0%

20-letter words containing c, o, u, n, t

  • proportional counter — a radiation counter in which the strength of each electric pulse generated per count is proportional to the energy of the particle or photon producing the pulse, alpha particles producing a different electric pulse from beta rays.
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
  • public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
  • punch a (time) clock — to insert a timecard into a time clock when coming to or going from work
  • quadrantal corrector — either of two soft-iron spheres attached to each side of a binnacle, intended to correct the compass deviation (quadrantal deviation) resulting from magnetism from ferrous metal in a ship.
  • quantum bogodynamics — /kwon'tm boh"goh-di:-nam"iks/ A theory that characterises the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and suits in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise mechanics of bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood. Quantum bogodynamics is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which the former absorb.
  • quantum cryptography — a method of coding information based on quantum mechanics, which is said to be unbreakable
  • quarantine anchorage — an anchorage for ships awaiting a pratique.
  • quasi-constitutional — of or relating to the constitution of a state, organization, etc.
  • queensland cane toad — a toad, Bufo marinus, introduced into Queensland from Hawaii to control insect pests, becoming a pest itself
  • quick on the trigger — quick to fire a gun
  • receivables turnover — A receivables turnover is a measure of cash flow that is calculated by dividing net credit sales by average accounts receivable.
  • reconcile an account — If you reconcile an account, you compare the items in a bank statement, credit card statement, or vendor statement with the entries on your books and make sure that the statement and books match.
  • recursive definition — a definition consisting of a set of rules such that by repeated application of the rules the meaning of the definiendum is uniquely determined in terms of ideas that are already familiar.
  • recursive subroutine — a subroutine that can call itself as part of its execution
  • relative conjunction — a conjunction that introduces a relative clause
  • request for comments — (standard)   (RFC) One of a series, begun in 1969, of numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix communities. Few RFCs are standards but all Internet standards are recorded in RFCs. Perhaps the single most influential RFC has been RFC 822, the Internet electronic mail format standard. The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted as standards. The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a flourishing tradition of "joke" RFCs; usually at least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the TCP/IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier pigeon. The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions. See also For Your Information, STD.
  • retirement community — a group of houses in a suburban area or a town designed primarily for retired persons.
  • rocky mountain basic — (language)   The BASIC language used by Hewlett Packard on their 680x0-based computers. Rocky Mountain Basic is good for interfaces to IEEE 488 controls and contains many mathematical and matrix functions. It has about 600 commands. Typical applications include automatic test stations.
  • rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
  • ruby-crowned kinglet — an olive-gray, American kinglet, Regulus calendula, the male of which has an erectile, ruby crest.
  • saint john ambulance — an organization that provides first aid and first-aid training
  • santa cruz operation — (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. SCO maintains its world headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, USA; a European headquarters in Watford, England; a Government Systems Group in Reston, Virginia; and offices in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, and throughout Europe and the United States. In February 1993, SCO acquired IXI Limited of Cambridge, England, the leading supplier of Unix System windowing software.
  • scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
  • schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
  • secure accommodation — an institution where young offenders are kept in custody
  • security association — (networking)   The relationship between two or more entities (typically, a computer, but could be a user on a computer, or software component) which describes how the entities will use security services, such as encryption, to communicate. See RFC 1825.
  • settle accounts with — to pay or receive a balance due
  • shifting cultivation — a land-use system, esp in tropical Africa, in which a tract of land is cultivated until its fertility diminishes, when it is abandoned until this is restored naturally
  • soft gelatin capsule — A soft gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of liquid or powder, and which dissolves more quickly than a hard gelatin capsule.
  • sound motion picture — a motion picture with a soundtrack.
  • south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
  • south atlantic ocean — the part of the Atlantic Ocean extending S from the Equator to the Antarctic continent.
  • southern oscillation — a low-latitude fluctuation of atmospheric pressure closely linked with El Niño events, specifically the periods of El Niño warming and La Niña cooling.
  • space-time continuum — Also called space-time continuum. the four-dimensional continuum, having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate, in which all physical quantities may be located.
  • specific conductance — conductivity (def 2).
  • specific-conductance — conductivity (def 2).
  • spontaneous recovery — the reappearance of a response after its extinction has been followed by a period of rest
  • square cross-section — If a kelly has a square cross-section, it has a surface area with four equal sides, when looked at as if has been sliced through.
  • stick one's neck out — the part of the body of an animal or human being that connects the head and the trunk.
  • strong nuclear force — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
  • subjective intension — the associations that an expression has for an individual; the intension he believes it to have
  • subpoena duces tecum — a writ directing a person to appear in court and to bring some document described in the writ.
  • subscription edition — an edition of one or more volumes for which a number of prospective purchasers place orders, usually in advance of publication.
  • subscription library — a commercial lending library
  • sufficient condition — a statement whose truth is sufficient to guarantee the truth of a given statement
  • summary jurisdiction — the right a court has to adjudicate immediately upon some matter arising during its proceedings
  • superior conjunction — the alignment of an inferior planet and the sun in which the planet is at the far side of the sun from the earth.
  • supersonic transport — a commercial jet airplane that can fly faster than the speed of sound. Abbreviation: SST.
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?