18-letter words containing c, n
- public convenience — a rest room, especially at a large public place, as at a railroad station.
- public corporation — a corporation, owned and operated by a government, established for the administration of certain public programs.
- public examination — an examination, such as a GCSE exam, that is set by a central examining board
- public expenditure — spending by central government, local authorities, and public corporations
- publicity campaign — an effort to convey information to the public
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- puerto rico trench — a depression in the ocean floor, N of Puerto Rico: includes deepest part of Atlantic Ocean, 28,374 feet (8648 meters).
- pull one's punches — to restrain the force of one's criticisms or actions
- pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
- pulp canal therapy — endodontics.
- purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
- puss in the corner — a parlor game for children in which one player in the middle of a room tries to occupy any of the positions along the walls that become vacant as other players dash across to exchange places at a signal.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- put the mockers on — stop, thwart
- puvis de chavannes — Puvis de [py-vee duh] /püˈvi də/ (Show IPA), Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre.
- quadratic equation — an equation containing a single variable of degree 2. Its general form is ax 2 + bx + c = 0, where x is the variable and a, b, and c are constants (a ≠ 0).
- quality controller — a person responsible for checking that the goods or services produced by an organization are of an acceptable standard
- quantum efficiency — the number of electrons released by a photocell per photon of incident radiation of a given energy
- quantum statistics — the branch of statistical mechanics that incorporates quantum mechanics.
- quinacrine mustard — a nitrogen mustard derived from mepacrine and used as a stain for chromosomes
- quite the contrary — not at all, the very opposite
- rabbit-proof fence — a fence through which rabbits are unable to pass
- racial segregation — social policy: separation of races
- radiant efficiency — the ratio of the power emitted by a source of radiation to the power consumed by it
- radiation sickness — sickness caused by irradiation with x-rays or other nuclear radiation as a result of therapeutic treatment, accidental exposure, or a nuclear bomb explosion and characterized by nausea, vomiting, headache, cramps, diarrhea, loss of hair and teeth, destruction of white blood cells, and prolonged hemorrhage.
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- radio range beacon — a radio transmitter that utilizes two or more directional antennas and transmits signals differing with direction, permitting a flier receiving a signal to determine his or her approximate bearing from the transmitter without a radio compass.
- radioactive dating — any method of determining the age of earth materials or objects of organic origin based on measurement of either short-lived radioactive elements or the amount of a long-lived radioactive element plus its decay product.
- radiocarbon dating — the determination of the age of objects of organic origin by measurement of the radioactivity of their carbon content.
- radiocommunication — communication by means of radio waves
- radiometric dating — any method of determining the age of earth materials or objects of organic origin based on measurement of either short-lived radioactive elements or the amount of a long-lived radioactive element plus its decay product.
- raffinate recovery — Raffinate recovery is the use of a substance which is left after a process is complete and the desired substances have been removed.
- rain cats and dogs — water that is condensed from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth in drops more than 1/50 inch (0.5 mm) in diameter. Compare drizzle (def 6).
- raman spectroscopy — a form of spectroscopy which uses the Raman effect for studying molecules
- rape crisis centre — a place that provides support to people who have been victims of rape or other kinds of sexual abuse
- reach for the moon — to desire or attempt something unattainable or difficult to obtain
- reaction formation — a behavioral tendency developed in direct opposition to a repressed impulse.
- reactive component — the component in an alternating-current circuit that does not contribute power because it is 90° out of phase with the voltage or current.
- recess appointment — a person appointed to an office by the President of the United States without approval from the Senate because the Senate is in recess
- recharacterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
- reciprocating pump — A reciprocating pump is a pump which uses a backward and forward movement to move a fluid.
- reconnaissance car — a specially equipped and armed car used for making military reconnaissance.
- recovery operation — the process of locating and retrieving bodies, esp following an explosion or natural disaster
- recruiting officer — a person whose job is to recruit staff, esp on behalf of the military
- recruitment agency — company that places job candidates
- recursive function — a function defined in terms of the repeated application of a number of simpler functions to their own values, by specifying a base clause and a recursion formula
- reduction division — the first division of meiosis in which the number of chromosomes is reduced to half the original number.
- reduction strategy — (theory) An algorithm for deciding which redex(es) to reduce next. Different strategies have different termination properties in the presence of recursive functions or values. See string reduction, normal order reduction, applicative order reduction, parallel reduction
- redundancy payment — a sum of money given by an employer to an employee who has been made redundant: usually calculated on the basis of the employee's rate of pay and length of service
- reference counting — (programming) A garbage collection technique where each memory cell contains a count of the number of other cells which point to it. If this count reaches zero the cell is freed and its pointers to other cells are followed to decrement their counts, and so on recursively. This technique cannot cope with circular data structures. Cells in such structures refer (indirectly) to themselves and so will never have a zero reference count. This means they would never be reclaimed, even when there are no references from outside the structure.