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16-letter words containing c, y, b

  • carboxylesterase — (enzyme) Any enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester.
  • carboxypeptidase — any of several digestive enzymes that catalyze the removal of an amino acid from the end of a peptide chain having a free carbonyl group.
  • cathode ray tube — (hardware)   (CRT) An electrical device for displaying images by exciting phosphor dots with a scanned electron beam. CRTs are found in computer VDUs and monitors, televisions and oscilloscopes. The first commercially practical CRT was perfected on 29 January 1901 by Allen B DuMont. A large glass envelope containing a negative electrode (the cathode) emits electrons (formerly called "cathode rays") when heated, as in a vacuum tube. The electrons are accelerated across a large voltage gradient toward the flat surface of the tube (the screen) which is covered with phosphor. When an electron strikes the phosphor, light is emitted. The electron beam is deflected by electromagnetic coils around the outside of the tube so that it scans across the screen, usually in horizontal stripes. This scan pattern is known as a raster. By controlling the current in the beam, the brightness at any particular point (roughly a "pixel") can be varied. Different phosphors have different "persistence" - the length of time for which they glow after being struck by electrons. If the scanning is done fast enough, the eye sees a steady image, due to both the persistence of the phospor and of the eye itself. CRTs also differ in their dot pitch, which determines their spatial resolution, and in whether they use interlace or not.
  • cathode-ray tube — A cathode-ray tube is a device in televisions and computer terminals which sends an image onto the screen.
  • celebrity status — the prominence of film star, footballer, musician etc who is constantly photographed and written about in tabloids and magazines
  • chernobyl packet — (networking)   /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
  • chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse)   A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
  • chimney-climbing — the sport of climbing a vertical fissure large enough for a person's body to enter
  • city of aberdeen — a council area in NE Scotland, established in 1996. Pop: 206 600 (2003 est). Area: 186 sq km (72 sq miles)
  • clinically obese — overweight to a degree which causes medical complications
  • close by/at hand — Something that is close by or close at hand is near to you.
  • come-to-bed eyes — a sexually alluring expression
  • commensurability — The quality of being commensurable or commensurate.
  • companionability — The state of being companionable, suitability for companionship.
  • constructability — Alternative form of constructibility.
  • constructibility — The condition of being constructible.
  • copyright symbol — (character, legal)   "©" The internationally recognised symbol required to introduce a copyright notice, a letter C with a circle around it. This can be encoded in ISO 8859-1 as character code decimal 169, hexadecimal A9, in HTML as ©, © or ©. A "c" in parentheses: "(c)" is sometimes used in documents stored in a coded character set such as ASCII that does not include the C in a circle, but this has no legal meaning.
  • cramp sb's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behavior in some way.
  • cray instability — A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful machine such as a Cray. Generally more subtle than bugs that can be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or minicomputer.
  • crossbow archery — the sport of shooting with a crossbow
  • cuban royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea regia, of tropical America, having a trunk that is swollen in the middle, drooping leaves from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) long, and small, round fruit.
  • cut and blow-dry — a hairdressing procedure in which the customer's hair is cut and blow-dried
  • cyanogen bromide — a colorless, slightly water-soluble, poisonous, volatile, crystalline solid, BrCN, used chiefly as a fumigant and a pesticide.
  • cytotrophoblasts — Plural form of cytotrophoblast.
  • debating society — a club, e.g. at a school or university, which regularly holds debates
  • dehydroascorbate — (organic compound) Any salt or ester of dehydroascorbic acid.
  • deoxyribonucleic — (genetics) Of or pertaining to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or its derivatives.
  • derbyshire chair — a chair of the mid-17th century, made of oak, usually without arms, and having a back of two carved rails between square uprights.
  • dichlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing two chlorine atoms.
  • diethyl carbinol — a colorless, liquid isomer of amyl alcohol, (CH3CH2)2CHOH, used in drugs and as a solvent
  • dimethylcarbinol — isopropyl alcohol.
  • discriminability — The condition of being discriminable.
  • double occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as in a hotel, for two persons sharing the same room: The rate is $35 per person, double occupancy, or $65, single occupancy.
  • drugstore cowboy — a young man who loafs around drugstores or on street corners.
  • dry-cell battery — a dry battery
  • eclipsing binary — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
  • family balancing — the choosing of the sex of a future child on the basis of how many children of each sex a family already has
  • fancy dress ball — a ball at which the guests wear fancy dress
  • flat-track bully — a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents
  • flying ambulance — an aircraft used to take sick or injured people to hospital
  • galvanic battery — battery (def 1a).
  • gapless playback — audio or visual playback without any interruptions or silence between tracks or scenes
  • global community — the people or nations of the world, considered as being closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being economically, socially, and politically interdependent
  • hayes-compatible — (communications)   A description of a modem which understands the same set of commands as one made by Hayes.
  • hendecasyllables — Plural form of hendecasyllable.
  • huckleberry finn — (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) a novel (1884) by Mark Twain.
  • hydrobromic acid — a colorless or faintly yellow corrosive liquid, HBr, an aqueous solution of hydrogen bromide.
  • hypersusceptible — hypersensitive (def 2).
  • imperceptibility — very slight, gradual, or subtle: the imperceptible slope of the road.
  • imperfectability — The quality of not being perfectable; of being forever imperfect.
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