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18-letter words containing c, u, e, i

  • creeping featurism — (jargon)   /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
  • crude oil desalter — A crude oil desalter is equipment which removes inorganic salts from crude oil, using chemical or electrostatic separation.
  • crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
  • cultural diversity — the cultural variety and cultural differences that exist in the world, a society, or an institution: Dying languages and urbanization are threats to cultural diversity.
  • cultural universal — a cultural pattern extant in every known society.
  • cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
  • cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
  • currency principle — the principle that banks should be permitted to issue notes only against bullion or coin.
  • current efficiency — the ratio of the actual mass of a substance liberated from an electrolyte by the passage of current to the theoretical mass liberated according to Faraday's law
  • cursor dipped in x — (jargon)   The metaphorical source of the electronic equivalent of a poisoned-pen letter. Derived from English metaphors of the form "pen dipped in X" (where X = e.g. "acid", "bile", "vitriol"). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
  • curvature of field — a monochromatic aberration of a lens or other optical system in which the focal surface is curved, the refracted image of an object oriented perpendicular to the axis of the lens lying on a curved surface rather than in a plane perpendicular to the axis.
  • cushing's syndrome — a medical condition characterized by obesity, hypertension, excessive hair growth, etc., caused by an overactive adrenal gland or large doses of corticosteroids
  • custodial sentence — a sentence given by a court that involves a term of imprisonment
  • customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
  • customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
  • customs inspection — an inspection carried out by a customs department
  • debt restructuring — Debt restructuring is a method of organizing a company's debts in a different way in order to make the company more likely to be able to pay them.
  • decision procedure — a procedure, as an algorithm, for determining in a finite number of steps the validity of any of a certain class of propositions.
  • deductive database — (database)   A combination of a conventional database containing facts, a knowledge base containing rules, and an inference engine which allows the derivation of information implied by the facts and rules. Commonly, the knowledge base is expressed in a subset of first-order logic and either a SLDNF or Datalog inference engine is used.
  • deep-discount bond — a fixed-interest security that pays little or no interest but is issued at a substantial discount to its redemption value, thus largely substituting capital gain for income
  • deficiency account — an account summarizing the financial condition of an individual or company in danger of bankruptcy.
  • descriptive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
  • destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
  • developing country — a nonindustrialized poor country that is seeking to develop its resources by industrialization
  • diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
  • diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
  • diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
  • dicalcium silicate — a component of cement, 2CaO⋅SiO 2 , also used to neutralize acid soils.
  • diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
  • discourse analysis — the study of the rules or patterns characterizing units of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence.
  • disorderly conduct — any of various petty misdemeanors, generally including nuisances, breaches of the peace, offensive or immoral conduct in public, etc.
  • dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
  • distance education — education in which students receive instruction over the Internet, from a video, etc., instead of going to school.
  • distress frequency — a radio frequency band reserved for emergency signals from aircraft or ships in distress.
  • distribution curve — the curve or line of a graph in which cumulative frequencies are plotted as ordinates and values of the variate as abscissas.
  • do oneself justice — If you do yourself justice, you do something as well as you are capable of doing it.
  • dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
  • double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
  • dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
  • driver's education — high-school driving classes
  • drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
  • dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
  • eau de vie de marc — marc (def 2).
  • ecumenical council — a solemn assembly in the Roman Catholic Church, convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.
  • eighty-column mind — (abuse)   The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the transition from punched card to paper tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried "face down, 9-edge first" (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This directive is inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which are as follows: He died at the console Of hunger and thirst. Next day he was buried, Face down, 9-edge first. The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base and its thinking. See fear and loathing, card walloper.
  • ejaculatio praecox — premature ejaculation during sexual intercourse
  • electrical circuit — An electrical circuit is a complete route that an electric current can flow around.
  • electrical failure — an instance when an electricity supply stops working
  • electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
  • electrostatic unit — any unit that belongs to a system of electrical cgs units in which the electric constant is given the value of unity and is taken as a pure number
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