16-letter words containing c, l, a, t
- little black ant — a widely distributed ant, Monomorium minimum, sometimes a household pest.
- liturgical drama — medieval drama, based on incidents in the Bible and performed in churches on holy days, usually in Latin and often chanted.
- liturgical latin — the Latin characteristic of the liturgies of the Western Church.
- local government — the administration of the civic affairs of a city, town, or district by its inhabitants rather than by the state or country at large.
- local oscillator — the oscillator in a superheterodyne receiver whose output frequency is mixed with the incoming modulated radio-frequency carrier signal to produce the required intermediate frequency
- locomotor ataxia — tabes dorsalis.
- logical constant — one of the connectives of a given system of formal logic, esp those of the sentential calculus, not, and, or, and if … then …
- logical operator — any of the Boolean symbols or functions, as AND, OR, and NOT, denoting a Boolean operation; Boolean operator.
- logical relation — A relation R satisfying f R g <=> For all a, b, a R b => f a R g b This definition, by Plotkin, can be used to extend the definition of a relation on the types of a and b to a relation on functions.
- logical unit 6.2 — (networking) (LU6.2) A type of logical unit that governs peer-to-peer SNA communications. LU6.2 supports general communication between programs in a distributed processing environment. LU6.2 is characterised by a peer relationship between session partners, efficient use of a session for multiple transactions, comprehensive end-to-end error processing and a generic application program interface consisting of structured verbs that are mapped into a product inplementation. LU6.2 is used by IBM's TPF operating system.
- long-tail claims — Long-tail claims are claims that are made or settled a long time after the insurance policy has expired.
- loop combination — A program transformation where the bodies of two loops are merged into one thus reducing the overhead of manipulating and testing the control variable and branching. Further optimisation of the merged code may then become possible. In horizontal loop combination the bodies of the loops are largely independent so only the loop overhead is saved. Vertical loop combination applies where the results of the first loop are used by the second. Combining the two allows the intermediate results to be used immediately (in registers) rather than requiring them to be stored in an array. The functional equivalent of horizontal and vertical loop combination are tupling and fusion.
- lorenz attractor — (mathematics) (After Edward Lorenz, its discoverer) A region in the phase space of the solution to certain systems of (non-linear) differential equations. Under certain conditions, the motion of a particle described by such as system will neither converge to a steady state nor diverge to infinity, but will stay in a bounded but chaotically defined region. By chaotic, we mean that the particle's location, while definitely in the attractor, might as well be randomly placed there. That is, the particle appears to move randomly, and yet obeys a deeper order, since is never leaves the attractor. Lorenz modelled the location of a particle moving subject to atmospheric forces and obtained a certain system of ordinary differential equations. When he solved the system numerically, he found that his particle moved wildly and apparently randomly. After a while, though, he found that while the momentary behaviour of the particle was chaotic, the general pattern of an attractor appeared. In his case, the pattern was the butterfly shaped attractor now known as the Lorenz attractor.
- lost-wax process — a process of investment casting in which a refractory mold is built up around a pattern of wax and then baked so as to melt and drain off the wax.
- low-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.04 and 0.25 per cent carbon
- luck of the draw — the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities: With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.
- lumberjack shirt — a thick checked shirt, as worn by lumberjacks
- luminosity class — a classification of stars of a given spectral type according to their luminosity, breaking them down into dwarfs, giants, and supergiants.
- lymphangiectasia — (medicine) dilation of the lymphatic vessels.
- lymphangiectasis — Alt form lymphangiectasia.
- lymphatic system — an extensive network of capillary vessels that transports the interstitial fluid of the body as lymph to the venous blood circulation
- lymphatic tissue — tissue, such as the lymph nodes, tonsils, spleen, and thymus, that produces lymphocytes
- mackinaw blanket — a thick woolen blanket, often woven with bars of color, formerly used in the northern and western U.S. by Indians, loggers, etc.
- macro-linguistic — a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language.
- macroclimatology — the study of the climatic conditions of a large area.
- macrolepidoptera — a collector's name for that part of the lepidoptera that comprises the butterflies and the larger moths (noctuids, geometrids, bombycids, springtails, etc): a term without taxonomic significance
- macrolinguistics — a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language.
- macrometeorology — the study of large-scale atmospheric phenomena, as the general circulation of the air or global weather conditions.
- magical thinking — a conviction that thinking is equivalent to doing, occurring in dreams, the thought patterns of children, and some types of mental disorders, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- magnetic anomaly — a departure from the normal magnetic field of the earth.
- magneto-electric — of or relating to the induction of electric current or electromotive force by means of permanent magnets.
- make a complaint — If a guest makes a complaint, they express their dissatisfaction with something.
- malacostracology — (obsolete) carcinology, the study of crustaceans.
- malcontentedness — not satisfied or content with currently prevailing conditions or circumstances.
- malpractice suit — a lawsuit brought against a professional accused of illegal or unethical practices or neglect of duty
- man of the cloth — a clergyman or other ecclesiastic.
- marginal costing — a method of cost accounting and decision making used for internal reporting in which only marginal costs are charged to cost units and fixed costs are treated as a lump sum
- material culture — the aggregate of physical objects or artifacts used by a society.
- matter-of-factly — adhering strictly to fact; not imaginative; prosaic; dry; commonplace: a matter-of-fact account of the political rally.
- mcnaughten rules — (in English law) a set of rules established by the case of Regina v. McNaughten (1843) by which legal proof of insanity in the commission of a crime depends upon whether or not the accused can show either that he did not know what he was doing or that he is incapable of realizing that what he was doing was wrong
- megakaryoblastic — (cytology) Of or pertaining to a megakaryoblast.
- melodic interval — an intervening period of time: an interval of 50 years.
- melodramatically — In a melodramatic manner.
- menstrual cramps — pain in the lower abdomen as well as possibly in the lower back and legs associated with menstruation
- mental defective — a person who suffers from a learning disability or from some form of mental illness
- mercantile paper — commercial paper.
- mercator sailing — sailing according to rhumb lines, which appear as straight lines on a Mercator chart.
- meristematically — In a meristematic way.
- meritocratically — In a meritocratic way.
- metamathematical — Pertaining to metamathematics, a branch of mathematics dealing with mathematical systems and their nature.