological functions, such as language skill
- dicyclopentadienyliron — ferrocene (def 1).
- directed acyclic graph — (DAG) A directed graph containing no cycles. This means that if there is a route from node A to node B then there is no way back.
- directional microphone — a microphone that has a greater sensitivity to sounds coming from a particular area in front of it: used to eliminate unwanted sounds.
- disciplinary committee — a committee charged with examining alleged breaches of discipline within an organization, profession, etc and adjudicating on them
- disposable soma theory — the theory that ageing is caused by the body having increasingly fewer resources to allocate towards repairing wear and damage to tissues
- duplex high speed data — (DHSD) A term which describes a full-duplex channel that can carry 64 kilobits per second. This is the kind of service provided by an Inmarsat-B type portable earth station or a leased line (not ISDN).