9-letter words containing a, y, c
- glace bay — a town in E Nova Scotia, in SE Canada, on E Cape Breton Island on the Atlantic Ocean.
- glacially — of or relating to glaciers or ice sheets.
- glycaemia — the presence of glucose in the blood.
- glycaemic — Alternative spelling of glycemic.
- glycation — (biochemistry) non-enzymatic reaction of a sugar and an amine group of a protein to form a glycoprotein.
- glycolate — a salt or ester of glycolic acid.
- gracility — The state of being gracefully slender.
- gray card — a card of controlled reflectance held near a subject to approximate middle tones and used as a target for an exposure meter.
- gray code — (hardware) A binary sequence with the property that only one bit changes between any two consecutive elements (the two codes have a Hamming distance of one). The Gray code originated when digital logic circuits were built from vacuum tubes and electromechanical relays. Counters generated tremendous power demands and noise spikes when many bits changed at once. E.g. when incrementing a register containing 11111111, the back-EMF from the relays' collapsing magnetic fields required copious noise suppression. Using Gray code counters, any increment or decrement changed only one bit, regardless of the size of the number. Gray code can also be used to convert the angular position of a disk to digital form. A radial line of sensors reads the code off the surface of the disk and if the disk is half-way between two positions each sensor might read its bit from both positions at once but since only one bit differs between the two, the value read is guaranteed to be one of the two valid values rather than some third (invalid) combination (a glitch). One possible algorithm for generating a Gray code sequence is to toggle the lowest numbered bit that results in a new code each time. Here is a four bit Gray code sequence generated in this way: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 The codes were patented in 1953 by Frank Gray, a Bell Labs researcher.
- gray duck — any of several ducks in which certain immature or female plumages are predominantly gray, as the gadwall and the pintail.
- graybacks — Plural form of grayback.
- grayscale — a scale of achromatic colors having several, usually ten, equal gradations ranging from white to black, used in television and photography.
- graywacke — Geology. a dark-gray coarse-grained wacke.
- greyscale — Alternative spelling of grayscale.
- greywacke — Geology. a dark-gray coarse-grained wacke.
- gunnysack — a sack made of gunny or burlap.
- gym class — physical education lesson
- gymnastic — of or relating to physical exercises that develop and demonstrate strength, balance, and agility, especially such exercises performed mostly on special equipment.
- gynaeceum — (among the ancient Greeks) the part of a dwelling used by women.
- gynaecoid — Characteristic of a woman.
- gynarchic — relating to gynarchy or rule by women
- gynobasic — an elevation of the receptacle of a flower, bearing the gynoecium.
- gynocracy — gynarchy.
- gypsy cab — a taxicab that is licensed only to pick up passengers on call by telephone, but that often illegally seeks passengers on the street.
- gyrfalcon — a large falcon, Falco rusticolus, of arctic and subarctic regions, having white, gray, or blackish color phases: now greatly reduced in number.
- gyromancy — a method of prediction or prophecy in which a person moves round and round in a circle and the place at which they fall to the ground is said to be highly significant
- habitancy — the act or fact of inhabiting; inhabitancy.
- hack away — keep chopping at sth
- hackberry — any of several trees or shrubs belonging to the genus Celtis, of the elm family, bearing cherrylike fruit.
- hackneyed — let out, employed, or done for hire.
- hackysack — Alt form hackeysack.
- haecceity — That property or quality of a thing by virtue of which it is unique or describable as “ this (one). ”.
- haemocyte — Alternative spelling of hemocyte.
- hagiarchy — hagiocracy.
- halcyonic — calm; peaceful; tranquil: halcyon weather.
- halomancy — Divination by use of salt. This is the origin for the superstition of spilled salt.
- handcarry — to carry or deliver by hand, as for security reasons: The ambassador hand-carried a message from the president.
- hard copy — copy, as computer output printed on paper, that can be read without using a special device (opposed to soft copy).
- haruspicy — divination by a haruspex.
- hatchways — Plural form of hatchway.
- hay shock — a haycock.
- haycation — A vacation stay on a farm, in which guests often help out with daily farm tasks.
- haystacks — Plural form of haystack.
- helically — pertaining to or having the form of a helix; spiral.
- heptarchy — (often initial capital letter) the seven principal concurrent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms supposed to have existed in the 7th and 8th centuries.
- hercogamy — (of flowers) the prevention of self-fertilization
- hercynian — denoting a period of mountain building in Europe in the late Palaeozoic
- hesitancy — hesitation; indecision or disinclination.
- hesychast — one of a sect of mystics that originated in the 14th century among the monks on Mt. Athos, Greece.
- hierarchy — any system of persons or things ranked one above another.