18-letter words containing c, i, e, r, o, n
- behavioral science — any of several studies, as sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc., that examine human activities in an attempt to discover recurrent patterns and to formulate rules about social behavior
- benchmark position — a public service job used for comparison with a similar position, such as a position in commerce, for wage settlements
- berwick-upon-tweed — a town in N England, in N Northumberland at the mouth of the Tweed: much involved in border disputes between England and Scotland between the 12th and 16th centuries; neutral territory 1551–1885. Pop: 12 870 (2001)
- biodiversification — the process by which the diversity of plants or animals develops or is increased within a particular region or group of organisms.
- biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
- bird's-nest orchid — a brown parasitic Eurasian orchid, Neottia nidus-avis, whose thick fleshy roots resemble a bird's nest and contain a fungus on which the orchid feeds
- blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
- board of education — a group or agency with responsibility for education
- board of elections — a bipartisan board appointed usually by local authorities and charged with control of elections and voting procedure.
- break your silence — If someone breaks their silence about something, they talk about something that they have not talked about before or for a long time.
- brightness control — a control that enables the brightness of the image on a television screen, computer monitor, etc to be adjusted
- bring someone luck — If you say that something brings bad luck or brings someone good luck, you believe that it has an influence on whether good or bad things happen to them.
- broadcasting house — any of a number of buildings in the UK from which the BBC broadcasts or has broadcast
- burrell collection — a gallery in Glasgow, noted for its collection of paintings, textiles, furniture, ceramics, etc
- c-reactive protein — a globulin in the blood produced by the liver in response to inflammation
- cabernet sauvignon — a black grape originally grown in the Bordeaux area of France, and now throughout the wine-producing world
- cabinet government — parliamentary government.
- calcium propionate — a white, water-soluble powder, CaC 6 H 10 O 4 , used in bakery products to inhibit the growth of fungi.
- california current — a cold current originating in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, flowing SE along the coast of W North America.
- california rosebay — a Pacific coast shrub or tree (Rhododendron californicum) of the heath family, with rosy or purplish flowers
- cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
- carbonic anhydrase — an enzyme in blood cells that catalyses the decomposition of carbonic acid into carbon dioxide and water, facilitating the transport of carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs
- carbonic-anhydride — carbon dioxide.
- carboxyhaemoglobin — haemoglobin coordinated with carbon monoxide, formed as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. As carbon monoxide is bound in preference to oxygen, tissues are deprived of oxygen
- carcinoid syndrome — the systemic effects, including flushing, palpitations, diarrhea, and cramps, resulting from increased blood levels of serotonin secreted by a carcinoid.
- carolina chickadee — a chickadee, Parus carolinensis, of the southeastern U.S., resembling but smaller than the black-capped chickadee.
- carolina jessamine — a vine, Gelsemium sempervirens, of the southern U.S. and Central America, of the logania family, having glossy, lance-shaped leaves and fragrant yellow flowers: the state flower of South Carolina.
- cash-for-questions — of, involved in, or relating to a scandal in which some MPs were accused of accepting bribes to ask particular questions in Parliament
- castration complex — an unconscious fear of having one's genitals removed, as a punishment for wishing to have sex with a parent
- catalogue raisonne — a descriptive catalogue, esp one covering works of art in an exhibition or collection
- catherine of siena — Saint. 1347–80, Italian mystic and ascetic; patron saint of the Dominican order. Feast day: April 29
- cationic detergent — a type of detergent in which the active part of the molecule is a positive ion (cation). Cationic detergents are usually quaternary ammonium salts and often also have bactericidal properties
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- ceiling decoration — a plaster moulding for the centre of a ceiling; other decoration, such as coving
- central projection — a projection of one plane onto a second plane such that a point on the first plane and its image on the second plane lie on a straight line through a fixed point not on either plane.
- centralized school — a public school formed from the pupils and teachers of a number of discontinued smaller schools, especially in a rural district.
- cerebral dominance — the normal tendency for one half of the brain, usually the left cerebral hemisphere in right-handed people, to exercise more control over certain functions (e.g. handedness and language) than the other
- cerenkov radiation — radiation emitted when a charged particle travels through a medium at a speed greater than the speed of light through that medium
- certification mark — a mark that certifies the origin, material, quality, mode of manufacture, accuracy, or other characteristic of a product or service: “UL” is a certification mark for appliances meeting the safety standards of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
- cesarean (section) — a surgical operation for delivering a baby by cutting through the mother's abdominal and uterine walls
- character encoding — (character) (Or "character encoding scheme") A mapping between binary data values and character code positions (or "code points"). Early systems stored characters in a variety of ways, e.g. four six-bit characters in a 24-bit word, but around 1960, eight-bit bytes started to become the most common data storage layout, with each character stored in one byte, typically in the ASCII character set. In the case of ASCII, the character encoding is an identity mapping: code position 65 maps to the byte value 65. This is possible because ASCII uses only code positions representable as single bytes, i.e., values between 0 and 255. (US-ASCII only uses values 0 to 127, in fact.) From the late 1990s, there was increased use of larger character sets such as Unicode and many CJK coded character sets. These can represent characters from many languages and more symbols.
- charge conjugation — the mathematical operation of replacing every elementary particle by its antiparticle. Symbol: C.
- check verification — Check verification is a system that checks national databases of information about individuals to make sure that checks will be honored and fraud is not being committed.
- checkpoint charlie — a crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War
- children of israel — the Jews; Hebrews
- chinese gooseberry — kiwi (sense 2)
- chinese revolution — the overthrow of the last Manchu emperor and the establishment of a republic in China (1911–12)
- 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.
- chlorohydroquinone — a white to light-tan, crystalline, water-soluble solid, C 6 H 3 Cl(OH) 2 , used chiefly in organic synthesis and as a developer in photography.
- chrétien de troyes — 12th century, French poet, who wrote the five Arthurian romances Erec; Cligès; Lancelot, le chevalier de la charette; Yvain, le chevalier au lion; and Perceval, le conte del Graal (?1155–?1190), the first courtly romances