15-letter words containing d, a, c
- cast around for — If you cast around for something or cast about for it, you try to find it or think of it.
- castel gandolfo — a village in central Italy, 15 miles (24 km) SE of Rome: papal palace serving as the summer residence of the pope.
- castellated nut — a nut that has indentations similar to battlements
- casters-up mode — [IBM, probably from slang belly up] Yet another synonym for "broken" or "down". Usually connotes a major failure. A system (hardware or software) which is "down" may be already being restarted before the failure is noticed, whereas one which is "casters up" is usually a good excuse to take the rest of the day off (as long as you're not responsible for fixing it).
- catalina island — Santa Catalina.
- catchment board — a public body concerned with the conservation and organization of water supply from a catchment area
- cathedral choir — the choir, traditionally consisting of boys and men, that sings in cathedral services
- cathedral glass — a semitransparent sheet of rolled glass having a decorative pattern.
- cattle breeding — the science or business of breeding and raising cattle
- celandine poppy — a poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum, of the east-central U.S., having one pair of deeply lobed leaves and yellow flowers.
- cellar dwellers — the team at the bottom of a sports league
- centipede grass — a slow-growing grass, Eremochloa ophiuroides, introduced into the U.S. from China and used for lawns in warm areas.
- central sudanic — a group of languages belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, northern Uganda, southern Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic, and including Mangbetu.
- cephalochordate — any chordate animal of the subphylum Cephalochordata, having a fishlike body and no vertebral column; lancelet
- chagas' disease — a form of trypanosomiasis found in South America, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, characterized by fever and, often, inflammation of the heart muscles
- chandler period — the period of the oscillation (Chandler wobble) of the earth's axis, varying between 416 and 433 days.
- chandler wobble — a slight, irregular nutation of the earth's rotational axis with a period of c. 428 days
- channel islands — a group of islands in the English Channel, off the NW coast of France, consisting of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Brechou or Brecqhou, Sark, Herm, Jethou, and Lihou (all between them representing the British Kingdom Crown Dependencies of the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey) - the only part of the duchy of Normandy remaining to Britain - and the Roches Douvres and the Îles Chausey (which belong to France). Pop: 149 878 (2001). Area: 194 sq km (75 sq miles)
- chanson d'amour — love song.
- character dance — a style of balletic folk dance that intends to give a sense of national character and color.
- character study — a work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's personality is more important than the plot.
- charles dickens — Charles (John Huf·fam) [huhf-uh m] /ˈhʌf əm/ (Show IPA), ("Boz") 1812–70, English novelist.
- charles doughty — Charles Montagu [mon-tuh-gyoo] /ˈmɒn təˌgyu/ (Show IPA), 1843–1926, English traveler and writer.
- chatham islands — a group of islands in the S Pacific Ocean, forming a county of South Island, New Zealand: consists of the main islands of Chatham, Pitt, and several rocky islets. Chief settlement: Waitangi. Pop: 609 (2006 est). Area: 963 sq km (372 sq miles)
- chenopodiaceous — belonging to the Chenopodiaceae, formerly the goosefoot family, now considered part of the amaranth family of plants.
- chesterfieldian — of or like Lord Chesterfield; suave; elegant; polished
- cheval de frise — a portable obstacle, usually a sawhorse, covered with projecting spikes or barbed wire, for military use in closing a passage, breaking in a defensive wall, etc.
- cheval-de-frise — a portable barrier of spikes, sword blades, etc, used to obstruct the passage of cavalry
- chicken-and-egg — of or relating to a paradoxical situation, question, etc. involving two factors, each of which in turn causes or leads to the other
- chicken-hearted — easily frightened; cowardly
- child abduction — the crime of removing a child from its rightful home
- child battering — child abuse in the form of battering
- child restraint — a device used to protect a child in a motor vehicle
- child-battering — the physical abuse of a child by a parent or guardian, as by beating.
- child-resistant — that resists being opened, tampered with, or damaged by a child; childproof: a child-resistant medicine cabinet.
- chinese mustard — brown mustard.
- chloral hydrate — a colourless crystalline soluble solid produced by the reaction of chloral with water and used as a sedative and hypnotic; 2,2,2-trichloro-1,1-ethanediol. Formula: CCl3CH(OH)2
- chondrosarcomas — Plural form of chondrosarcoma.
- chop and change — When people chop and change, they keep changing their minds about what to do or how to act.
- chopped almonds — almonds cut into small pieces
- chorale prelude — a composition for organ using a chorale as a cantus firmus or as the basis for variations
- chorda tendinea — any of the tendons extending from the papillary muscles to the atrioventricular valves and preventing the valves from moving into the atria during ventricular contraction.
- christadelphian — a member of a Christian millenarian sect founded in the US about 1848, holding that only the just will enter eternal life, that the wicked will be annihilated, and that the ignorant, the unconverted, and infants will not be raised from the dead
- chromium-plated — having been plated with chromium
- chromosome band — any of the transverse bands that appear on a chromosome after staining. The banding pattern is unique to each type of chromosome, allowing characterization
- chronic disease — long-term illness
- church calendar — ecclesiastical calendar (def 2).
- church-calendar — a calendar based on the lunisolar cycle, used by many Christian churches in determining the dates for the movable feasts.
- cinderella book — (publication) "Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation", by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman, (Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover depicts a girl (putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device and holding a rope coming out of it. On the back cover, the device is in shambles after she has (inevitably) pulled on the rope. See also book titles.
- cinematographed — a motion-picture projector.