16-letter words containing a, s, r, i
- conversion ratio — (in a reactor) the number of fissionable atoms produced by each fissionable atom that is destroyed.
- conversion table — a diagram which shows equivalent amounts in different measuring systems
- cordon sanitaire — a guarded line serving to cut off an infected area
- cornet à pistons — a three-valved brass instrument of the trumpet family. Written range: about two and a half octaves upwards from E below middle C. It is a transposing instrument in B flat or A
- cornet-a-pistons — cornet (def 1).
- corona australis — a small faint constellation in the S hemisphere between Ara and Pavo
- corona discharge — an electrical discharge appearing on and around the surface of a charged conductor, caused by ionization of the surrounding gas
- coronary cushion — a thick band of vascular tissue in the coronet of horses and other hoofed animals that secretes the horny wall of the hoof.
- coroutine pascal — ["Control Separation in Programming languages", Lemon et al, ACM Ann Conf 1977].
- corporation stop — a cock controlling the flow of water or gas from mains to individual consumers.
- cottage industry — A cottage industry is a small business that is run from someone's home, especially one that involves a craft such as knitting or pottery.
- counter-instance — a case or occurrence of anything: fresh instances of oppression.
- counterespionage — Counterespionage is the same as counterintelligence.
- counterirritants — Plural form of counterirritant.
- counternarcotics — Measures or activities designed to prevent the use or distrubution of iillegal narcotic drugs.
- countersignature — second signature
- course of action — a way of proceeding
- cowichan sweater — a heavy sweater of grey, unbleached wool with distinctive designs that were originally black-and-white but are now sometimes coloured: knitted originally by Cowichan Indians in British Columbia
- craftspersonship — The body of activities, skills, techniques, knowledge, and expertise pertinent to (a) particular craft(s).
- 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.
- crease-resistant — (of a fabric, garment, etc) designed to remain uncreased when subjected to wear or use
- creation science — teaching and research based upon the belief that the biblical account of the creation of the world is scientific fact
- creative commons — Sometimes, creative commons. a set of various licenses that allow people to share their copyrighted work to be copied, edited, built upon, etc., while retaining the copyright to the original work (often used attributively): We’re happy for other sites to share these photos under Creative Commons; a creative commons license.
- creative tension — a situation where disagreement or discord ultimately gives rise to better ideas or outcomes
- crime of passion — a crime, often a murder, committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- crime passionnel — a crime committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- 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 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-curricular — denoting or relating to an approach to a topic that includes contributions from several different disciplines and viewpoints
- cross-resistance — immunologic resistance to the pathogenic effects of a microorganism because of previous exposure to another species or type having cross-reactive antigens.
- 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.
- crosscontaminate — Alternative spelling of cross-contaminate.
- crossopterygians — Plural form of crossopterygian.
- cryoprecipitates — Plural form of cryoprecipitate.
- cryopreservation — the storage of blood or living tissues at extremely cold temperatures, often -196 degrees Celsius.
- crystalline lens — a biconvex transparent elastic structure in the eye situated behind the iris, serving to focus images on the retina
- crystallographic — of, relating to, or dealing with crystals or crystallography.
- curlew sandpiper — a common Eurasian sandpiper, Calidris ferruginea, having a brick-red breeding plumage and a greyish winter plumage
- currier and ives — any of a 19th-cent. series of prints showing the manners, people, and events of the times
- dark-side hacker — (jargon, legal) A criminal or malicious hacker; a cracker. From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the dark side of the Force". The implication that hackers form a sort of elite of technological Jedi Knights is intended. Opposite: samurai.
- darwin's finches — the finches of the subfamily Geospizinae of the Galapagos Islands, showing great variation in bill structure and feeding habits: provided Darwin with evidence to support his theory of evolution
- data abstraction — (data) Any representation of data in which the implementation details are hidden (abstracted). Abstract data types and objects are the two primary forms of data abstraction.
- data compression — the act of compressing.
- data warehousing — the use of large amounts of data taken from multiple sources to create reports and for data analysis
- davidson current — a winter countercurrent that flows N along the W coast of the U.S.
- de broglie waves — the set of waves that represent the behaviour of an elementary particle, or some atoms and molecules, under certain conditions. The de Broglie wavelength, λ, is given by λ = h/mv, where h is the Planck constant, m the mass, and v the velocity of the particle
- dearborn heights — city in SE Mich.: suburb of Detroit: pop. 58,000
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.