16-letter words containing a, r, n, t, l
- counterchallenge — A challenge made in response to another challenge.
- counterfactually — a conditional statement the first clause of which expresses something contrary to fact, as “If I had known.”.
- counterguerrilla — (of operations, conflicts, etc) conducted against guerrillas
- counterproposals — Plural form of counterproposal.
- cray instability — A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful machine such as a Cray. Generally more subtle than bugs that can be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or minicomputer.
- criminal assault — a punishable offence of attempting to harm another person through physical contact
- criminal justice — the system of law enforcement, involving police, lawyers, courts, and corrections, used for all stages of criminal proceedings and punishment.
- critical damping — the minimum amount of viscous damping that results in a displaced system returning to its original position without oscillation
- critical density — the density of matter that would be required to halt the expansion of the universe
- critical section — A non-re-entrant piece of code that can only be executed by one process at a time. It will usually terminate in bounded time and a process will only have to wait a bounded time to enter it. Some synchronisation mechanism is required at the entry and exit of the critical section to ensure exclusive use.
- cross-validation — a process by which a method that works for one sample of a population is checked for validity by applying the method to another sample from the same population.
- 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
- crystalline lens — a biconvex transparent elastic structure in the eye situated behind the iris, serving to focus images on the retina
- cut and blow-dry — a hairdressing procedure in which the customer's hair is cut and blow-dried
- 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.
- dear john letter — a letter from someone (esp to a man) breaking off a love affair
- 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.
- definite article — The word 'the' is sometimes called the definite article.
- 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
- deindustrialised — Simple past tense and past participle of deindustrialise.
- deindustrialized — Simple past tense and past participle of deindustrialize.
- delayed reaction — response after an interval
- deliberativeness — The state or quality of being deliberative.
- delta conversion — delta reduction
- 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.
- demonstrableness — The quality of being demonstrable.
- denaturalization — The act or process of denaturalizing, of changing or destroying the quality (nature) of a thing.
- dental insurance — Dental insurance is insurance that pays for treatment by a dentist.
- denuclearization — The act or process of denuclearizing.
- departmentalized — Simple past tense and past participle of departmentalize.
- departmentalizes — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of departmentalize.
- departure lounge — In an airport, the departure lounge is the place where passengers wait before they get onto their plane.
- departure signal — a piece of equipment beside a railway which indicates to train drivers whether they should depart or not
- depleted uranium — Depleted uranium is a type of uranium that is used in some bombs.
- depolymerisation — (chemistry) alternative spelling of depolymerization.
- depolymerization — (chemistry) The decomposition of a polymer into smaller fragments.
- 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
- determinableness — Capability of being determined; determinability.
- 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
- devil's triangle — Bermuda Triangle.
- diacetylmorphine — heroin.
- 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.
- diethyl carbinol — a colorless, liquid isomer of amyl alcohol, (CH3CH2)2CHOH, used in drugs and as a solvent