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18-letter words containing c, a, p, s

  • correspondent bank — A correspondent bank is a bank that provides services such as accepting deposits for another bank.
  • costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
  • cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
  • creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
  • 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.
  • creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently
  • critical apparatus — the variant readings, footnotes, etc found in a scholarly work or a critical edition of a text
  • crookes dark space — the dark space between the cathode glow and the negative glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
  • cross-disciplinary — linking two or more fields of study
  • crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
  • cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
  • curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
  • depth-first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which extends the current path as far as possible before backtracking to the last choice point and trying the next alternative path. Depth-first search may fail to find a solution if it enters a cycle in the graph. This can be avoided if we never extend a path to a node which it already contains. Opposite of breadth first search. See also iterative deepening.
  • descriptive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
  • dialytic telescope — a type of achromatic telescope with a second correcting lens
  • diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
  • diplomatic service — diplomatic corps
  • diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
  • discharge printing — a fabric-printing method in which the material is dyed and then certain areas are discharged so as to permit the original hue or its color replacement to act as a pattern against the colored ground.
  • dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
  • display postscript — An extended form of PostScript permitting its interactive use with bitmap displays.
  • domestic appliance — a machine used for household tasks, for example, a washing machine, refrigerator, etc.
  • due process of law — the administration of justice in accordance with established rules and principles
  • dynamic psychology — any system of psychology that emphasizes the interaction between different motives, emotions, and drives
  • dynamically scoped — dynamic scope
  • east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
  • eclipsing variable — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
  • egg and spoon race — a novelty race in which contestants each carry an egg in a spoon to the finish line, the winner being the first to finish without dropping or breaking the egg.
  • egg-and-spoon race — a race in which runners carry an egg balanced in a spoon
  • eggshell porcelain — a type of very thin translucent porcelain originally made in China
  • electron transport — the metabolic process in mitochondria or chloroplasts, in which electrons are transferred in stages from energy-rich compounds to molecular oxygen with liberation of energy
  • endangered species — animal, plant becoming extinct
  • equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
  • escape sb's notice — If something escapes your notice, you fail to recognize it or realize it.
  • ethnopsychological — Relating to ethnopsychology.
  • examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
  • excess profits tax — a tax on profits exceeding a certain amount
  • exercise programme — a programme detailing a range of physical exercises and the amount of time each exercise should be performed, used especially in gymnasiums, where they are typically tailored to individuals' needs
  • fall-back position — an alternative plan
  • family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
  • faraday dark space — the dark region between the negative glow and the positive column in a vacuum tube occurring when the pressure is low.
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
  • fish and chip shop — In Britain, a fish and chip shop is a shop which sells hot food such as fish and chips, fried chicken, sausages, and meat pies. The food is cooked in the shop and people take it away to eat at home or in the street.
  • flat address space — (architecture)   The memory architecture in which any memory location can be selected from a single contiguous block by a single integer offset. Almost all popular processors have a flat address space, but the Intel x86 family has a segmented address space. A flat address space greatly simplifies programming because of the simple correspondence between addresses (pointers) and integers.
  • ftp software, inc. — (company)   Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
  • funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
  • galilean telescope — a refracting telescope that forms an erect image, consisting of an objective of relatively long focal length that causes light rays to converge and an eyepiece of short focal length that causes them to diverge.
  • gas chromatography — a chromatograph used for the separation of volatile substances.
  • general precession — the precession that results from both lunisolar precession and planetary precession; precession of the equinoxes.
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