14-letter words containing c, a
- autobiographic — marked by or dealing with one's own experiences or life history; of or in the manner of an autobiography: autobiographical material; an autobiographical novel.
- autocollimator — an instrument combining the functions of a telescope and collimator, for detecting and measuring very small deviations in a beam of light.
- autoconfiscate — (software, jargon) A term coined by Noah Friedman meaning to set up or modify a source-code distribution so that it configures and builds using the GNU project's autoconf/automake/libtools suite.
- autocoprophagy — the consumption of one's own faeces
- autocorrelator — (electronics) A device that modifies a signal with a delayed copy of itself in order to detect any periodic signal hidden in the noise.
- autocovariance — (statistics) The covariance of a signal with another part of the same signal.
- autocratically — In an autocratic manner.
- autodesk, inc. — (company) The distributors of the AutoCAD CAD package. Address: Sausalito, CA, USA.
- autodestructed — Simple past tense and past participle of autodestruct.
- automatic door — a self-opening door
- autopilot code — (jargon, humour) Code that was written by a programmer on "auto-pilot" who wasn't really thinking about what they were doing.
- autoreactivity — (immunology) The condition of being autoreactive.
- avalanche lily — a wildflower (Erythronium montanum) of the lily family, native to the mountain meadows of Washington and Oregon and blooming in June among the melting snowbanks
- avalanche wind — the wind that is created in front of an avalanche.
- avariciousness — The state or quality of being avaricious.
- average clause — a clause in an insurance policy that distributes the insurance among several items, usually in proportion to their value
- aviation cadet — one who trains to become an officer in an air force.
- avoidance play — a play by the declarer designed to prevent a particular opponent from taking the lead.
- award ceremony — ceremony at which an award is presented
- azimuth circle — a device for measuring azimuths, consisting of a graduated ring equipped with a sighting vane on each side, which fits concentrically over a compass.
- aztec two-step — Montezuma's revenge
- baccalaureates — Plural form of baccalaureate.
- bachelor chest — a chest of drawers, esp., one for men's shirts, sweaters, underwear, etc.
- bachelor party — A bachelor party is a party for a man who is getting married very soon, to which only men are invited.
- back and forth — If someone moves back and forth, they repeatedly move in one direction and then in the opposite direction.
- back catalogue — A musical performer's back catalogue is the music which they recorded and released in the past rather than their latest recordings.
- back clearance — runout (def 1b).
- back formation — the invention of a new word on the assumption that a familiar word is derived from it. The verbs edit and burgle were so created from editor and burglar
- back o' beyond — remote; out-of-the-way; isolated.
- back o' bourke — in a remote or backward place
- back of beyond — a very remote place
- back of bourke — a remote area or place.
- back scratcher — a long-handled device for scratching one's own back.
- back to basics — If you talk about getting back to basics, you are suggesting that people have become too concerned with complicated details or new theories, and that they should concentrate on simple, important ideas or activities.
- back to nature — If you want to get back to nature, you want to return to a simpler way of living.
- back-and-forth — backward and forward; side to side; to and fro: a back-and-forth shuttling of buses to the stadium; the back-and-forth movement of a clock's pendulum.
- back-clearance — Machinery. the gradual termination of a groove on the body of an object not ending there, as the upper termination of a flute in a twist drill. Also called back clearance. a space in a depressed area of an object into which a machine tool or grinding wheel may safely enter at the end of a pass or operation.
- back-formation — the analogical creation of one word from another word that appears to be a derived or inflected form of the first by dropping the apparent affix or by modification.
- back-pedalling — a retreat from or a retraction of a previously held view
- back-to-basics — stressing simplicity and adherence to fundamental principles: The movement suggests a back-to-basics approach to living for those whose lives have become complicated.
- backbone cabal — (networking) A group of large-site administrators who pushed through the Great Renaming and reined in the chaos of Usenet during most of the 1980s. The cabal mailing list disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal cat-fight.
- backbreakingly — In a backbreaking manner.
- backflap hinge — Building Trades. flap (def 20a).
- backflow valve — a valve for preventing flowing liquid, as sewage, from reversing its direction.
- backhandedness — The quality of being backhanded; the use of indirect tactics.
- backing singer — a singer providing a vocal accompaniment for a pop singer or pop number
- backing vocals — a vocal accompaniment for a pop singer
- backscattering — the scattering of rays or particles at angles to the original direction of motion of greater than 90°
- backscratching — a long-handled device for scratching one's own back.
- backside cache — (hardware, processor) An implementation of secondary cache memory that allows it to be directly accessed by the CPU. Backside cache is used by Apple Computers, Inc. in their PowerPC G3 processor. Previous PowerPC processors used the system bus to access both secondary cache and main memory. In the PowerPC G3 a dedicated bus handles only CPU/cache transactions. This bus can operate faster than the system bus thus improving the overall performance of the processor. The term apparently derives from the relocation of the secondary cache from the motherboard to the processor card itself, i.e. on the backside of the processor card.