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18-letter words containing a, r, c, h, i, t

  • legislative branch — the branch of government having the power to make laws; the legislature.
  • lighting cameraman — the person who designs and supervises the lighting of scenes to be filmed
  • lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
  • liqueur chocolates — chocolates containing liqueur
  • lithostratigraphic — Of or pertaining to lithostratigraphy.
  • logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
  • lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • magnetorheological — (physics) describing a substance whose rheological properties are modified by a magnetic field.
  • manchester terrier — one of a breed of slender terriers having a short, glossy, black-and-tan coat, raised originally in Manchester, England.
  • manhattan district — (during World War II) the code name for a unit of US army engineers established in 1942 to construct secret sites for the development of the atomic bomb
  • marketing research — the study of influences upon customer and consumer behaviour and the analysis of market characteristics and trends
  • mathematical error — a mistake in a mathematical calculation, etc
  • menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
  • merchant of venice — a comedy (1596?) by Shakespeare.
  • metacentric height — the distance between the center of gravity and the metacenter of a floating body, as of a vessel.
  • metamorphic facies — Geology. a group of metamorphic rock units characterized by particular mineralogic associations.
  • methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
  • microsoft exchange — (messaging)   Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.
  • miniature pinscher — one of a German breed of toy dogs resembling a smaller version of the Doberman pinscher, having a flat skull, a smooth coat, erect ears, and a docked tail, bred originally as a watchdog.
  • moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
  • modular arithmetic — arithmetic in which numbers that are congruent modulo a given number are treated as the same. Compare congruence (def 2), modulo, modulus (def 2b).
  • morphine addiction — the fact or condition of being addicted to morphine
  • natural childbirth — childbirth involving little or no use of drugs or anesthesia and usually involving a program in which the mother is psychologically and physically prepared for the birth process.
  • naval architecture — the science of designing ships and other waterborne craft.
  • neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
  • nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
  • nike of samothrace — a Greek marble statue (c200 b.c.) of Nike found at Samothrace and now in the Louvre, Paris.
  • non-characteristic — Also, characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.
  • noninterchangeable — That cannot be interchanged with another.
  • northeast corridor — the long, narrow strip of land between Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C., containing many adjacent urban areas.
  • octachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing eight chlorine atoms.
  • officer of the day — an officer who has charge of the guard and prisoners on an assigned day at a military installation. Abbreviation: OD, O.D., O.O.D.
  • on that/this score — You can use on that score or on this score to refer to something that has just been mentioned, especially an area of difficulty or concern.
  • optical brightener — an additive that dyes and brightens fabric or paper
  • organization chart — a diagrammatic representation showing how departments or divisions in an organization, as a large corporation, are related to one another along lines of authority.
  • oriental cockroach — a dark-brown cockroach, Blatta orientalis, thought to have originated in Asia but now nearly cosmopolitan in distribution.
  • orthophthalic acid — Chemistry. any of three isomeric acids having the formula C 8 H 6 O 4 , especially the ortho isomer (orthophthalic acid) a colorless, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes, medicine, and perfume.
  • orthotungstic acid — an oxyacid acid of tungsten. Formula: H2WO4
  • ovariohysterectomy — Surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus.
  • parachute regiment — an airborne regiment of an army
  • peppermint camphor — menthol.
  • peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
  • phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • philharmonic pitch — a standard of pitch in which A above middle C is established at 440 vibrations per second.
  • phthalic anhydride — a white, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 8 H 4 O 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes, alkyd resins, and plasticizers.
  • physical chemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical composition and transformations.
  • physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
  • physical therapist — sb who performs physiotherapy
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