17-letter words containing c, l, a, m, i
- incommunicability — incapable of being communicated, imparted, shared, etc.
- incompatibilities — not compatible; unable to exist together in harmony: She asked for a divorce because they were utterly incompatible.
- incremental value — increased value measured on an index or scale
- intercolumniation — the space between two adjacent columns, usually the clear space between the lower parts of the shafts.
- internal medicine — the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and nonsurgical treatment of diseases, especially of internal organ systems.
- intersectionalism — The study of minorities within minorities, or intersections between minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination.
- invincible armada — Armada.
- isomorphism class — (mathematics) A collection of all the objects isomorphic to a given object. Talking about the isomorphism class (of a poset, say) ensures that we will only consider its properties as a poset, and will not consider other incidental properties it happens to have.
- japanese clematis — a Japanese woody vine, Clematis paniculata, of the buttercup family, having dense clusters of fragrant, white flowers and plumed fruit.
- jerusalem cricket — a large, nocturnal, wingless, long-horned grasshopper, Stenopelmatus fuscus, occuring chiefly in loose soil and sand along the Pacific coast of the U.S.
- joachim du bellay — Joachim [French zhaw-a-keem] /French ʒɔ aˈkim/ (Show IPA), Bellay, Joachim du.
- jumping-off place — a place for use as a starting point: Paris was the jumping-off place for our tour of Europe.
- lame-duck session — (formerly) the December to March session of those members of the U.S. Congress who were defeated for reelection the previous November.
- larmor precession — the precession of charged particles, as electrons, placed in a magnetic field, the frequency of the precession (Larmor frequency) being equal to the electronic charge times the strength of the magnetic field divided by 4π times the mass.
- lautenclavicymbal — a harpsichord with strings of gut rather than metal.
- law of trichotomy — the property that for natural numbers a and b , either a is less than b , a equals b , or a is greater than b .
- liberal democracy — a democracy based on the recognition of individual rights and freedoms, in which decisions from direct or representative processes prevail in many policy areas
- liberal democrats — (in Britain) a political party with centrist policies; established in 1988 as the Social and Liberal Democrats when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic Party; renamed Liberal Democrats in 1989
- light machine gun — any air-cooled machine gun having a caliber not greater than 0.30 inches (7.6 mm).
- line of scrimmage — an imaginary line parallel to the goal lines that passes from one sideline to the other through the point of the football closest to the goal line of each team.
- lisp machine lisp — (language) An extension of Maclisp, now called Zetalisp.
- literacy campaign — a campaign designed to reduce illiteracy and promote literacy in a country, area, etc
- lithium carbonate — a colorless crystalline compound, Li 2 CO 3 , slightly soluble in water: used in ceramic and porcelain glazes, pharmaceuticals, and luminescent paints.
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.
- local examination — any of various examinations, such as the GCSE, set by university boards and conducted in local centres, schools, etc
- loco primo citato — loc. primo cit.
- logic programming — (artificial intelligence, programming, language) A declarative, relational style of programming based on first-order logic. The original logic programming language was Prolog. The concept is based on Horn clauses. The programmer writes a "database" of "facts", e.g. wet(water). ("water is wet") and "rules", e.g. mortal(X) :- human(X). ("X is mortal is implied by X is human"). Facts and rules are collectively known as "clauses". The user supplies a "goal" which the system attempts to prove using "resolution" or "backward chaining". This involves matching the current goal against each fact or the left hand side of each rule using "unification". If the goal matches a fact, the goal succeeds; if it matches a rule then the process recurses, taking each sub-goal on the right hand side of the rule as the current goal. If all sub-goals succeed then the rule succeeds. Each time a possible clause is chosen, a "choice point" is created on a stack. If subsequent resolution fails then control eventually returns to the choice point and subsequent clauses are tried. This is known as "backtracking". Clauses may contain logic variables which take on any value necessary to make the fact or the left hand side of the rule match a goal. Unification binds these variables to the corresponding subterms of the goal. Such bindings are associated with the choice point at which the clause was chosen and are undone when backtracking reaches that choice point. The user is informed of the success or failure of his first goal and if it succeeds and contains variables he is told what values of those variables caused it to succeed. He can then ask for alternative solutions.
- lombrosian school — a school of criminology, promulgating the theories and employing the methods developed by Lombroso.
- luminous efficacy — the quotient of the luminous flux of a radiation and its corresponding radiant flux
- luminous exitance — the ability of a surface to emit light expressed as the luminous flux per unit area at a specified point on the surface
- lymphangiographic — Relating to lymphangiography.
- macro-linguistics — a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language.
- macroevolutionary — Pertaining to, or as a result of macroevolution.
- madonna and child — a representation of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus.
- magellanic clouds — either of two irregular galactic clusters in the southern heavens that are the nearest independent star system to the Milky Way.
- magnetic monopole — a hypothetical very heavy particle with an isolated magnetic north pole or magnetic south pole.
- magnetoelasticity — the phenomenon, consisting of a change in magnetic properties, exhibited by a ferromagnetic material to which stress is applied.
- mains electricity — electricity supplied to a building through wires
- maintained school — a school financially supported by the state
- malagasy republic — former name of Madagascar.
- malay archipelago — an extensive island group in the Indian and Pacific oceans, SE of Asia, including the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and the Philippines.
- manufacturability — The condition of being manufacturable.
- many-valued logic — the study of logical systems in which the truth-values that a proposition may have are not restricted to two, representing only truth and falsity
- mascarene islands — a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, E of Madagascar, including Mauritius, Reunion, and Rodrigues.
- masculine caesura — a caesura occurring immediately after a stressed or a long syllable.
- materialistically — excessively concerned with physical comforts or the acquisition of wealth and material possessions, rather than with spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.
- materials science — the study of the characteristics and uses of various materials, as glass, plastics, and metals.
- maternal instinct — motherly urge to protect and nurture
- maurice chevalier — Maurice (Auguste) [maw-rees aw-guh st;; French moh-rees oh-gyst] /mɔˈris ˈɔ gəst;; French moʊˈris oʊˈgüst/ (Show IPA), 1888–1972, French actor and singer.
- maximum principle — the theorem that a function of a complex variable that is analytic in a domain and on its boundary attains its maximum absolute value on the boundary.