20-letter words containing c, l, a, s
- 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.
- colorpoint shorthair — any of a breed of domestic cat, bred by crossing a Siamese and an American shorthair, with blue, almond-shaped eyes and a short, glossy, white coat shading to a darker color at the face, ears, feet, and tail
- 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.
- communication skills — the ability to convey information and ideas effectively
- 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
- 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.
- condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
- 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
- constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
- consultant physician — a physician who has attained the rank of consultant in a particular speciality
- continental congress — the assembly of delegates from the North American rebel colonies held during and after the War of American Independence. It issued the Declaration of Independence (1776) and framed the Articles of Confederation (1777)
- controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
- conventional weapons — weapons which are not nuclear
- copulative asyndeton — a staccato effect produced by omitting copulative connectives between two or more items in a group, as in “Friends, Romans, countrymen.”.
- corresponding angles — a pair of nonadjacent angles, one interior and one exterior, on the same side of a transversal: these paired angles are equal if the lines cut by the transversal are parallel
- court of last resort — (in the US) a supreme court
- craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
- criminal proceedings — action taken in a court to bring a criminal prosecution against someone
- criminal syndicalism — the doctrine of recourse to acts of violence or terrorism, or the advocacy of such acts, as a means of effecting economic or political change: proscribed by statute in many U.S. states.
- cross someone's palm — to give someone money
- cycloidal propulsion — propulsion of a vessel by propellers of controllable pitch that steer as well as propel.
- cylinder head gasket — (in an automobile engine) a gasket placed between the cylinder and the cylinder heads to avoid leaks of coolant and compression
- darkfield microscope — kind of microscope
- dementia pugilistica — chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
- democratic socialism — socialism, or a modified form of socialism, achieved by a gradual transition by and under democratic political processes.
- deontological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing with right action and the nature of duty, without regard to the goodness or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
- devil's bit scabious — a similar and related Eurasian marsh plant, Succisa pratensis
- dewey decimal system — a frequently used system of library book classification and arrangement with ten main subject classes
- dickless workstation — (abuse) Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
- diels-alder reaction — the reaction in which a conjugated diene combines with a double or triple bond of a given compound to form a ring of six carbon atoms.
- digital data service — (communications) (DDS) The class of service offered by telecommunications companies for transmitting digital data as opposed to voice.
- digital service unit — data service unit
- diplomatic secretary — secretary (def 5).
- diplomatic-secretary — secretary (def 5).
- disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
- disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
- disciplinary hearing — a hearing at which the conduct of a member of an organization, profession etc is examined and a punishment may be handed down
- discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.
- displacement tonnage — the number of long tons of water displaced by a vessel, light or load displacement being specified.
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- distributive lattice — (theory) A lattice for which the least upper bound (lub) and greatest lower bound (glb) operators distribute over one another so that a lub (b glb c) == (a lub c) glb (a lub b) and vice versa. ("lub" and "glb" are written in LateX as \sqcup and \sqcap).