20-letter words containing d, u
- blue ridge mountains — a mountain range in the eastern US, extending from West Virginia into Georgia: part of the Appalachian mountains. Highest peak: Mount Mitchell, 2038 m (6684 ft)
- blue screen of death — (humour) (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
- board of supervisors — the governing body of a county in many U.S. states, especially in the Midwest and the East, consisting of from 15 to 100 members elected from towns, townships, cities, or wards.
- bolometric magnitude — the magnitude of a star derived either from the total energy that it radiates at all wavelengths or from the total energy of those of its wavelengths that are received on earth.
- bouvier des flandres — any of a breed of large, strong dog with a rough, wiry coat and pointed, erect ears
- bring down the house — to receive enthusiastic applause from the audience
- bring the house down — to win great applause
- broadcast journalism — journalism as practiced in radio and television.
- brown lung (disease) — a chronic disease of the lungs caused by inhalation of fine textile fibers, esp. cotton; byssinosis
- brown recluse spider — a very poisonous, medium-sized spider (Loxosceles reclusa), common in the U.S., having a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and only six eyes
- bundle of isoglosses — bundle (def 6).
- california barracuda — a small, slender barracuda, Sphyraena argentea, of coastal seas from Alaska to Baja California, valued as a food fish.
- carbocyclic compound — any of a group of organic chemical compounds in which all the atoms composing the ring are carbon atoms, as benzene or cyclopropane.
- card up one's sleeve — a plan or resource kept secret or held in reserve
- carl friedrich gauss — (person) A German mathematician (1777 - 1855), one of all time greatest. Gauss discovered the method of least squares and Gaussian elimination. Gauss was something of a child prodigy; the most commonly told story relates that when he was 10 his teacher, wanting a rest, told his class to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss did it in seconds, having noticed that 1+...+100 = 100+...+1 = (101+...+101)/2. He did important work in almost every area of mathematics. Such eclecticism is probably impossible today, since further progress in most areas of mathematics requires much hard background study. Some idea of the range of his work can be obtained by noting the many mathematical terms with "Gauss" in their names. E.g. Gaussian elimination (linear algebra); Gaussian primes (number theory); Gaussian distribution (statistics); Gauss [unit] (electromagnetism); Gaussian curvature (differential geometry); Gaussian quadrature (numerical analysis); Gauss-Bonnet formula (differential geometry); Gauss's identity (hypergeometric functions); Gauss sums (number theory). His favourite area of mathematics was number theory. He conjectured the Prime Number Theorem, pioneered the theory of quadratic forms, proved the quadratic reciprocity theorem, and much more. He was "the first mathematician to use complex numbers in a really confident and scientific way" (Hardy & Wright, chapter 12). He nearly went into architecture rather than mathematics; what decided him on mathematics was his proof, at age 18, of the startling theorem that a regular N-sided polygon can be constructed with ruler and compasses if and only if N is a power of 2 times a product of distinct Fermat primes.
- casing head pressure — The casing head pressure is the pressure on the casing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- certified accountant — (in Britain) a member of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, who is authorized to audit company accounts
- chartered accountant — (in Britain) an accountant who has passed the professional examinations of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, or the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland
- chauffeur-driven car — a car driven by a chauffeur
- chief superintendent — an officer of senior rank in a British police force or other similarly organized force
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- child-abuse register — (in Britain) a list of children deemed to be at risk of abuse or injury from their parents or guardians, compiled and held by a local authority, area health authority, or NSPCC Special Unit
- codex juris canonici — the official code of canon law in force in the Roman Catholic Church; introduced in 1918 and revised in 1983
- college of education — a professional training college for teachers
- colloidal suspension — a mixture having particles of one component, with diameters between 10 −7 and 10 −9 metres, suspended in a continuous phase of another component. The mixture has properties between those of a solution and a fine suspension
- colorado blue spruce — blue spruce.
- common lodging house — a cheap lodging house
- comparative judgment — any judgment about whether there is a difference between two or more stimuli
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- complete blood count — a diagnostic test that determines the exact numbers of each type of blood cell in a fixed quantity of blood. Abbreviation: CBC.
- computing dictionary — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
- conditioned stimulus — a stimulus to which an organism has learned to make a response by classical conditioning
- conductive education — an educational system, developed in Hungary by András Petö, in which teachers (conductors) teach children and adults with motor disorders to function independently, by guiding them to attain their own goals in their own way
- conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
- constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
- consumer price index — The consumer price index is an official measure of the rate of inflation within a country's economy. The abbreviation CPI is also used.
- continued proportion — geometric progression
- continuing education — Continuing education is education for adults in a variety of subjects, most of which are practical, not academic.
- continuing-education — adult education.
- contradistinguishing — Present participle of contradistinguish.
- controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
- copulative asyndeton — a staccato effect produced by omitting copulative connectives between two or more items in a group, as in “Friends, Romans, countrymen.”.
- coroneted fruit dove — a brightly coloured bird of the Columbidae family with a distinctive marking on its head, found in Indonesia and Papua new Guinea
- corrugated cardboard — cardboard usually made of three different layers, the two outer layers having a smooth surface while the central inner layer is corrugated
- counterdemonstration — a demonstration that is held in reaction to another demonstration
- crime and punishment — a novel (1866) by Feodor Dostoevsky.
- crude oil evaluation — Crude oil evaluation is the process of assessing the chemical and physical properties of crude oil, against particular standards.
- cut the gordian knot — to find a quick, bold solution for a perplexing problem
- cycloidal propulsion — propulsion of a vessel by propellers of controllable pitch that steer as well as propel.