18-letter words containing c, l, a, m, e
- mid-atlantic ridge — a north-south suboceanic ridge in the Atlantic Ocean from Iceland to Antarctica on whose crest are several groups of islands; shown by plate tectonics to be the axis along which North America has split away from Eurasia, and along which South America has split away from Africa.
- middle paleolithic — See under Paleolithic.
- military policeman — A military policeman is a member of the military police.
- mineralocorticoids — Plural form of mineralocorticoid.
- misplaced modifier — Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause that seems to refer to or modify an unintended word because of its placement in a sentence, as when young in When young, circuses appeal to all of us.
- mission specialist — the crew member of a space shuttle who is assigned primary responsibility for carrying out operations related to the payload of the shuttle.
- mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
- moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
- modular arithmetic — arithmetic in which numbers that are congruent modulo a given number are treated as the same. Compare congruence (def 2), modulo, modulus (def 2b).
- molecular genetics — a subdivision of genetics concerned with the structure and function of genes at the molecular level.
- molecular medicine — the study of disease or injury at the molecular or cellular level.
- molecular spectrum — the spectrum of light emitted or absorbed by a species of molecule.
- monte carlo method — a technique for numerically approximating the solution of a mathematical problem by studying the distribution of some random variable, often generated by a computer.
- mordovian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
- mozambique channel — a channel in SE Africa, between Mozambique and Madagascar. 950 miles (1530 km) long; 250–550 miles (400–885 km) wide.
- mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- multimedia machine — machines that allow users to control and manipulate sound, video, text and graphics
- musical instrument — music
- mutual aid society — A mutual aid society is an organization that provides benefits or other help to its members when they are affected by things such as death, sickness, disability, old age, or unemployment.
- mutually exclusive — of or relating to a situation involving two or more events, possibilities, etc., in which the occurrence of one precludes the occurrence of the other: mutually exclusive plans of action.
- mutually recursive — recursion
- new american bible — an English translation of the Bible based on the original languages, prepared by Catholic Biblical scholars, and first published in 1970.
- nickel-and-dime it — to succeed or obtain something gradually by the repeated expenditure of small sums or the slow gathering of votes, power, money, etc. in small increments
- nickeled-and-dimed — of little or no importance; trivial; petty: a nickel-and-dime business that soon folded.
- nocturnal emission — the release of semen during sleep, often during a sexual dream.
- nonstriated muscle — smooth muscle
- numerical analysis — the branch of mathematics dealing with methods for obtaining approximate numerical solutions of mathematical problems.
- numerical aperture — a measure of the resolving power of a microscope, equal to the index of refraction of the medium in which the object is placed multiplied by the sine of the angle made with the axis by the most oblique ray entering the instrument, the resolving power increasing as the product increases. Abbreviation: N.A.
- numerical identity — the relation that holds between two relata when they are the selfsame entity, that is, when the terms designating them have the same reference
- numerical taxonomy — classification of organisms by a comparison of large numbers of observable characteristics that are given equal value instead of being weighted according to possible evolutionary significance.
- objective idealism — a form of idealism asserting that the act of experiencing has a reality combining and transcending the natures of the object experienced and of the mind of the observer.
- objective modula-2 — (language) (Or "ObjM2") An extension to Modula-2 for Cocoa and GNUstep software development. Objective Modula-2 follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax used in Objective-C. Classes written in ObjM2 can be used within ObjC and vice versa. ObjM2 also retains Modula-2's data encapsulation features, namely nested modules with explicit import and export lists. Due to the strict type checking in Modula-2, ObjM2 can be considered a much safer programming language than is ObjC, yet losing none of the capabilities of ObjC.
- oil of catechumens — holy oil used in baptism, the ordination of a cleric, the coronation of a sovereign, or in the consecration of a church.
- once in a lifetime — extremely rarely
- optical microscope — traditional magnifying instrument
- paleoclimatologist — the branch of paleogeography dealing with the study of paleoclimates.
- palm beach gardens — a city in SE Florida, near North Palm Beach.
- palmer archipelago — a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the NW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- particulate matter — Particulate matter is solid or liquid particles in the air, which are measured in PM-10 units and are particles with a diameter of ten micrometers or less.
- people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
- perceptual mapping — the use of a graph or map in the development of a new product, in which the proximity of consumers' images of the new product to those of an ideal product provide an indication of the new product's likely success
- photochemical smog — air pollution containing ozone and other reactive chemical compounds formed by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, especially those in automobile exhaust.
- physical chemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical composition and transformations.
- pig-tailed macaque — a forest-dwelling southeast Asian macaque, Macaca nemestrina, having a short, curled tail, colonized for animal behavior studies.
- play cat and mouse — Also called cat and rat. a children's game in which players in a circle keep a player from moving into or out of the circle and permit a second player to move into or out of the circle to escape the pursuing first player.
- plumber's merchant — a shop or business that sells things needed for the job of installing and repairing pipes, fixtures, etc, for water, drainage, and gas
- policeman's helmet — a Himalayan balsaminaceous plant, Impatiens glandulifera, with large purplish-pink flowers, introduced into Britain
- politically-minded — (of a person or group of people) interested in the way power is achieved and used in a country or society (through government, policy-making, etc)