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20-letter words containing a, t, r, e, u

  • beat around the bush — to talk around a subject without getting to the point
  • beaverhead mountains — a mountain range on the border of E Idaho and SW Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. 10,961 feet (3343 meters).
  • bernese mountain dog — a strong sturdy dog of a breed with a bushy tail and a long silky black coat with reddish-brown and white markings, often used as a working farm dog
  • bird-footed dinosaur — theropod.
  • blast-furnace cement — a type of cement made from a blend of ordinary Portland cement and crushed slag from a blast furnace. It has lower setting properties than ordinary Portland cement
  • blue ridge mountains — a mountain range in the eastern US, extending from West Virginia into Georgia: part of the Appalachian mountains. Highest peak: Mount Mitchell, 2038 m (6684 ft)
  • blue screen of death — (humour)   (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
  • bolometric magnitude — the magnitude of a star derived either from the total energy that it radiates at all wavelengths or from the total energy of those of its wavelengths that are received on earth.
  • boulogne billancourt — a suburb of Paris, in N France.
  • boulogne-billancourt — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
  • branch target buffer — (processor)   (BTB) A register used to store the predicted destination of a branch in a processor using branch prediction?
  • british thermal unit — a unit of heat in the fps system equal to the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1°F. 1 British thermal unit is equivalent to 1055.06 joules or 251.997 calories
  • buoyancy compensator — an inflatable vest used to control one's buoyancy underwater or to rest at the surface, usually having a connecting hose for inflation or deflation by mouth and a CO 2 cartridge for rapid, emergency inflation.
  • bureau of the census — the division of the Department of Commerce that gathers, tabulates, and correlates census statistics.
  • butterfly-shell clam — coquina.
  • by their own account — If you say that something concerning a particular person is true by his or her own account, you mean that you believe it because that person has said it is true.
  • calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
  • calcium permanganate — a violet, crystalline, deliquescent solid, Ca(MnO 4) 2 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a disinfectant and deodorizer.
  • call-by-value-result — An argument passing convention where the actual argument is a variable V whose value is copied to a local variable L inside the called function or procedure. If the procedure modifies L, these changes will not affect V, which may also be in scope inside the procedure, until the procedure returns when the final value of L is copied to V. Under call-by-reference changes to L would affect V immediately. Used, for example, by BBC BASIC V on the Acorn Archimedes.
  • carbon sequestration — the prevention of greenhouse gas build-up in the earth's atmosphere by methods such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide or pumping carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs
  • catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
  • cavalleria rusticana — an opera (1890) by Pietro Mascagni.
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
  • cellulose triacetate — a triacetic ester of cellulose characterized by its resistance to most solvents, used chiefly in the manufacture of textile fibers.
  • centre three-quarter — either of two middle players on the three-quarter line
  • centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
  • certified accountant — (in Britain) a member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, who is authorized to audit company accounts
  • channel service unit — (communications)   (CSU) A type of interface used to connect a terminal or computer to a digital medium in the same way that a modem is used for connection to an analogue medium. A CSU is provided by the communication carrier to customers who wish to use their own equipment to retime and regenerate the incoming signals. The customer must supply all of the transmit logic, receive logic and timing recovery in order to use the CSU, whereas a digital service unit DSU performs these functions.
  • characteristic curve — a graph of the density of a particular photographic material plotted against the logarithm of the exposure producing this density
  • chartered accountant — (in Britain) an accountant who has passed the professional examinations of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, or the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland
  • chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
  • chemotherapeutically — By means of chemotherapy.
  • child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
  • child-abuse register — (in Britain) a list of children deemed to be at risk of abuse or injury from their parents or guardians, compiled and held by a local authority, area health authority, or NSPCC Special Unit
  • clear air turbulence — turbulent air, not associated with a storm, that affects the flight of aircraft
  • clear-air turbulence — atmospheric turbulence, sometimes severe, occurring in air devoid of clouds or other visible indicators that turbulence might be present. Abbreviation: CAT.
  • clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
  • colour look-up table — colour palette
  • communication theory — information theory.
  • comparative judgment — any judgment about whether there is a difference between two or more stimuli
  • compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
  • complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
  • complementary colour — one of any pair of colours, such as yellow and blue, that give white or grey when mixed in the correct proportions
  • computability theory — (mathematics)   The area of theoretical computer science concerning what problems can be solved by any computer. A function is computable if an algorithm can be implemented which will give the correct output for any valid input. Since computer programs are countable but real numbers are not, it follows that there must exist real numbers that cannot be calculated by any program. Unfortunately, by definition, there isn't an easy way of describing any of them! In fact, there are many tasks (not just calculating real numbers) that computers cannot perform. The most well-known is the halting problem, the busy beaver problem is less famous but just as fascinating.
  • computer programming — the activity or profession of writing computer programs
  • confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
  • conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
  • constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
  • continuity announcer — A continuity announcer is someone who introduces the next programme on a radio or television station.
  • controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
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