18-letter words containing a, t, i
- contract furniture — furniture designed and manufactured for commercial installation, as in offices, waiting rooms, or lobbies.
- contradistinctions — Plural form of contradistinction.
- contrastive stress — a stress imposed on a word or syllable contrary to its normal accentuation in order to contrast it with an alternative word or syllable or to focus attention on it, as the stress given to the normally unstressed word of in government of the people, by the people, for the people in order to point up the parallel between of, by, and for and to distinguish of from words such as over or against.
- controllable-pitch — (of a marine or aircraft propeller) having blades whose pitch can be changed during navigation or flight; variable-pitch.
- convenience market — the area of business which involves selling convenience foods
- conversation chair — an English chair of the 18th century designed to be straddled facing the back of the chair with the elbows resting on the crest rail: an English imitation of the voyeuse.
- conversation class — a class in which one learns to speak a foreign language
- conversation piece — something, esp an unusual object, that provokes conversation
- conversationalists — Plural form of conversationalist.
- cooking facilities — equipment necessary for cooking
- cordillera central — a mountain range in Colombia: part of the Andes. Highest peak, Huila, 18,700 feet (5700 meters).
- cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
- coronary care unit — a unit in a hospital dedicated to treating coronary heart disease
- coronary-care unit — a specialized hospital unit for the early care and treatment of heart-attack patients. Abbreviation: CCU.
- coronation chicken — a dish of cold cooked chicken in a mild creamy curry sauce
- corporate anorexia — a malaise of a business organization resulting from making too many creative people redundant in efforts to cut costs
- corporate identity — business brand
- corpus christi bay — a bay in S Texas, at the mouth of the Nueces River.
- counter-adaptation — the act of adapting.
- counter-aggression — the action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly its territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like: The army is prepared to stop any foreign aggression.
- counterattractions — Plural form of counterattraction.
- counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
- counterculturalist — the culture and lifestyle of those people, especially among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.
- countercyclicality — The quality of being countercyclical.
- counterprogramming — the practice of scheduling a program opposite another program, esp. a popular one, that appeals to a different kind of audience, as in placing a romantic film directed at women opposite a sports program mainly watched by men
- counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
- countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
- countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
- coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
- cracked distillate — A cracked distillate is a clear yellow liquid, mostly containing hydrocarbons, which is produced by steam cracking without a catalyst.
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
- credibility rating — a supposed measure of how far a person can be believed or trusted
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- crested dog's-tail — a common wiry perennial grass, Cynosurus cristatus, of meadows and pasture
- critical apparatus — the variant readings, footnotes, etc found in a scholarly work or a critical edition of a text
- critical constants — the physical constants that express the properties of a substance in its critical state
- crookes radiometer — a type of radiometer consisting of an evacuated glass bulb containing a set of lightweight vanes, each blackened on one side. The vanes are mounted on a vertical axis and revolve when light, or other radiant energy, falls on them
- crude oil desalter — A crude oil desalter is equipment which removes inorganic salts from crude oil, using chemical or electrostatic separation.
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- crystal oscillator — a clear, transparent mineral or glass resembling ice.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- cultural diversity — the cultural variety and cultural differences that exist in the world, a society, or an institution: Dying languages and urbanization are threats to cultural diversity.
- cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
- cultural sociology — the study of the origins and development of societal institutions, norms, and practices.
- cultural universal — a cultural pattern extant in every known society.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
- curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.