18-letter words containing c, h, a, l, e
- chagos archipelago — group of islands in the Indian Ocean 1,180 mi (1,899 km) northeast of Mauritius, comprising the British Indian Ocean Territory: chief island, Diego Garcia
- chambered nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
- chandelier earring — one of a pair of long and ornate earrings that dangle from the earlobes, usually dropping from more than one level.
- character-building — improving certain good or useful traits in a person's character, esp self-reliance, endurance, and courage
- characteristically — Also, characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.
- chattering classes — The chattering classes are people such as journalists, broadcasters, or public figures who comment on events but have little or no influence over them.
- checkpoint charlie — a crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War
- chemical machining — the shaping of a metal part by controlled removal of unwanted metal by a flow of chemical solutions
- chemical potential — a thermodynamic function of a substance in a system that is the partial differential of the Gibbs function of the system with respect to the number of moles of the substance
- chemical pregnancy — a pregnancy that is confirmed by a pregnancy test but not by clinical signs and terminates before clinical signs can be observed.
- cheval de bataille — a horse used in battle; charger.
- children of israel — the Jews; Hebrews
- children's crusade — a crusade to recover Jerusalem from the Saracens, undertaken in 1212 by thousands of French and German children who perished, were sold into slavery, or were turned back.
- chinese watermelon — a tropical Asian vine, Benincasa hispida, of the gourd family, having a brown, hairy stem, large, solitary, yellow flowers, and white, melonlike fruit.
- chloroacetophenone — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble, poisonous solid, C 8 H 7 ClO, used in solution as a tear gas. Abbreviation: CN.
- chlorobromomethane — a clear, colorless, volatile, nonflammable liquid, CH 2 ClBr, used chiefly as an extinguishing agent in fire extinguishers and as a solvent in organic synthesis.
- chocolate-coloured — dark brown
- chromolithographer — One engaged in chromolithography.
- circular breathing — a technique for sustaining a phrase on a wind instrument, using the cheeks to force air out of the mouth while breathing in through the nose
- clean as a whistle — If you describe something as clean as a whistle, you mean that it is completely clean.
- climbing hydrangea — a woody vine, Hydrangea anomala, of eastern Asia, having shiny, egg-shaped leaves and flat-topped white flower clusters, and climbing by aerial rootlets.
- cling like a leech — to cling or adhere persistently to something
- clobbering machine — pressure to conform with accepted standards
- closed scholarship — a scholarship for which only certain people, such as those from a particular school or with a particular surname, are eligible
- clothing allowance — an amount of money to compensate for the purchase of clothes for work, school, etc
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- commercial attache — an attaché in an embassy or legation representing the commercial interests of his or her country.
- commercial vehicle — a vehicle for carrying goods or (less commonly) passengers
- commonwealth games — an event held every four years in which sportspeople from the countries of the Commonwealth compete
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- continental shield — any of the large, low-lying areas in the Earth's crust that are composed of Precambrian crystalline rocks
- controllable-pitch — (of a marine or aircraft propeller) having blades whose pitch can be changed during navigation or flight; variable-pitch.
- corpuscular theory — the theory, originally proposed by Newton, and revived with the development of the quantum theory, that light consists of a stream of particles
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- crested flycatcher — any of various tyrant flycatchers (esp. genus Myiarchus) with a prominent crest
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- death by chocolate — a very rich type of chocolate dessert or cake
- death-valley curve — a curve on a graph showing how the capital of a new company plotted against time declines sharply as the venture capital is used up before income reaches predicted levels
- decachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) The fully chlorinated polychlorinated biphenyl containing ten chlorine atoms.
- dichloracetic acid — a highly corrosive acid. Formula: C2H2Cl2O2
- dielectric heating — the heating of a nonconducting substance caused by dielectric loss when the material is placed in a variable electric field.
- digital switchover — the process of changing the method of transmitting television from analogue to digital format
- digital technology — the branch of scientific or engineering knowledge that deals with the creation and practical use of digital or computerized devices, methods, systems, etc.: advances in digital technology.
- dihydrotachysterol — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble sterol, C 28 H 46 O, derived from ergosterol: used chiefly in the treatment of hypoparathyroidism.
- diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
- diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
- dodecadodecahedral — Having the form of a dodecadodecahedron.
- double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
- dr. james h. clark — (person) The founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc. and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation.
- drinking chocolate — sweetened cocoa powder