17-letter words containing d, e, t, r, a
- dendroclimatology — The science that uses dendrochronology to reconstruct historical climate conditions.
- denominate number — a number associated with a unit of measurement.
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- depersonalisation — Alternative spelling of depersonalization.
- depersonalization — the act or an instance of depersonalizing
- dephosphorylation — the removal of a phosphate group from an organic compound, as in the changing of ATP to ADP.
- deportation order — a notification that a foreign national is legally required to leave the country
- designated driver — The designated driver in a group of people travelling together is the one who has agreed to drive, or who is insured to drive.
- designated hitter — In baseball, a designated hitter is a player who bats in place of the pitcher.
- despotic monarchy — absolute monarchy.
- dessert chocolate — cooking chocolate
- destination store — A destination store draws customers by selling unusual items, or having a friendly atmosphere, special pricing, and other desirable characteristics.
- desynchronisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of desynchronization.
- desynchronization — to cause to indicate the same time, as one timepiece with another: Synchronize your watches.
- 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
- dextroamphetamine — a dextrorotatory amphetamine, used to suppress appetite
- dialect geography — linguistic geography
- diaphragm shutter — a camera shutter having a group of overlapping blades that open and close at the center when exposing film.
- diethyltryptamine — a synthetic derivative of tryptamine with hallucinogenic and psychotogenic effects. Abbreviation: DET.
- differentiability — The ability to be differentiated.
- differential gear — differential (def 7).
- differential line — (hardware) A kind of electrical connection using two wires, one of which carries the normal signal (V) and the other carries an inverted version the signal (-V). A differential amplifier at the receiver subtracts the inverted signal from the normal signal to yield a signal proportional to V. This subtraction is intended to cancel out any noise induced in the wires, on the assmption that the same level of noise will have been induced in both wires. Twisted pair wiring is often used to try to ensure that this is the case. The two wires might be connected at the receiver to separate analogue to digital converters and the subtraction performed digitally. The RS-422 serial line standard specifies differential drivers and receivers, whereas the earlier RS-232 standard does not. Opposite: single ended.
- differential rate — a special lower rate, as one charged by one of two or more competing businesses.
- differential tone — a musical sound sometimes heard when two loud notes are sounded together, lower in pitch than either
- digital recording — a method of sound recording in which an input audio waveform is sampled at regular intervals, usually between 40,000 and 50,000 times per second, and each sample is assigned a numerical value, usually expressed in binary notation.
- digital signature — an encrypted digital code appended to an electronic document to verify that it was created by a known source and has not been altered.
- dihydroergotamine — an ergot alkaloid, C 33 H 37 N 5 O 5 , used in the treatment of various types of migraine headache.
- 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.
- dipterocarpaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae, a family of trees chiefly native to tropical SE Asia, having two-winged fruits. Many species yield useful timber and resins
- disaster planning — disaster recovery
- disaster recovery — (business) (DR) Planning and implementation of procedures and facilities for use when essential systems are not available for a period long enough to have a significant impact on the business, e.g. when the head office is blown up. Disasters include natural: fire, flood, lightning, hurricane; hardware: power failure, component failure, head crash; software failure: bugs, resources; vandalism: arson, bombing, cracking, theft; data corruption or loss: human error, media failure; communications: computer network equipment, network storm, telephones; security: passwords compromised, computer virus; legal: change in legislation; personnel: unavailability of essential staff, industrial action. Companies need to plan for disaster: before: risk analysis, preventive measures, training; during: how should staff and systems respond; after: recovery measures, post mortem analysis. Hardware can usually be replaced and is usually insured. Software and data needs to be backed up off site. Alternative communication systems should be arranged in case of network failure or inaccessible premises, e.g. emergency telephone number, home working, alternative data center.
- discreditableness — Quality of being discreditable.
- discrete variable — a variable that may assume only a countable, and usually finite, number of values.
- disintermediation — the act of removing funds from savings banks and placing them into short-term investments on which the interest-rate yields are higher.
- disproportionates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of disproportionate.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- disruptive action — action performed by protestors, workers, etc that causes the disruption of a service
- dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
- dissolve in tears — weep
- distance learning — education in which students receive instruction over the Internet, from a video, etc., instead of going to school.
- distillers' grain — a by-product of the distillation process for making whisky, used as an animal foodstuff
- district attorney — an officer who acts as attorney for the people or government within a specified district.
- document examiner — (hypertext, tool) A high-performance hypertext system by Symbolics that provides on-line access to their user documentation.
- dog in the manger — a person who selfishly keeps something that he or she does not really need or want so that others may not use or enjoy it.
- dollars-and-cents — considered strictly in terms of money: from a dollars-and-cents viewpoint.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- double quatrefoil — a charge having the form of a foil with eight leaves, used especially as the cadency mark of a ninth son.
- double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.