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18-letter words containing c, a, s, h, m, i

  • light displacement — the weight of a ship with all its permanent equipment, excluding the weight of cargo, persons, ballast, dunnage, and fuel, but usually including the weight of permanent ballast and water used to operate steam machinery.
  • logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • malicious mischief — willful destruction of personal property motivated by ill will or resentment toward its owner or possessor.
  • manchester terrier — one of a breed of slender terriers having a short, glossy, black-and-tan coat, raised originally in Manchester, England.
  • manhattan district — (during World War II) the code name for a unit of US army engineers established in 1942 to construct secret sites for the development of the atomic bomb
  • marketing research — the study of influences upon customer and consumer behaviour and the analysis of market characteristics and trends
  • matthias schleiden — Matthias Jakob [mah-tee-ahs yah-kawp] /mɑˈti ɑs ˈyɑ kɔp/ (Show IPA), 1804–81, German botanist.
  • mechanical testing — Mechanical testing is the testing of a material to find out its mechanical properties, for example its yield strength or hardness.
  • menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
  • metamorphic facies — Geology. a group of metamorphic rock units characterized by particular mineralogic associations.
  • methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
  • microsoft exchange — (messaging)   Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.
  • miniature pinscher — one of a German breed of toy dogs resembling a smaller version of the Doberman pinscher, having a flat skull, a smooth coat, erect ears, and a docked tail, bred originally as a watchdog.
  • moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
  • monographic series — a series of monographs issued in uniform style or format and related by subject or by issuing agency.
  • mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
  • neuropsychodynamic — Of or pertaining to neuropsychodynamics.
  • nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
  • nike of samothrace — a Greek marble statue (c200 b.c.) of Nike found at Samothrace and now in the Louvre, Paris.
  • oil of catechumens — holy oil used in baptism, the ordination of a cleric, the coronation of a sovereign, or in the consecration of a church.
  • ovariohysterectomy — Surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus.
  • pairs championship — an event in a sport such as tennis or darts open to pairs of competitors
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • photochemical smog — air pollution containing ozone and other reactive chemical compounds formed by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, especially those in automobile exhaust.
  • physical chemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical composition and transformations.
  • policeman's helmet — a Himalayan balsaminaceous plant, Impatiens glandulifera, with large purplish-pink flowers, introduced into Britain
  • potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
  • potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
  • processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
  • publishing company — a firm which publishes books
  • quasi-metaphysical — pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics.
  • salem witch trials — 17th-century witchcraft case
  • sodium thiocyanate — a white powder or colorless, deliquescent crystals, NaSCN, used chiefly in organic synthesis and in medicine in the treatment of hypertension.
  • spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
  • status asthmaticus — a severe attack of asthma in which the patient may die from respiratory failure if not treated with inhaled oxygen or other appropriate measures
  • stinking chamomile — mayweed.
  • stoichiometrically — of or relating to stoichiometry.
  • stokely carmichael — Hoagland Howard [hohg-luh nd] /ˈhoʊg lənd/ (Show IPA), ("Hoagy") 1899–1981, U.S. songwriter and musician.
  • submarine sandwich — a sandwich made with a long cylindrical bread roll
  • survival mechanism — something you or your body does automatically, in order to survive in a dangerous or unpleasant situation
  • swedish gymnastics — a system of passive and active exercising of muscles and joints
  • sympathetic strike — sympathy strike.
  • sympathetic string — a thin wire string, as in various obsolete musical instruments, designed to vibrate sympathetically with the bowed or plucked strings to reinforce the sound.
  • systematic phoneme — a phonological unit in generative phonology representing an underlying form that takes into account the relationship between phonological patterns and morphological variation, as the unit underlying the second vowel in both derive and derivative.
  • the dismal science — a name for economics coined by Thomas Carlyle
  • whittaker chambers — Robert, 1802–71, Scottish publisher and editor.
  • world championship — an international competition in a particular sport or activity for people all around the world
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