18-letter words containing c, o, l, d, e, a
- oedipus at colonus — a tragedy by Sophocles, written toward the end of his life and produced posthumously in 401? b.c.
- on delicate ground — in a situation requiring tact
- optical disc drive — optical disk drive
- optical disk drive — (hardware) (Or "optical disc drive", "optical storage") A generic term for any device that reads and/or writes optical media, i.e. compact discs, DVDs and/or Blu-ray discs or future media that uses light (from a small laser) to read data off a removable, rotating disk. At least one such drive is commonly installed in most personal computers to allow them to play and/or record audio and video media and load and store data such as program installers. The floppy disk has been replaced by optical media due to its vastly greater capacity, e.g. 50,000 megabytes for a dual-layer blu-ray disc compared with 1.5 megabytes for a floppy (over 30,000 times as much).
- overdraft facility — a facility (of a bank or building-society cheque account) that allows a withdrawal of money in excess of the account's credit balance
- parallel reduction — A form of applicative order reduction in which all redexes in an expression are reduced simultaneously. Variants include parallel outermost reduction and lenient reduction. See normal order reduction.
- payload specialist — an astronaut trained to handle highly complex or classified equipment carried aboard a space shuttle and to conduct experiments in space.
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
- plane of incidence — a plane determined by a given ray, incident on a surface, and the normal at the point where the incident ray strikes the surface.
- play cat and mouse — Also called cat and rat. a children's game in which players in a circle keep a player from moving into or out of the circle and permit a second player to move into or out of the circle to escape the pursuing first player.
- play second fiddle — be considered less important
- politically-minded — (of a person or group of people) interested in the way power is achieved and used in a country or society (through government, policy-making, etc)
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- pour cold water on — If someone pours cold water on a plan or idea, they criticize it so much that people lose their enthusiasm for it.
- precedence lossage — /pre's*-dens los'*j/ A misunderstanding of operator precedence resulting in unintended grouping of arithmetic or logical operators when coding an expression. Used especially of mistakes in C code due to the nonintuitively low precedence of "&", "|", "^", "<<" and ">>". For example, the following C expression, intended to test the least significant bit of x, x & 1 == 0 is parsed as x & (1 == 0) which is always zero (false). Some lazy programmers ignore precedence and parenthesise everything. Lisp fans enjoy pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favourite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
- pseudo-socialistic — of or relating to socialists or socialism.
- pseudointellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- pyromucic aldehyde — furfural.
- racially motivated — motivated by (the hate or prejudice of) someone's race
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- reggio di calabria — a seaport in S Italy, on the Strait of Messina: almost totally destroyed by an earthquake 1908.
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- residential school — (in Canada) a boarding school maintained by the Canadian government for Indian and Inuit children from sparsely populated settlements
- rhodes scholarship — one of a number of scholarships at Oxford University, established by the will of Cecil Rhodes, for selected students (Rhodes scholars) from the British Commonwealth and the United States.
- sao caetano do sul — a city in SE Brazil, SE of São Paulo.
- schofield barracks — a town on central Oahu, in central Hawaii.
- scholarship holder — a person who, because of academic merit, receives financial aid for their studies
- second-hand dealer — a person who deals in second-hand things, such as cars, or furniture
- secondary diagonal — a diagonal line or plane.
- secondary syphilis — the second stage of syphilis, characterized by eruptions of the skin and mucous membrane.
- self-contradiction — an act or instance of contradicting oneself or itself.
- self-contradictory — an act or instance of contradicting oneself or itself.
- slobodan milosevic — Slobodan [sloh-buh-dain] /ˈsloʊ bəˌdɛən/ (Show IPA), 1941–2006, Yugoslav and Serbian politician: president of Serbia 1989–97, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1997–2000, accused of war crimes 2001.
- spotted flycatcher — a European woodland songbird, Muscicapa striata, with a greyish-brown streaked plumage: family Muscicapidae (Old World flycatchers)
- strathclyde region — a former local government region in W Scotland: formed in 1975 from Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Buteshire, Dunbartonshire, and parts of Argyllshire, Ayrshire, and Stirlingshire; replaced in 1996 by the council areas of Glasgow, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, Argyll and Bute, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and East Ayrshire
- subordinate clause — a clause that modifies the principal clause or some part of it or that serves a noun function in the principal clause, as when she arrived in the sentence I was there when she arrived or that she has arrived in the sentence I doubt that she has arrived.
- tender loving care — considerate and kindly care, as of someone who is ill, upset, etc
- theodore gericault — (Jean Louis André) Théodore [zhahn lwee ahn-drey tey-aw-dawr] /ʒɑ̃ lwi ɑ̃ˈdreɪ teɪ ɔˈdɔr/ (Show IPA), 1791–1824, French painter.
- to clear the decks — If you clear the decks, you get ready to start something new by finishing any work that has to be done or getting rid of any problems that are in the way.
- to hold your peace — If you hold or keep your peace, you do not speak, even though there is something you want or ought to say.
- townsend avalanche — avalanche (def 3).
- transcendental ego — (in Kantian epistemology) that part of the self that is the subject and never the object.
- ultrasonic welding — the use of high-energy vibration of ultrasonic frequency to produce a weld between two components which are held in close contact
- ultrasound scanner — a device used to examine an internal bodily structure by the use of ultrasonic waves, esp for the diagnosis of abnormality in a fetus
- under lock and key — a device for securing a door, gate, lid, drawer, or the like in position when closed, consisting of a bolt or system of bolts propelled and withdrawn by a mechanism operated by a key, dial, etc.