17-letter words containing d, a, l, m, t
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- deterministically — the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws.
- development grant — a grant awarded, esp by a government, to a person or company in order to fund the development of a new product
- developmentalists — an expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.
- diabetes mellitus — a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism characterized by excessive thirst and excretion of abnormally large quantities of urine containing an excess of sugar, caused by a deficiency of insulin
- diaphragmatically — By use of the diaphragm; in a diaphragmatic way.
- diethyltryptamine — a synthetic derivative of tryptamine with hallucinogenic and psychotogenic effects. Abbreviation: DET.
- digital immigrant — a person who has become familiar with computers, the Internet, and other digital technology as a young adult or later in life. Compare digital native.
- dimethylformamide — a colourless liquid widely used as a solvent and sometimes as a catalyst. Formula: (CH3)2NCHO
- dimethylhydrazine — a flammable, highly toxic, and colorless liquid, C 2 H 8 N 2 , used as a component in jet and rocket fuels.
- discomgoogolation — a feeling of anxiety felt by someone who is unable to access the internet
- dispensationalism — the interpreting of history as a series of divine dispensations.
- displacement hull — a hull that displaces a significant volume of water when under way.
- dna amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- douglas macarthur — Douglas, 1880–1964, U.S. general: supreme commander of allied forces in SW Pacific during World War II and of UN forces in Korea 1950–51.
- downward mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
- drilling platform — a structure, either fixed to the sea bed or mobile, which supports the machinery and equipment (the drilling rig), together with the stores, required for digging an offshore oil well
- dutch elm disease — a disease of elms characterized by wilting, yellowing, and falling of the leaves and caused by a fungus, Ceratostomella ulmi, transmitted by bark beetles.
- dynamically typed — dynamic typing
- eat flaming death — (humour, abuse) A construction popularised among hackers by the infamous CPU Wars comic; supposedly derive from a famously turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran "Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort (however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's 1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been an influence). Used in humorously overblown expressions of hostility. "Eat flaming death, EBCDIC users!"
- electrocardiogram — A record or display of a person’s heartbeat produced by electrocardiography.
- foucault pendulum — a pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the earth by exhibiting an apparent change in its plane of oscillation.
- fractal dimension — (mathematics) A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
- good-time charlie — an affable, sociable, pleasure-loving man.
- grand climacteric — Physiology. a period of decrease of reproductive capacity in men and women, culminating, in women, in the menopause.
- grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
- great namaqualand — an arid coastal region in the S part of Namibia, extending into the Cape of Good Hope province of the Republic of South Africa, divided by the Orange River into two regions, one in Namibia (Great Namaqualand) the other in South Africa (Little Namaqualand) inhabited by the Nama.
- guardian ad litem — a person appointed by a court as guardian of an infant or other person to act on his or her behalf in a particular action or proceeding.
- gunboat diplomacy — diplomatic relations involving the use or threat of military force, especially by a powerful nation against a weaker one.
- hairy-tailed mole — a blackish North American mole, Parascalops breweri, having a short, hairy tail.
- hardware platform — a group of compatible computers that can run the same software.
- heterochlamydeous — (of a plant) having a perianth consisting of distinct sepals and petals
- historical method — the process of establishing general facts and principles through attention to chronology and to the evolution or historical course of what is being studied.
- hold sb to ransom — If you say that someone is holding you to ransom in British English, or holding you for ransom in American English, you mean that they are using their power to try to force you to do something which you do not want to do.
- homeland security — national defence
- hydrothermal vent — an opening on the floor of the sea from which hot, mineral-rich solutions issue. Compare vent1 (def 2).
- ideogrammatically — In terms of, or by means of, ideograms.
- imitation doublet — a doublet formed entirely of glass.
- incandescent lamp — a lamp that emits light due to the glowing of a heated material, especially the common device in which a tungsten filament enclosed within an evacuated glass bulb is rendered luminous by the passage of an electric current through it.
- interdepartmental — involving or existing between two or more departments: interdepartmental rivalry.
- internal medicine — the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and nonsurgical treatment of diseases, especially of internal organ systems.
- intradepartmental — Within a department.
- ladder tournament — a tournament in which the entrants are listed by name and rank, advancement being by means of challenging and defeating an entrant ranked one or two places higher.
- lagrange's method — a procedure for finding maximum and minimum values of a function of several variables when the variables are restricted by additional conditions.
- lambdoidal suture — the lambda-shaped seam or line of joining between the occipital and two parietal bones at the back part of the skull.
- lan administrator — (job) A person who installs and maintains LAN hardware and software. A LAN administrator troubleshoots network usage and computer peripherals. He installs new users, performs system backups and data recovery, and resolves LAN communications problems.
- latitudinarianism — Tolerance of other people's views, particularly in religious context.
- le morte d'arthur — a compilation and translation of French Arthurian romances by Sir Thomas Malory, printed by Caxton in 1485.
- liberal democrats — (in Britain) a political party with centrist policies; established in 1988 as the Social and Liberal Democrats when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic Party; renamed Liberal Democrats in 1989