16-letter words containing a, s, t, o, n, i
- cornet-a-pistons — cornet (def 1).
- corona australis — a small faint constellation in the S hemisphere between Ara and Pavo
- 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.
- council of state — a council that deliberates on high-level policies of a government.
- 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).
- 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
- 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-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.
- cryopreservation — the storage of blood or living tissues at extremely cold temperatures, often -196 degrees Celsius.
- dakin's solution — a dilute solution containing sodium hypochlorite and boric acid, used as an antiseptic in the treatment of wounds
- 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 acquisition — data logging
- 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-stalinization — the elimination of the influence of Stalin
- dearborn heights — city in SE Mich.: suburb of Detroit: pop. 58,000
- debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
- 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.
- decentralisation — Alternative spelling of decentralization.
- declassification — to remove the classification from (information, a document, etc.) that restricts access in terms of secrecy, confidentiality, etc. Compare classification (def 5).
- delta conversion — delta reduction
- demilitarisation — The removal of a military force, usually at the end of hostilities or as part of a treaty.
- demineralisation — Alternative spelling of demineralization.
- demolition squad — a group of demolishers
- demutualizations — Plural form of demutualization.
- depolymerisation — (chemistry) alternative spelling of depolymerization.
- depressurization — to remove the air pressure from (a pressurized compartment of an aircraft or spacecraft).
- destabilizations — Plural form of destabilization.
- destigmatization — The process or act of destigmatizing.
- destroying angel — a white slender very poisonous basidiomycetous toadstool, Amanita virosa, having a pronounced volva, frilled, shaggy stalk, and sickly smell
- developmentalism — An economic theory which states that the best way for Third World countries to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and to impose high tariffs on imported goods.
- developmentalist — an expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.
- dew-point spread — the degrees of difference between the air temperature and the dew point
- diamond district — the part of a town where diamond merchants and jewellers have their businesses
- dinosaurs mating — (humour) The activity said to occur when yet another big iron merger or buy-out occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the mainframe industry. Also described as "elephants mating": lots of noise and action at a high level, with an eventual outcome in the somewhat distant future. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was "IBM and the Seven Dwarves": Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. Early on, RCA sold out to Univac and GE also sold out, and it was "IBM and the BUNCH" (an acronym for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out by Bull. Univac in turn merged with Sperry to form Sperry/Univac, which was later merged (although the employees of Sperry called it a hostile takeover) with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1986 (this was when the phrase "dinosaurs mating" was coined). In 1991 AT&T absorbed NCR, only to spit it out again in 1996. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988 and later others. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.