20-letter words containing c, n
- comparative religion — a field of study seeking to derive general principles from a comparison and classification of the growth and influence of various religions.
- compare and contrast — note similarities, differences
- compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
- compartmentalization — to divide into categories or compartments.
- 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
- compensation package — the sum of compensation awarded in a legal case
- compensatory damages — sum paid for a loss
- 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 colour — one of any pair of colours, such as yellow and blue, that give white or grey when mixed in the correct proportions
- 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.
- complete blood count — a diagnostic test that determines the exact numbers of each type of blood cell in a fixed quantity of blood. Abbreviation: CBC.
- complete unification — (programming) W.P. Weijland's name for unification without occur check.
- comprehensive school — a secondary school for children of all abilities from the same district
- compression ignition — ignition of engine fuel by the heat of air compressed in the cylinders into which the fuel is introduced.
- computer programming — the activity or profession of writing computer programs
- computer typesetting — a system for the high-speed composition of type by a device driven by punched paper tape or magnetic tape that has been processed by a computer
- computing dictionary — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
- conditioned response — a response that is transferred from the second to the first of a pair of stimuli. A well-known Pavlovian example is salivation by a dog when it hears a bell ring, because food has always been presented when the bell has been rung previously
- conditioned stimulus — a stimulus to which an organism has learned to make a response by classical conditioning
- conductive education — an educational system, developed in Hungary by András Petö, in which teachers (conductors) teach children and adults with motor disorders to function independently, by guiding them to attain their own goals in their own way
- confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
- conference committee — a committee made up of members from both houses whose task is to eliminate any differences between versions of legislation on the same subject passed in the different chambers
- conferencing over ip — (communications, standard) (CoIP) Standards for the transmission of multimedia over the Internet. CoIP extends VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) with text, images, video. The main CoIP standard is based on H.323. The VoIP forum of the IMTC merged with the H.323 Activity Group in January 1999 to form the Conferencing over IP (CoIP) Activity Group. VoIP uses "VoIP Devices" as gateways to route voice data packets over the Internet or PSTN. Protocols such as SGCP and its successor MGCP extend VoIP to handle media other than voice data.
- conflict of interest — a conflict between one's obligation to the public good and one's self-interest, as in the case of a public officeholder who owns stock in a company seeking government contracts
- conformal projection — a map projection in which angles formed by lines are preserved: a map made using this projection preserves the shape of any small area.
- 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
- connector conspiracy — (business, standard) The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, other designers) to come up with products that don't fit with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The term probably came into prominence with the appearance of the DEC KL-10, none of whose connectors matched anything else. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually *patented* by DEC, who reputedly refused to licence the design, thus effectively locking out competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy was a source of frustration for the owners of dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives. A related phenomenon is the invention of new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialised case-cracking tool to open the box. With the advent of more open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse. Compare backward combatability.
- conscious uncoupling — the ending of a romantic relationship or marriage in a respectful, positive, and constructive way.
- conservation of mass — the principle that the total mass of any isolated system is constant and is independent of any chemical and physical changes taking place within the system
- conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
- conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
- constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
- constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
- construction company — a business enterprise concerned with the construction of buildings, bridges, etc
- consultant physician — a physician who has attained the rank of consultant in a particular speciality
- consumer electronics — computers and other electronic devices designed for private individuals as opposed to businesses
- consumer price index — The consumer price index is an official measure of the rate of inflation within a country's economy. The abbreviation CPI is also used.
- contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
- contempt of congress — contempt of a U.S. Congressional body, as of an investigating committee, shown by a witness summoned or appearing before it.
- context of situation — the totality of extralinguistic features having relevance to a communicative act.
- context-free grammar — (grammar) (CFG) A grammar where the syntax of each constituent (syntactic category or terminal symbol) is independent of the symbols occuring before and after it in a sentence. A context-free grammar describes a context-free language. Context-free grammars can be expressed by a set of "production rules" or syntactic rules. For example, a language with symbols "a" and "b" that must occur in unequal numbers can be represented by the CFG: S → U | V U → TaU | TaT | UaT V → TbV | TbT | VbT T → aTbT | bTaT | ε meaning the top-level category "S" consists of either a "U" or a "V" and so on. The special category "ε" represents the empty string. This grammar is context-free because each rule has a single symbol on its left-hand side.
- 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)
- contingency planning — planning for future events that seem less likely than others
- contingent liability — a possible liability that is dependent on the outcome of a future event
- continued proportion — geometric progression