18-letter words containing d, s, m, e
- customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
- daytime television — television broadcasts that are shown during the daytime rather than in the evening
- dead man's fingers — a soft coral, Alcyonium digitatum, with long finger-like polyps
- dead-man's fingers — any of various fungi, sponges, plant roots, animal parts, etc., having fingerlike projections and a pale or dull color, as the gray-black woodland fungus Xylaria polymorpha or the whitish spongy gills of a food crab.
- deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
- deep-sea fisherman — a person who takes part in deep-sea fishing
- defensive medicine — the practice by a doctor of ordering extensive, often unnecessary tests in order to minimize liability if accused of negligence
- degrees of freedom — the number of independent variables entering into a statistical measure or frequency distribution
- delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
- demand liabilities — the assets of a financial institution that are demandable by depositors
- demorgan's theorem — (logic) A logical theorem which states that the complement of a conjunction is the disjunction of the complements or vice versa. In symbols: not (x and y) = (not x) or (not y) not (x or y) = (not x) and (not y) E.g. if it is not the case that I am tall and thin then I am either short or fat (or both). The theorem can be extended to combinations of more than two terms in the obvious way. The same laws also apply to sets, replacing logical complement with set complement, conjunction ("and") with set intersection, and disjunction ("or") with set union. A (C) programmer might use this to re-write if (!foo && !bar) ... as if (!(foo || bar)) ... thus saving one operator application (though an optimising compiler should do the same, leaving the programmer free to use whichever form seemed clearest).
- departmental store — a department store.
- desiderius erasmus — Desiderius [des-i-deer-ee-uh s] /ˌdɛs ɪˈdɪər i əs/ (Show IPA), 1466?–1536, Dutch humanist, scholar, theologian, and writer.
- destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
- development system — a computer system, including hardware and software, that is specifically designed to aid in the development of software and interfaces
- dia de los muertos — Day of the Dead.
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- diastereoisomerism — (chemistry) Any form of stereoisomerism other than enantiomerism.
- diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
- dicalcium silicate — a component of cement, 2CaO⋅SiO 2 , also used to neutralize acid soils.
- didot point system — a Continental system of measurement for type, based on a unit of 0.0148 inches (0.3759 mm).
- dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
- digital humanities — (used with a singular verb) the study of literature, philosophy, etc., as facilitated by computer technology or digital media: Digital humanities uses data analysis to find patterns in large bodies of text. the set of methodologies used in such scholarship.
- dimensionalisation — Alternative spelling of dimensionalization.
- dimensionalization — The process of dimensionalizing.
- dimethyl sulfoxide — DMSO.
- dimethylsulphoxide — a colourless odourless liquid substance used as a solvent and in medicine as an agent to improve the penetration of drugs applied to the skin. Formula: (CH3)2SO
- diplomatic service — diplomatic corps
- diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
- disenfranchisement — to disfranchise.
- disodium phosphate — sodium phosphate (def 2).
- dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
- dispensing chemist — a shop where drugs and medicines are sold or given out
- distributed memory — (architecture) The kind of memory in a parallel processor where each processor has fast access to its own local memory and where to access another processor's memory it must send a message via the inter-processor network. Opposite: shared memory.
- distributed system — A collection of (probably heterogeneous) automata whose distribution is transparent to the user so that the system appears as one local machine. This is in contrast to a network, where the user is aware that there are several machines, and their location, storage replication, load balancing and functionality is not transparent. Distributed systems usually use some kind of client-server organisation. Distributed systems are considered by some to be the "next wave" of computing.
- domain name server — (spelling) Domain Name System.
- domain name system — (networking) (DNS) A general-purpose distributed, replicated, data query service chiefly used on Internet for translating hostnames into Internet addresses. Also, the style of hostname used on the Internet, though such a name is properly called a fully qualified domain name. DNS can be configured to use a sequence of name servers, based on the domains in the name being looked for, until a match is found. The name resolution client (e.g. Unix's gethostbyname() library function) can be configured to search for host information in the following order: first in the local hosts file, second in NIS and third in DNS. This sequencing of Naming Services is sometimes called "name service switching". Under Solaris is configured in the file /etc/nsswitch.conf. DNS can be queried interactively using the command nslookup. It is defined in STD 13, RFC 1034, RFC 1035, RFC 1591.
- domestic appliance — a machine used for household tasks, for example, a washing machine, refrigerator, etc.
- donor insemination — a process which involves using sperm which has been voluntarily given for use in the insemination of another person
- dr. james h. clark — (person) The founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc. and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation.
- duodenojejunostomy — the formation of an artificial connection between the duodenum and the jejunum.
- dynamically scoped — dynamic scope
- dysthymic disorder — a psychiatric disorder characterized by generalized depression that lasts for at least a year
- east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
- eastern meadowlark — any of several American songbirds of the genus Sturnella, of the family Icteridae, especially S. magna (eastern meadowlark) and S. neglecta (western meadowlark) having a brownish and black back and wings and a yellow breast, noted for their clear, tuneful song.
- eigendecomposition — (linear algebra) The factorization of a matrix into a canonical form, whereby the matrix is represented in terms of its eigenvalues and eigenvectors.
- electrocardiograms — Plural form of electrocardiogram.
- elementary student — primary school pupil
- ethnomethodologist — A person engaged in ethnomethodology.
- euclid's algorithm — (algorithm) (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).