20-letter words containing c, a, l, i, s

for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
force-field analysis — a decision-making technique, often presented graphically, that identifies all the positive and negative forces impinging on a problem
fuming sulfuric acid — an oily, hygroscopic, corrosive liquid, H 2 S 2 O 7 , that, depending on purity, is colorless or dark brown: used chiefly as a dehydrating agent in the manufacture of explosives and as a sulfating or sulfonating agent in the manufacture of dyes.
gaff-topsail catfish — a sea catfish, Bagre marinus, occurring in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from Cape Cod to Panama, and having the spine of the dorsal fin greatly prolonged and flattened.
garcilaso de la vega — 1503?–36, Spanish poet.
general public virus — (software, legal) A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
geological timescale — any division of geological time into chronological units, whether relative (with units in the correct temporal sequence) or absolute (with numerical ages attached)
glucosamine sulphate — a compound used in some herbal remedies and dietary supplements, esp to strengthen joint cartilage
go like the clappers — to move extremely fast
graphics accelerator — (graphics, hardware) Hardware (often an extra circuit board) to perform tasks such as plotting lines and surfaces in two or three dimensions, filling, shading and hidden line removal.
gravimetric analysis — analysis by weight.
great-circle sailing — sailing between two points more or less according to an arc of a great circle, in practice almost always using a series of rhumb lines of different bearings to approximate the arc, whose own bearing changes constantly unless it coincides with a meridian or the equator.
group life insurance — a form of life insurance available to members of a group, typically employees of a company, under a master policy.
hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
harmonic minor scale — minor scale (def 1).
heteropolysaccharide — (carbohydrate) any polysaccharide formed from two or more different kinds of monosaccharide.
hipparchus satellite — an astronometric satellite launched in 1989 by the European Space Agency that measured the position, proper motion, and brightness of 118 218 stars down to 12th magnitude and the magnitude and colour of a million stars down to 10th magnitude
historical sociology — the sociological study of the origins and development of societies and of other social phenomena that seeks underlying laws and principles.
horizontal scan rate — (hardware) (HSR) The measure of how many scan lines of pixels a monitor can display in one second, expressed in kHz (generally somewhere between 20 and 100 kHz). The HSR is controlled by the horizontal sync signal generated by the video controller, but is limited by the speed with which the monitor can scan the electron beam horizontally across the screen and then return it to the beginning of the next line.
household appliances — devices or machines, usually electrical, that are in your home and which you use to do jobs such as cleaning or cooking
hydraulic suspension — a system of motor-vehicle suspension using hydraulic members, often with hydraulic compensation between front and rear systems (hydroelastic suspension)
hypercholesterolemia — the presence of an excessive amount of cholesterol in the blood.
implicit parallelism — (parallel) A feature of a programming language for a parallel processing system which decides automatically which parts to run in parallel. The best way of providing implicit parallelism is still (1995) an active research topic. The problem is to generate the right number of parallel tasks of the right size (or "granularity"). Too many tasks and the system gets bogged down in house-keeping, or memory for waiting tasks runs out, too few tasks and processors are left idle. The best performance is usually achieved with explicit parallelism where the programmer can annotate his program to indicate which parts should be executed as independent parallel tasks.
in a class by itself — unique
incremental analysis — (testing) Partial analysis of an incomplete product to allow early feedback on its development.
industrial democracy — control of an organization by the people who work for it, esp by workers holding positions on its board of directors
industrial insurance — industrial life insurance.
industrial sociology — the sociological study of social relationships and social structures in business settings.
inelastic scattering — a scattering of particles due to an inelastic collision that also changes their wavelengths and phases.
insulin-coma therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
intercalary meristem — meristem in the internode of a stem.
interplanetary space — the region of space occurring around the sun and planets of the solar system. The density is normally negligible although cosmic rays, meteorites, gas clouds, etc, can occur
into/in cold storage — If you put an idea or plan into cold storage or in cold storage, you delay it for a while rather than acting on it as you originally intended.
jack russell terrier — any of a breed of terrier with short hair and a mottled brown and white coat
joint life insurance — life insurance covering two or more persons, the benefits of which are paid after the first person dies.
judicial proceedings — any action involving or carried out by a court of law
justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
king charles spaniel — a variety of the English toy spaniel having a black-and-tan coat.
labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
lafayette escadrille — a contingent of American aviators who in 1916 served as volunteers (Escadrille Américaine) in the French air force and in 1918 became the 103rd Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army.
land-office business — a lively, booming, expanding, or very profitable business.
languedoc-roussillon — a region of S France, on the Gulf of Lions: consists of the departments of Lozère, Gard, Hérault, Aude, and Pyrénées-Orientales; mainly mountainous with a coastal plain
last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
lead with one's chin — to act so imprudently as to invite disaster
life-support machine — A life-support machine is the equipment that is used to keep a person alive when they are very ill and cannot breathe without help.
like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
linear address space — A memory addressing scheme used in processors where the whole memory can be accessed using a single address that fits in a single register or instruction. This contrasts with a segmented memory architecture, such as that used on the Intel 8086, where an address is given by an offset from a base address held in one of the "segment registers". Linear addressing greatly simplifies programming at the assembly language level but requires more instruction word bits to be allocated for an address.
linguistic geography — dialect geography.
linguistic universal — language universal.
logical construction — anything referred to by an incomplete symbol capable of contextual definition.

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