16-letter words containing c, e, l, u, a
- deuterocanonical — of or constituting a second or subsequent canon; specif., designating certain Biblical books accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, but held by Protestants to be apocryphal
- diesel-hydraulic — a locomotive driven by a diesel engine through hydraulic transmission and torque converters
- digital computer — a computer that processes information in digital form.
- distance modulus — a measure of the distance, r, of a celestial object too far away to show measurable parallax. It is given by m–M = 5 log(r/10), where m is its apparent magnitude (corrected for interstellar absorption) and M is its absolute magnitude
- documentary film — factual, informative film
- double occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as in a hotel, for two persons sharing the same room: The rate is $35 per person, double occupancy, or $65, single occupancy.
- draught excluder — a device (such as a strip of wood, or a long cylindrical cushion) placed at the bottom of a door to keep out draughts
- dual carriageway — divided highway.
- dual citizenship — Also called dual nationality. the status of a person who is a legal citizen of two or more countries.
- duchess of malfi — a tragedy (1614?) by John Webster.
- duplicate bridge — a form of contract bridge used in tournaments in which contestants play the identical series of deals, with each deal being scored independently, permitting individual scores to be compared.
- dynamic language — (language) (Dylan) A simple object-oriented Lisp dialect, most closely resembling CLOS and Scheme, developed by Advanced Technology Group East at Apple Computer. See also Marlais.
- easter sepulcher — sepulcher (def 2).
- easter-sepulcher — a tomb, grave, or burial place.
- educational park — a group of elementary and high schools, usually clustered in a parklike setting and having certain facilities shared by all grades, that often accommodates students from a large area.
- el camino bignum — (humour) /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ The road mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City and many portions of which are still intact. Navigation on the San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it isn't really north-south many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford University. The Spanish word "real" (which has two syllables: /ray-al'/) means "royal"; El Camino Real is "the royal road". In the Fortran language, a "real" quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant digits, and a "double precision" quantity is a larger floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other languages have similar "real" types). When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on "real", he started calling it "El Camino Double Precision" - but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it "El Camino Bignum", and that name has stuck. (See bignum).
- electric furnace — any furnace in which the heat is provided by an electric current
- electrical fault — a fault caused by something electrical
- electroacoustics — a branch of acoustics that deals with the conversion of sound into electricity and vice versa, as in a microphone or a speaker
- electrohydraulic — Relating to electrohydraulics.
- electron capture — the transformation of an atomic nucleus in which an electron from the atom is spontaneously absorbed into the nucleus. A proton is changed into a neutron, thereby reducing the atomic number by 1. A neutrino is emitted. The process may be detected by the consequent emission of the characteristic X-rays of the resultant element
- elegiac quatrain — a poetic stanza consisting of four lines of iambic pentameter rhyming alternately.
- enthusiastically — In an enthusiastic manner.
- episcopal church — an autonomous branch of the Anglican Communion in Scotland and the US
- equational logic — (logic) First-order equational logic consists of quantifier-free terms of ordinary first-order logic, with equality as the only predicate symbol. The model theory of this logic was developed into Universal algebra by Birkhoff et al. [Birkhoff, Gratzer, Cohn]. It was later made into a branch of category theory by Lawvere ("algebraic theories").
- escalator clause — a clause in a contract stipulating an adjustment in wages, prices, etc, in the event of specified changes in conditions, such as a large rise in the cost of living or price of raw materials
- escutcheon plate — a plate or shield that surrounds a keyhole, door handle, light switch, etc, esp an ornamental one protecting a door or wall surface
- european council — an executive body of the European Union, made up of the President of the European Commission and representatives of the member states, including the foreign and other ministers. The Council acts at the request of the Commission
- exclusion clause — (in a contract) something that serves to limit liabilities
- exemption clause — a clause in a contract that exempts one party from liability for something
- facial neuralgia — paroxysmal darting pain and muscular twitching in the face, evoked by rubbing certain points of the face.
- family of curves — a collection of curves whose equations differ only by values assigned a parameter or parameters.
- feulgen reaction — a reaction in which an aldehyde combines with a modified Schiff's reagent to produce a purplish compound: used especially to test for the presence of DNA
- flame cultivator — an implement that kills weeds by scorching them with a directed flow of flaming gas.
- fluorescent lamp — a tubular electric discharge lamp in which light is produced by the fluorescence of phosphors coating the inside of the tube.
- flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
- follicular phase — a stage of the menstrual cycle, from onset of menstruation to ovulation.
- four-course meal — A four-course meal is a meal that consists of four parts served one after the other.
- four-leaf clover — a clover leaf having four leaflets instead of the usual three, purported to bring good luck.
- franchise clause — a clause stipulating that the insured will be responsible for any loss not in excess of a stated amount, and the insurance company will be liable for full payment of the loss equaling or exceeding the amount up to the insured amount.
- functional water — water containing additives that provide extra nutritional value
- fundamentalistic — Fundamentalist.
- funeral director — a person, usually a licensed embalmer, who supervises or conducts the preparation of the dead for burial and directs or arranges funerals.
- galactic cluster — a comparatively young, irregularly shaped group of stars, often numbering up to several hundred, and held together by mutual gravitation; usually found along the central plane of the Milky Way and other galaxies.
- galactic equator — the great circle on the celestial sphere that is equidistant from the galactic poles, being inclined approximately 62° to the celestial equator and lying about one degree north of the center line of the Milky Way.
- gas liquefaction — Gas liquefaction is the process of refrigerating a gas to a temperature that is below its critical temperature in order to form a liquid.
- general factotum — a person who does all sorts of jobs; general assistant
- globular cluster — a comparatively older, spherically symmetrical, compact group of up to a million old stars, held together by mutual gravitation, that are located in the galactic halo and move in giant and highly eccentric orbits around the galactic center.
- golden handcuffs — payments deferred over a number of years that induce a person to stay with a particular company or in a particular job
- golden parachute — an employment contract or agreement guaranteeing a key executive of a company substantial severance pay and other financial benefits in the event of job loss caused by the company's being sold or merged.