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20-letter words containing d

  • anomalous dispersion — a sudden change in the refractive index of a material for wavelengths in the vicinity of absorption bands in the spectrum of the material.
  • antidandruff shampoo — a shampoo that prevents or treats dandruff
  • antidisestablishment — Opposed to the separation of church and state.
  • antidiuretic hormone — vasopressin. Abbreviation: ADH.
  • antigestational drug — a drug that averts a pregnancy by preventing the fertilized egg from becoming implanted in the uterine wall.
  • antimony oxychloride — a white, water-insoluble powder, SbOCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of antimony salts.
  • antimony trifluoride — a white to grayish-white, crystalline, hygroscopic, water-soluble, poisonous solid, SbF 3 , used chiefly in dyeing textiles.
  • antonello da messina — ?1430–?79, Italian painter, born in Sicily. His paintings include St Jerome in His Study and Portrait of a Man
  • antony and cleopatra — a tragedy (1606–07?) by Shakespeare.
  • apollonius of rhodes — 3rd century bc, Greek epic poet and head of the Library of Alexandria. His principal work is the four-volume Argonautica
  • appalachian dulcimer — dulcimer (def 2).
  • apparent candlepower — a measure of the luminous intensity of an extended source of light in terms of the candlepower of a point source of light that has an equivalent luminous intensity when placed at the same distance as the extended source.
  • aquila degli abruzzi — a city in central Italy, capital of Abruzzi region. Pop: 68 503 (2001)
  • argument from design — the argument for the existence of God based on the assumption that order in the universe implies an orderer and cannot be a natural feature of the universe.
  • arrested development — physical development that is not complete
  • as straight as a die — perfectly honest
  • aschheim-zondek test — a test used to detect whether a woman is pregnant by noting the effect on the ovaries of an immature mouse or rabbit injected with her urine.
  • asexual reproduction — reproduction, as budding, fission, or spore formation, not involving the union of gametes.
  • assessment procedure — an established method of assessing students or workers
  • associated statehood — the semi-independent political status of various former British colonies in the Caribbean from 1967 until each became an independent state in the British Commonwealth, by which Britain retained responsibility for defence and some aspects of foreign affairs. The associated states were Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines
  • at the crack of dawn — If you say that someone does something at the crack of dawn, you are emphasizing that they do it very early in the morning.
  • at the drop of a hat — If you say that you are ready to do something at the drop of a hat, you mean that you are willing to do it immediately, without hesitating.
  • attendance allowance — (in Britain) a tax-free noncontributory welfare benefit for people over 65 years old who are so severely disabled that they need frequent attention or continual supervision for a period of six months or more
  • audio-lingual method — a technique of foreign-language instruction that emphasizes audio-lingual skills over reading and writing and is characterized by extensive use of pattern practice.
  • background radiation — low-intensity radiation from, for example, small amounts of radioisotopes in soil, air, building materials, etc
  • backward and forward — If someone or something moves backward and forward, they move repeatedly first in one direction and then in the opposite direction.
  • backwards compatible — backward compatibility
  • balanced three-phase — A balanced three-phase voltage or current is one in which the size of each phase is the same, and the phase angles of the three phases differ from each other by 120 degrees.
  • balled-and-burlapped — of or relating to a tree, shrub, or other plant prepared for transplanting by allowing the roots to remain covered by a ball of soil around which canvas or burlap is tied.
  • ballet-wrap cardigan — a cardigan with wrapover fronts which are fastened with wraparound ties
  • baptism for the dead — the baptism of a living person in the place of and for the sake of one who has died unbaptized: now practiced chiefly by Mormons.
  • barking and dagenham — a borough of E Greater London. Pop: 165 900 (2003 est). Area: 34 sq km (13 sq miles)
  • barrack-room ballads — a volume of poems (1892) by Rudyard Kipling, including Gunga Din, Danny Deever, and Mandalay.
  • barred spiral galaxy — a spiral galaxy whose center has the form of an extended bar.
  • bartramian sandpiper — upland sandpiper.
  • basic encoding rules — (protocol, standard)   (BER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing self-identifying and self-delimiting transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1 notations. BER is an self-identifying and self-delimiting encoding scheme, which means that each data value can be identified, extracted and decoded individually. Huw Rogers once described BER as "a triumph of bloated theory over clean implementation". He also criticises it as designed around bitstreams with arbitrary boundaries between data which can only be determined at a high level. Documents: ITU-T X.690, ISO 8825-1. See also CER, DER, PER.
  • basic lead carbonate — ceruse.
  • basic object adapter — (architecture)   (BOA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
  • be called to the bar — to become a barrister
  • be hard pushed to do — If you are hard pushed to do something, you find it very difficult to do it.
  • be-twixt and between — betwixt and between, neither the one nor the other; in a middle or unresolved position: Not wanting to side with either her father or her mother, she was betwixt and between.
  • beat around the bush — to talk around a subject without getting to the point
  • beaverhead mountains — a mountain range on the border of E Idaho and SW Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. 10,961 feet (3343 meters).
  • been-there done-that — an exclamation expressing familiarity and boredom with a situation, experience, etc
  • belgian shepherd dog — a medium-sized well-proportioned dog of a breed that resembles an Alsatian in appearance and is often used as a sheepdog or a guard dog
  • belgorod-dnestrovski — a port in SW Ukraine, on the Dniester estuary: belonged to Romania from 1918 until 1940; under Soviet rule (1944–91). Pop: 48 100 (2004 est)
  • belgorod-dnestrovsky — a seaport in SW Ukraine, on the Black Sea.
  • benefit of the doubt — a favorable opinion or judgment adopted despite uncertainty.
  • benoit b. mandelbrot — Benoit Mandelbrot
  • benzene hexachloride — a compound, C6H6Cl6, used as an insecticide
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