16-letter words containing c, a, e
- carpenter gothic — (sometimes initial capital letters) a style of Victorian Gothic architecture adapted to the resources of contemporary woodworking tools and machinery.
- carry-on luggage — luggage that is taken inside an aircraft by hand personally by a passenger
- cartridge player — an audio or video system that reads cartridges of magnetic tape
- caryophyllaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Caryophyllaceae, a family of flowering plants including the pink, carnation, sweet william, and chickweed
- cascade molecule — a synthetic polymer with a branching, treelike structure; a type of macromolecule in which chains radiate out from a central atom or cluster of atoms to transfer genetic material to living cells.
- cascade particle — the least massive member of the xi particle family.
- case insensitive — case sensitivity
- case sensitivity — (text) Whether a text matching operation distinguishes upper-case (capital) letters from lower case (is "case sensitive") or not ("case insensitive"). Case in file names should be preserved (for readability) but ignored when matching (so the user doesn't have to get it right). MS-DOS does not preserve case in file names, Unix preserves case and matches are case sensitive. Any decent text editor will allow the user to specify whether or not text searches should be case sensitive. Case sensitivity is also relevant in programming (most programming languages distiguish between case in the names of identifiers), and addressing (Internet domain names are case insensitive but RFC 822 local mailbox names are case sensitive). Case insensitive operations are sometimes said to "fold case", from the idea of folding the character code table so that upper and lower case letters coincide. The alternative "smash case" is more likely to be used by someone who considers this behaviour a misfeature or in cases where one case is actually permanently converted to the other. "MS-DOS will automatically smash case in the names of all the files you create".
- cash on delivery — If you pay for goods cash on delivery, you pay for them in cash when they are delivered. The abbreviation C.O.D. is also used.
- cashless society — a society in which purchases of goods or services are made by credit card or electronic funds transferral rather than with cash or checks.
- cassia-bark tree — a lauraceous tree, Cinnamomum cassia, of eastern Asia.
- castellated beam — a rolled metal beam the web of which is first divided by a lengthwise zigzag cut, then welded together so as to join the peaks of both halves, thus increasing its depth and strength.
- casting director — the person in charge of choosing of actors for a production
- catachrestically — In a catachrestic way.
- cataractogenesis — The formation of a cataract.
- catch a few zeds — to have a nap
- catch oneself on — to realize that one's actions are mistaken
- catch red-handed — If someone is caught red-handed, they are caught while they are in the act of doing something wrong.
- catchwater drain — a channel cut along the edge of high ground to catch surface water from it and divert it away from low-lying ground
- category listing — A category listing is a list of different product categories such as menswear, womenswear, and childrenswear.
- category mistake — a sentence that says of something in one category what can only intelligibly be said of something in another, as when speaking of the mind located in space
- category planner — A category planner is a person whose job to plan and co-ordinate future inventory and sales volume in one or more product categories.
- catering college — a further education college where you learn to cook as a profession
- catering manager — the person in charge of the catering in a place or at an event
- cathedral church — the principal church in a diocese
- catherine howard — Catherine, c1520–42, fifth wife of Henry VIII.
- cathode ray tube — (hardware) (CRT) An electrical device for displaying images by exciting phosphor dots with a scanned electron beam. CRTs are found in computer VDUs and monitors, televisions and oscilloscopes. The first commercially practical CRT was perfected on 29 January 1901 by Allen B DuMont. A large glass envelope containing a negative electrode (the cathode) emits electrons (formerly called "cathode rays") when heated, as in a vacuum tube. The electrons are accelerated across a large voltage gradient toward the flat surface of the tube (the screen) which is covered with phosphor. When an electron strikes the phosphor, light is emitted. The electron beam is deflected by electromagnetic coils around the outside of the tube so that it scans across the screen, usually in horizontal stripes. This scan pattern is known as a raster. By controlling the current in the beam, the brightness at any particular point (roughly a "pixel") can be varied. Different phosphors have different "persistence" - the length of time for which they glow after being struck by electrons. If the scanning is done fast enough, the eye sees a steady image, due to both the persistence of the phospor and of the eye itself. CRTs also differ in their dot pitch, which determines their spatial resolution, and in whether they use interlace or not.
- cathode-ray tube — A cathode-ray tube is a device in televisions and computer terminals which sends an image onto the screen.
- cause and effect — You use cause and effect to talk about the way in which one thing is caused by another.
- cause-and-effect — noting a relationship between actions or events such that one or more are the result of the other or others.
- cavity resonator — a conducting surface enclosing a space in which an oscillating electromagnetic field can be maintained, the dimensions of the cavity determining the resonant frequency of the oscillations. It is used in microwave devices for frequencies exceeding 300 megahertz
- cayenne (pepper) — a very hot, reddish condiment made from various capsicums
- cayenne software — (company) The company formed when CADRE merged with Bachman Information Systems in July 1996.
- cedar of lebanon — a cedar, Cedrus libani, of SW Asia with level spreading branches and fragrant wood
- cedar revolution — the popular protests in 2005 that brought down the Lebanese cabinet and prompted Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon
- celebrity status — the prominence of film star, footballer, musician etc who is constantly photographed and written about in tabloids and magazines
- celestial empire — Chinese Empire
- celestial sphere — an imaginary sphere of infinitely large radius enclosing the universe so that all celestial bodies appear to be projected onto its surface
- centennial state — Colorado (used as a nickname).
- central american — of or relating to Central America or its inhabitants
- central cylinder — stele (def 4).
- central european — involving or denoting the people, countries, cultures, or languages of Central Europe
- central tendency — the tendency of the values of a random variable to cluster around the mean, median, and mode
- centrally heated — A centrally heated building or room has central heating.
- centrifugal pump — a pump having a high-speed rotating impeller whose blades throw the water outwards
- cepheid variable — any of a class of variable stars with regular cycles of variations in luminosity (most ranging from three to fifty days). There is a relationship between the periods of variation and the absolute magnitudes, which is used for measuring the distance of such stars
- cerulean warbler — a North American wood warbler, Dendroica cerulea, the male of which is blue above and white below.
- cervera y topete — Pascual [pahs-kwahl] /pɑsˈkwɑl/ (Show IPA), 1839–1909, Spanish admiral.
- cesarean section — Also called Cesarean section, C-section. an operation by which a fetus is taken from the uterus by cutting through the walls of the abdomen and uterus.
- chafe at the bit — to be impatient or vexed, as because of delay