16-letter words containing d, e, c, r, s
- creditworthiness — having a satisfactory credit rating.
- creme de bananes — a liqueur flavored with bananas.
- crested screamer — a goose-like aquatic bird, Chauna torquata, of the family Anhimidae of tropical and subtropical South America, having a crest on the back of its head: order Anseriformes (ducks, geese, etc)
- critical density — the density of matter that would be required to halt the expansion of the universe
- cross one's mind — to occur to one briefly or suddenly
- crossover bodice — a bodice which has one side crossing over the other
- crossword puzzle — a puzzle in which the solver deduces words suggested by numbered clues and writes them into corresponding boxes in a grid to form a vertical and horizontal pattern
- crowd one's luck — to take unnecessary risks in an already favorable situation
- crystal detector — a demodulator, used esp in microwave circuits and in early radio receivers, consisting of a thin metal wire in point contact with a semiconductor crystal
- cumberland sauce — a cold sauce made from orange and lemon juice, port, and redcurrant jelly, served with ham, game, or other meat
- curlew sandpiper — a common Eurasian sandpiper, Calidris ferruginea, having a brick-red breeding plumage and a greyish winter plumage
- curmudgeonliness — The state or condition of being curmudgeonly.
- currier and ives — any of a 19th-cent. series of prints showing the manners, people, and events of the times
- dacryocystectomy — The surgical removal of a part of the lacrimal sac.
- dark-side hacker — (jargon, legal) A criminal or malicious hacker; a cracker. From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the dark side of the Force". The implication that hackers form a sort of elite of technological Jedi Knights is intended. Opposite: samurai.
- darwin's finches — the finches of the subfamily Geospizinae of the Galapagos Islands, showing great variation in bill structure and feeding habits: provided Darwin with evidence to support his theory of evolution
- data compression — the act of compressing.
- davidson current — a winter countercurrent that flows N along the W coast of the U.S.
- dead sea scrolls — a collection of manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic discovered in caves near the Dead Sea between 1947 and 1956. They are widely held to have been written between about 100 bc and 68 ad and provide important biblical evidence
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- decentralisation — Alternative spelling of decentralization.
- dechristianizing — Present participle of dechristianize.
- decision problem — (theory) A problem with a yes/no answer. Determining whether some potential solution to a question is actually a solution or not. E.g. "Is 43669" a prime number?". This is in contrast to a "search problem" which must find a solution from scratch, e.g. "What is the millionth prime number?". See decidability.
- decision support — Software used to aid management decision making, typically relying on a decision support database.
- deconstructively — In a deconstructive manner.
- deferred success — (in Britain) a euphemism suggested as an alternative to ‘failure’, in order not to stigmatize pupils who have not achieved a pass in a particular subject
- dehydroascorbate — (organic compound) Any salt or ester of dehydroascorbic acid.
- delta conversion — delta reduction
- demoiselle crane — a gray crane, Anthropoides virgo, of northern Africa, Europe, and Asia, having long, white plumes behind each eye.
- dental insurance — Dental insurance is insurance that pays for treatment by a dentist.
- deputy secretary — the Deputy Secretary of State or Defense etc
- 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.
- destroyer escort — a lightly armed warship smaller than a destroyer, designed to escort fleets or convoys
- destructibleness — The quality of being destructible.
- devonshire cream — clotted cream.
- diagonal process — a form of argument in which a new member of a set is constructed from a list of its known members by making the nth term of the new member differ from the nth term of the nth member. The new member is thus different from every member of the list
- diesel-hydraulic — a locomotive driven by a diesel engine through hydraulic transmission and torque converters
- digital research — (company) The company which developed CP/M, the operating system used on many of the first generation 8-bit microprocessor-based personal computers. Digital Research also produced DR-DOS. Address: Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
- direct discourse — quotation of a speaker in which the speaker's exact words are repeated.
- direct-mail shot — the posting of unsolicited sales literature to potential customers' homes or business addresses
- direction cosine — the cosine of the angle made by a given vector and a coordinate axis.
- director's chair — a lightweight folding armchair with transversely crossed legs and having a canvas seat and back panel, as traditionally used by motion-picture directors.
- disaccreditation — to take away the accreditation or authorization of: to disaccredit a diplomat.
- disappearing act — magic trick
- disconcertedness — The characteristic of being disconcerted.
- discourteousness — The state or quality of being discourteous.
- discovered check — a check that is effected by moving an intervening piece from the line of attack of a queen, rook, or bishop.
- discovery method — a largely unstructured, situational method or philosophy of teaching whereby students are permitted to find solutions to problems on their own or at their own pace, often jointly in group activities, either independent of or under the guidance of a teacher.
- disenfranchising — Present participle of disenfranchise.
- disfranchisement — to deprive (a person) of a right of citizenship, as of the right to vote.