16-letter words containing c, r, o, s
- approachableness — capable of being approached; accessible.
- aratus of sicyon — 271–213 b.c, Greek general: leader of the Achaean League.
- archaeoastronomy — the scientific study of the beliefs and practices concerning astronomy that existed in ancient and prehistoric civilizations
- archaeomagnetism — an archaeological technique for dating certain clay objects by measuring the extent to which they have been magnetized by the earth's magnetic field
- archconservative — consistently holding extremely conservative views: publisher of the city's archconservative newspaper.
- archival storage — a method of retaining information outside of the internal memory of a computer
- aristocratically — In an aristocratic manner.
- armed forces day — the third Saturday in May, observed in some areas of the U.S. as a holiday in honor of all branches of the armed forces.
- arsenic trioxide — a white poisonous powder used in the manufacture of glass and as an insecticide, rat poison, and weedkiller. Formula: As2O3
- arteriosclerosis — Arteriosclerosis is a medical condition in which the walls of your arteries become hard and thick, so your blood cannot flow through them properly.
- arteriosclerotic — degenerative changes in the arteries, characterized by thickening of the vessel walls and accumulation of calcium with consequent loss of elasticity and lessened blood flow.
- arthroscopically — By means of arthroscopy.
- arthus' reaction — a severe, local immune reaction to the injection of an antigen in a sensitized host.
- as distinct from — If you say that you are talking about one thing as distinct from another, you are indicating exactly which thing you mean.
- ask for feedback — If you ask for feedback, you ask someone, such as a guest in a hotel, to tell you if they enjoyed their stay and what could be improved.
- associate degree — An associate degree is a college degree that is awarded to a student who has completed a two-year course of study.
- associate member — a person who is a member of a club, organization etc. but has only partial rights and privileges or subordinate status
- association area — any of the regions of the cerebral cortex of the brain connected by numerous nerve fibers to all parts of both cerebral hemispheres and coordinating such higher activities as learning and reasoning.
- aston dark space — the dark region between the cathode and the cathode glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
- astroarchaeology — archaeoastronomy.
- atmospheric tide — a movement of atmospheric masses caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon and by daily solar heating.
- atomic structure — the concept of an atom as a central positively charged nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons surrounded by a number of electrons. The number of electrons is equal to the number of protons: the whole entity is thus electrically neutral
- auditory vesicle — the pouch that is formed by the invagination of an ectodermal placode and that develops into the internal ear.
- australopithecus — an extinct genus of small-brained,large-toothed bipedal hominids that lived in Africa between one and four million years ago.
- autofluorescence — (biology, microscopy) Self-induced fluorescence.
- autostereoscopic — Of or pertaining to autostereoscopy.
- bachelor of arts — a degree conferred on a person who has successfully completed his or her undergraduate studies, usually in a branch of the liberal arts or humanities
- bachelor-at-arms — bachelor (def 4).
- background music — music of any kind that is played while some other activity is going on, so that people do not actively attend to it
- background noise — any type of noise that is not the sound that you are specifically listening to or monitoring
- backus-naur form — (language, grammar) (BNF, originally "Backus Normal Form") A formal metasyntax used to express context-free grammars. Backus Normal Form was renamed Backus-Naur Form at the suggestion of Donald Knuth. BNF is one of the most commonly used metasyntactic notations for specifying the syntax of programming languages, command sets, and the like. It is widely used for language descriptions but seldom documented anywhere (how do you document a metasyntax?), so that it must usually be learned by osmosis (but see RFC 2234). Consider this BNF for a US postal address:
::= ::= | "." ::= [ ] | ::= [ ] ::= "," This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a zip-code part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or an initial followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional "jr-part" (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use multiple first and middle names and/or initials). A street address consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consists of a town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note that many things (such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These lexical details are presumed to be obvious from context or specified somewhere nearby. There are many variants and extensions of BNF, possibly containing some or all of the regexp wild cards such as "*" or "+". EBNF is a common one. In fact the example above isn't the pure form invented for the ALGOL 60 report. "[]" was introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I definition but is now universally recognised. ABNF is another extension. - barbecue stopper — a controversial current-affairs issue
- bargaining scope — the range of topics within the scope of a particular set of negotiations leading to a collective agreement
- basic dichromate — an orange-red, amorphous, water-insoluble powder, Bi 2 O 3 ⋅2CrO 3 , used chiefly as a pigment in paints.
- basic vocabulary — the set of lexical items in a language that are most resistant to replacement, referring to the most common and universal elements of human experience, such as parts of the body (foot, eye), universal features of the environment (water, star), common activities (eat, sleep), and the lowest numerals.
- basque provinces — an autonomous region of N Spain, comprising the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya: inhabited mainly by Basques, who retained virtual autonomy from the 9th to the 19th century. Pop: 1 840 700 (2003 est). Area: about 7250 sq km (2800 sq miles)
- batch processing — manufacturing products or treating materials in batches, by passing the output of one process to subsequent processes
- bear one's cross — a structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, used to execute persons in ancient times.
- bessemer process — (formerly) a process for producing steel by blowing air through molten pig iron at about 1250°C in a Bessemer converter: silicon, manganese, and phosphorus impurities are removed and the carbon content is controlled
- beta abstraction — [lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest becomes its body. E.g. 4+1 --> (\ x . x+1) 4 The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
- binocular fusion — fusion (def 5a).
- binocular-fusion — the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused.
- block-structured — (language) Any programming language in which sections of source code contained within pairs of matching delimiters such as "" and "" (e.g. in C) or "begin" and "end" (e.g. Algol) are executed as a single unit. A block of code may be the body of a subroutine or function, or it may be controlled by conditional execution (if statement) or repeated execution (while statement, for statement, etc.). In all but the most primitive block structured languages a variable's scope can be limited to the block in which it is declared. Block-structured languages support structured programming where each block can be written without detailed knowledge of the inner workings of other blocks, thus allowing a top-down design approach. See also abstract data type, module.
- blow one's cover — to be or serve as a covering for; extend over; rest on the surface of: Snow covered the fields.
- bob's your uncle — everything is or will turn out all right
- bordelaise sauce — a dark sauce made from meat stock, flour, wine, onions, seasonings, etc., served over broiled meat
- border leicester — a breed of sheep originally developed in the border country between Scotland and England by crossing English Leicesters with Cheviots: large numbers in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. It has a long white fleece with no wool on the head
- borosilicic acid — any of several hypothetical acids that form borosilicates.
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- bouches-du-rhone — a department of S central France, in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Capital: Marseille. Pop: 1 883 645 (2003 est). Area: 5284 sq km (2047 sq miles)