16-letter words containing c, o, e, t
- introspectionist — observation or examination of one's own mental and emotional state, mental processes, etc.; the act of looking within oneself.
- intussusceptions — Plural form of intussusception.
- inverse cosecant — arc cosecant.
- inverse function — the function that replaces another function when the dependent and independent variables of the first function are interchanged for an appropriate set of values of the dependent variable. In y = sin x and x = arc sin y, the inverse function of sine is arc sine.
- it's no accident — You begin a sentence with 'it's no accident' if you want to suggest that something was done deliberately or has a logical explanation, although it might give the impression of having happened by chance.
- jacques cousteau — Jacques Yves [zhahk eev] /ʒɑk iv/ (Show IPA), 1910–97, French naval officer, author, and underseas explorer: developed the Aqua-Lung.
- job's comforters — a person who unwittingly or maliciously depresses or discourages someone while attempting to be consoling.
- josephson effect — a high-speed switch, used in experimental computers, that operates on the basis of a radiative phenomenon (Jo·sephson effect) exhibited by a pair of superconductors separated by a thin insulator.
- judaeo-christian — of or relating to the religious writings, beliefs, values, or traditions held in common by Judaism and Christianity.
- jude the obscure — a novel (1895) by Thomas Hardy.
- junior executive — a trainee position in a business or organization
- karyokinetically — In a karyokinetic manner; by means of karyokinesis.
- kepler telescope — astronomical telescope.
- keratoacanthomas — Plural form of keratoacanthoma.
- kiloelectronvolt — (physics) A unit of energy equal to a thousand electron volts.
- kit and caboodle — a set or collection of tools, supplies, instructional matter, etc., for a specific purpose: a first-aid kit; a sales kit.
- kurdaitcha shoes — (in certain Central Australian Aboriginal tribes) the emu-feather shoes worn by the kurdaitcha on his mission so that his footsteps may not be traced
- labrador current — a cold ocean current flowing southwards off the coast of Labrador and meeting the warm Gulf Stream, causing dense fogs off the coast of Newfoundland
- labtech notebook — (tool, product) Commercial data aquisition software.
- lacto-vegetarian — a vegetarian whose diet includes dairy produce and eggs
- lactovegetarians — Plural form of lactovegetarian.
- laplace equation — the second-order partial differential equation indicating that the Laplace operator operating on a given function results in zero. Compare harmonic (def 4c).
- laplace operator — the operator ∂2/∂x2 + ∂2/∂y2 + ∂2/∂z2,
- lattice constant — a parameter, either a measure of length or angle, that defines the size and shape of the unit cell of a crystal lattice.
- lawson criterion — (in a hypothetical nuclear fusion reactor) the requirement that in order for the energy produced by fusion to exceed the energy expended in causing the fusion, the product of the density of the fuel and the time during which it is confined at that density (Lawson product) must be greater than a certain number that depends on the kind of fuel used.
- leconte de lisle — Charles Marie [sharl ma-ree] /ʃarl maˈri/ (Show IPA), 1818–94, French poet.
- legal dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering terms used in the various branches of the legal profession, as civil law, criminal law, and corporate law. A comprehensive legal dictionary adds to its body of standard English entries many words and phrases that have made their way into modern legal practice from law French and Latin and are rarely found in a general English monolingual dictionary. Such a specialized dictionary is useful not only for law students and for attorneys themselves, but for members of the lay public who require legal services. Legal dictionaries published in print follow the normal practice of sorting entry terms alphabetically, while electronic dictionaries, such as the online Dictionary of Law on Dictionary.com, allow direct, immediate access to a search term.
- lenticular cloud — a very smooth, round or oval, lens-shaped cloud that is often seen, singly or stacked in groups, near a mountain ridge.
- lethal injection — dose of deadly chemical into a vein
- letter of advice — a notification from a consignor to a consignee giving specific information as to a shipment, the name of the carrier, the date shipped, etc.
- letter of credit — an order issued by a banker allowing a person named to draw money to a specified amount from correspondents of the issuer.
- level descriptor — one of a set of criteria used to assess the performance of a pupil in a particular subject
- lexicostatistics — the statistical study of the vocabulary of a language or languages for historical purposes.
- liberal democrat — In Britain, a Liberal Democrat is a member of the Liberal Democrat Party.
- lick observatory — the astronomical observatory of the University of California, situated on Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California, and having a 120-inch (3-meter) reflecting telescope and a 36-inch (91-cm) refracting telescope.
- light microscope — microscope (def 1).
- lighthouse clock — an American mantel clock of the early 19th century, having the dial and works exposed beneath a glass dome on a tapered, cylindrical body.
- like cat and dog — quarrelling savagely
- limited monarchy — a monarchy that is limited by laws and a constitution.
- limited-monarchy — a limited train, bus, etc.
- line composition — type produced on a linecaster
- literacy project — a project, plan or scheme to increase literacy in a country, area, etc
- lithium chloride — a white, water-soluble, deliquescent, crystalline solid, LiCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of mineral water, especially lithia water, and as a flux in metallurgy.
- 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.
- 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.
- longicorn beetle — any beetle of the family Cerambycidae, having a long narrow body, long legs, and long antennae
- loose connection — an imperfect electrical connection, as in a plug or car engine
- 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.