20-letter words containing c, e, s, o
- cholestyramine resin — a powdery synthetic resin that binds with and prevents the reabsorption of bile acids, used to reduce cholesterol levels, relieve itching associated with jaundice, etc.
- christopher columbus — Christopher (Sp. Cristóbal Colón; It. Cristoforo Colombo) 1446?–1506, Italian navigator in Spanish service: traditionally considered the discoverer of America 1492.
- christopher strachey — (person) Professor of Computation at Oxford, England, born 1916, died May 1975. He invented the term "currying". See also: General Purpose Macro-generator.
- church commissioners — a group of representatives of Church and State that administers the endowments and property of the Church of England
- clay-colored sparrow — a sparrow, Spizella pallida, of the interior of North America, having buff, brown, and white plumage with a pale-gray breast.
- clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
- clip someone's wings — to restrict someone's freedom
- clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
- co-operative society — In Britain, a co-operative society is a commercial organization with several shops in a particular district. Customers can join this organization and get a share of its profits.
- cocktail shaker sort — (algorithm) A bi-directional bubble sort. Passes alternate between ascending through array indexes, pushing the largest item to the bottom; and descending through array indexes, pushing the smallest item to the top.
- codex juris canonici — the official code of canon law in force in the Roman Catholic Church; introduced in 1918 and revised in 1983
- cognitive dissonance — an uncomfortable mental state resulting from conflicting cognitions; usually resolved by changing some of the cognitions
- cognitive psychology — the psychological study of higher mental processes, including thinking and perception
- collective ownership — ownership by a group for the benefit of members of that group
- college of cardinals — the collective body of cardinals having the function of electing and advising the pope
- collegiate institute — (in certain provinces) a large secondary school with an academic, rather than vocational, emphasis
- colloidal suspension — a mixture having particles of one component, with diameters between 10 −7 and 10 −9 metres, suspended in a continuous phase of another component. The mixture has properties between those of a solution and a fine suspension
- colorado blue spruce — blue spruce.
- come back to someone — (of something forgotten) to return to someone's memory
- come off second best — to be defeated in competition
- come out in the wash — If you say that something will come out in the wash, you mean that people will eventually find out the truth about it.
- come to one's senses — to regain consciousness
- commissioned officer — a military officer holding a commission, such as Second Lieutenant in the British Army, Acting Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force, and officers of all ranks senior to these
- commissioning editor — a person who commissions authors to write books and magazine articles
- common lodging house — a cheap lodging house
- common-sense realism — naive realism.
- commonwealth hackish — (jargon) Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
- commune with oneself — to think; ponder
- communication system — (communications) A system or facility for transfering data between persons and equipment. The system usually consists of a collection of individual communication networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations and terminal equipment capable of interconnection and interoperation so as to form an integrated whole. These individual components must serve a common purpose, be technically compatible, employ common procedures, respond to some form of control and generally operate in unison.
- compare and contrast — note similarities, differences
- compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
- compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
- compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
- compensation package — the sum of compensation awarded in a legal case
- compensatory damages — sum paid for a loss
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- complementary angles — either of two angles that added together produce an angle of 90°.
- complementary colors — any of two colors of the spectrum that, combined in the right intensities, produce white or nearly white light
- complementary strand — either of the two chains that make up a double helix of DNA, with corresponding positions on the two chains being composed of a pair of complementary bases.
- composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
- comprehensive school — a secondary school for children of all abilities from the same district
- compression ignition — ignition of engine fuel by the heat of air compressed in the cylinders into which the fuel is introduced.
- computer typesetting — a system for the high-speed composition of type by a device driven by punched paper tape or magnetic tape that has been processed by a computer
- condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
- conditioned response — a response that is transferred from the second to the first of a pair of stimuli. A well-known Pavlovian example is salivation by a dog when it hears a bell ring, because food has always been presented when the bell has been rung previously
- conditioned stimulus — a stimulus to which an organism has learned to make a response by classical conditioning
- confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
- conflict of interest — a conflict between one's obligation to the public good and one's self-interest, as in the case of a public officeholder who owns stock in a company seeking government contracts
- congressional record — (in the US) the government journal that publishes all proceedings of Congress
- congressman-at-large — (in the US) a member of the House of Representatives who was elected by the voters of an entire state as opposed to the voters of a single Congressional district