18-letter words containing c, o, t, r, a, n
- electrovalent bond — a type of chemical bond in which one atom loses an electron to form a positive ion and the other atom gains the electron to form a negative ion. The resulting ions are held together by electrostatic attraction
- emotional literacy — the ability to deal with one's emotions and recognize their causes
- enforcement action — action by a body or organization, esp a financial one, to make sure that its rules are being followed
- environment agency — an official agency providing information on environmental issues, esp rivers, flooding and pollution
- equinoctial circle — celestial equator
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- eraser stains code — (humour, programming) Code that has been refactored many times, leaving swaths of legacy code and design; like paper that has been written on and erased so many times that the pencil marks are no longer the problem - the large greasy stain is.
- european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
- examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
- extermination camp — a camp where people are imprisoned and killed
- fabric conditioner — a product used when washing clothes to make them feel softer
- farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- fifth monarchy men — (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.
- fourth commandment — “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”: fourth of the Ten Commandments.
- fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
- ftp software, inc. — (company) Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
- functional program — (language) A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
- garbage collection — (programming) (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the run-time system), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like Lisp represent expressions as graphs built from cells which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic dynamic storage allocation to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on virtual memory size. The three main methods are mark-sweep garbage collection, reference counting and copying garbage collection. See also the AI koan about garbage collection.
- general contractor — a person who contracts to construct a building or buildings, for a stipulated sum, in accordance with certain plans and specifications, or to remodel or build an addition to a building
- genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
- gensym corporation — (company) A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
- gentleman-commoner — (formerly) a member of a class of commoners enjoying special privileges at Oxford University.
- golden bantam corn — a horticultural variety of sweet corn having yellow kernels.
- grand canyon state — Arizona (used as a nickname).
- great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
- gyromagnetic ratio — the ratio of the magnetic moment of a rotating charged particle to its angular momentum.
- haulage contractor — a person or firm that transports goods by lorry
- helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
- historical fiction — the genre of literature, film, etc., comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages.
- historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
- honorary secretary — a unpaid person who is one of the managers of an organization
- hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
- hyperconcentration — the act of concentrating; the state of being concentrated.
- hypernationalistic — a person devoted to nationalism.
- hysterical reasons — (Or "hysterical raisins") A variant on the stock phrase "for historical reasons", indicating specifically that something must be done in some stupid way for backward compatibility, and moreover that the feature it must be compatible with was the result of a bad design in the first place. "All IBM PC video adaptors have to support MDA text mode for hysterical reasons." Compare bug-for-bug compatible.
- in accordance with — conforming to
- in comparison with — when compared to
- in inverted commas — If you say in inverted commas after a word or phrase, you are indicating that it is inaccurate or unacceptable in some way, or that you are quoting someone else.
- in terrorem clause — a clause in a will stating that a beneficiary who contests the will shall lose his or her legacy.
- incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
- indecent behaviour — the offence of committing indecent acts
- indolebutyric acid — a white or yellowish, crystalline, water-insoluble powder, C 12 H 13 O 2 N, a plant hormone similar to indoleacetic acid and used for the same purposes.
- induction training — training intended to enable new staff and recruits to do their work
- inductive relation — A relation R between domains D and E is inductive if for all chains d1 .. dn in D and e1 .. en in E,
- information centre — help desk, office
- information office — an office where you can go to get information
- inspector of taxes — an official of HMRC whose work is to assess individuals' income tax liability
- instruction manual — how-to, usage guide