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17-letter words containing c, r, a, y

  • pythagorean scale — the major scale as derived acoustically by Pythagoras from the perfect fifth.
  • quality assurance — a system for ensuring a desired level of quality in the development, production, or delivery of products and services: Quality assurance for nursing homes begins with a set of standards. Abbreviation: QA.
  • quality paperback — a softbound book that is usually larger and more expensive than a mass market paperback and is sold primarily in bookstores as a trade book.
  • quantum chemistry — the application of quantum mechanics to the study of chemical phenomena.
  • radioactive decay — decay (def 8).
  • reality principle — the motivating force or mechanism by which the child, who has previously sought immediate gratification of all wishes, realizes that gratification must sometimes be deferred or forgone.
  • recrystallization — to become crystallized again.
  • recursive acronym — (convention)   A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also mung.
  • reed canary grass — any of various grasses of the genus Phalaris, as P. canariensis, native to the Canary Islands, bearing seed used as food for cage birds, or P. arundinacea (reed canary grass) used throughout the Northern Hemisphere as fodder.
  • reference library — A reference library is a library that contains books which you can look at in the library itself but which you cannot borrow.
  • refractory period — a short period after a nerve or muscle cell fires during which the cell cannot respond to additional stimulation.
  • regulated tenancy — (in Britain) the letting of a dwelling by a nonresident private landlord, usually at a registered fair rent, from which the landlord cannot evict the tenant without a possession order from a court
  • repertory catalog — a catalog containing bibliographic records that indicate locations of materials in more than one library or in several units of one library.
  • repertory company — repertory (def 2).
  • respiratory chain — a series of mitochondrial proteins that transport electrons of hydrogen, released in the Krebs cycle, from acetyl coenzyme A to inhaled oxygen to form H 2 O: the energy released in the process is conserved as ATP.
  • respiratory tract — the passages through which air enters and leaves the body
  • reticulate python — a python, Python reticulatus, of southeastern Asia and the East Indies, sometimes growing to a length of 32 feet (10 meters): usually considered to be the largest snake in the world.
  • rich site summary — (web, standard)   (RSS, blog, feed) A family of standard web document types containing regularly updated, short articles or news items. RSS documents (generally called "RSS feeds", "news feeds" or just "feeds") can be read with an RSS reader like BottomFeeder or Feedly. These are sometimes called "aggregators" because they combine multiple RSS feeds which the user can browse as a single list. The RSS reader tracks which articles the use has read, and is typically set to show only new articles, hence the idea of a "feed" or flow of new items. Most RSS feeds are based on RDF. RDF is a structured document format for describing textual resources such as news articles available on the web. RSS originally stood for "RDF Site Summary" as it was designed to provide short descriptions of (changes to) a website. Because it provides a standard way to deliver, or "syndicate", news or updates from one site to another, RSS is sometimes expanded as "Really Simple Syndication". It is closely associated with blogs, most of which provide an RSS feed of articles.
  • ross and cromarty — a historic county in NW Scotland.
  • rotary cultivator — a machine for breaking up and tilling soil, consisting of a series of blades mounted on a revolving power-driven shaft
  • safety precaution — a precaution that is taken in order to ensure that something is safe and not dangerous
  • san francisco bay — a bay in W California: the harbor of San Francisco; connected with the Pacific by the Golden Gate strait. 50 miles (80 km) long; 3–12 miles (5–19 km) wide.
  • school playground — school's outdoor recreation area
  • secondary battery — storage battery.
  • secondary boycott — a boycott by union members against their employer in order to induce the employer to bring pressure on another company involved in a labor dispute with the union.
  • secondary contact — communication or relationship between people characterized by impersonal and detached interest on the part of those involved.
  • secondary glazing — insulation by means of a second pane of glass, or a sheet of plastic: a simple form of double glazing
  • secondary process — the conscious mental activity and logical thinking controlled by the ego and influenced by environmental demands.
  • secondary product — a product that is not the main product of an industry; a by-product
  • secondary quality — one of the qualities attributed by the mind to an object perceived, such as color, temperature, or taste.
  • secondary rainbow — a faint rainbow formed by light rays that undergo two internal reflections in drops of rain, appearing above the primary rainbow and having its colors in the opposite order.
  • secondary sealing — Secondary sealing is a system of wiper seals used in floating roof tanks.
  • secondary winding — A secondary winding is the winding of a transformer that receives its energy by electromagnetic induction from the primary winding.
  • secretary-general — the head or chief administrative officer of a secretariat.
  • semimicroanalysis — any analytical method in which the weight of the sample is between 10 and 100 milligrams.
  • shortcrust pastry — a basic type of pastry that is made with half the quantity of fat to flour, and has a crisp but crumbly texture
  • shorthold tenancy — letting of a dwelling for between one and five years at a fair rent
  • sister of charity — a member of one of several congregations of sisters founded in 1634 by St. Vincent de Paul.
  • spastic paralysis — a condition in which the muscles affected are marked by tonic spasm and increased tendon reflexes.
  • spatial frequency — the measure of fine detail in an optical image in terms of cycles per millimetre
  • spectroscopically — an optical device for producing and observing a spectrum of light or radiation from any source, consisting essentially of a slit through which the radiation passes, a collimating lens, and an Amici prism.
  • spectrum analyser — an instrument that splits an input waveform into its frequency components, which are then displayed
  • spectrum analysis — the determination of the constitution or condition of bodies and substances by means of the spectra they produce.
  • spherical polygon — a closed figure formed by arcs of great circles on a spherical surface.
  • spongy parenchyma — the lower layer of the ground tissue of a leaf, characteristically containing irregularly shaped cells with relatively few chloroplasts and large intercellular spaces.
  • squaw huckleberry — deerberry.
  • st. crispin's day — October 25: anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (1415).
  • stand on ceremony — to insist on or act with excessive formality
  • stray capacitance — undesired capacitance in equipment, occurring between the wiring, between the wiring and the chassis, or between components and the chassis
  • structural survey — an examination of a property carried out by surveyor which should reveal any problems with the building
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