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18-letter words containing e, n, r, o, u

  • considered harmful — (programming, humour)   A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
  • constituency party — a branch of a political party operating within a constituency
  • construction paper — Construction paper is a type of stiff, colored paper that children use for drawing and for making things.
  • constructive proof — (mathematics)   A proof that something exists that provides an example or a method for actually constructing it. For example, for any pair of finite real numbers n < 0 and p > 0, there exists a real number 0 < k < 1 such that f(k) = (1-k)*n + k*p = 0. A constructive proof would proceed by rearranging the above to derive an equation for k: k = 1/(1-n/p) From this and the constraints on n and p, we can show that 0 < k < 1. A few mathematicians actually reject *all* non-constructive arguments as invalid; this means, for instance, that the law of the excluded middle (either P or not-P must hold, whatever P is) has to go; this makes proof by contradiction invalid. See intuitionistic logic. Constructive proofs are popular in theoretical computer science, both because computer scientists are less given to abstraction than mathematicians and because intuitionistic logic turns out to be an appropriate theoretical treatment of the foundations of computer science.
  • consumer terrorism — the practice of introducing dangerous substances to foodstuffs or other consumer products, esp to extort money from the manufacturers
  • contents insurance — the insurance for the personal property in a household
  • continued fraction — a number plus a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction, and so on
  • continuous process — A continuous process is a process in which the product comes out without interruption and not in groups.
  • contract furniture — furniture designed and manufactured for commercial installation, as in offices, waiting rooms, or lobbies.
  • cornell university — (body, education)   A US Ivy League University founded in 1868 by businessman Ezra Cornell and respected scholar Andrew Dickson White. Cornell includes thirteen colleges and schools. On the Ithaca campus are the seven undergraduate units and four graduate and professional units. The Medical College and the Graduate School of Medical Sciences are in New York City. Cornell has 13,300 undergraduates and 6,200 graduate and professional students. See also Concurrent ML, Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University Programming Language, CU-SeeMe, ISIS.
  • cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
  • coronary care unit — a unit in a hospital dedicated to treating coronary heart disease
  • coronary-care unit — a specialized hospital unit for the early care and treatment of heart-attack patients. Abbreviation: CCU.
  • costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
  • couldn't care less — If you say that you couldn't care less about someone or something, you are emphasizing that you are not interested in them or worried about them. In American English, you can also say that you could care less, with the same meaning.
  • counseling service — an advice service
  • counter-adaptation — the act of adapting.
  • counter-aggression — the action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly its territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like: The army is prepared to stop any foreign aggression.
  • counter-hypothesis — a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
  • counter-productive — Something that is counter-productive achieves the opposite result from the one that you want to achieve.
  • counter-revolution — A counter-revolution is a revolution that is intended to reverse the effects of a previous revolution.
  • counterattractions — Plural form of counterattraction.
  • counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
  • counterculturalist — the culture and lifestyle of those people, especially among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.
  • countercyclicality — The quality of being countercyclical.
  • counterintuitively — In a manner contrary to intuition or common sense.
  • counterprogramming — the practice of scheduling a program opposite another program, esp. a popular one, that appeals to a different kind of audience, as in placing a romantic film directed at women opposite a sports program mainly watched by men
  • counterproposition — a proposition made in place of or in opposition to a preceding one.
  • counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
  • counterrevolutions — Plural form of counterrevolution.
  • countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
  • countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
  • crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
  • cry one's eyes out — to weep bitterly
  • cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
  • cursor dipped in x — (jargon)   The metaphorical source of the electronic equivalent of a poisoned-pen letter. Derived from English metaphors of the form "pen dipped in X" (where X = e.g. "acid", "bile", "vitriol"). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
  • cushing's syndrome — a medical condition characterized by obesity, hypertension, excessive hair growth, etc., caused by an overactive adrenal gland or large doses of corticosteroids
  • customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
  • dangerous offender — an offender who is deemed by a court of law to be likely to engage in further violent conduct, and who thus becomes eligible for an indefinite prison sentence
  • de bruijn notation — (language)   A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
  • decision procedure — a procedure, as an algorithm, for determining in a finite number of steps the validity of any of a certain class of propositions.
  • defense calculator — IBM 701
  • developing country — a nonindustrialized poor country that is seeking to develop its resources by industrialization
  • diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
  • diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
  • discourse analysis — the study of the rules or patterns characterizing units of connected speech or writing longer than a sentence.
  • disorderly conduct — any of various petty misdemeanors, generally including nuisances, breaches of the peace, offensive or immoral conduct in public, etc.
  • distribution curve — the curve or line of a graph in which cumulative frequencies are plotted as ordinates and values of the variate as abscissas.
  • dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
  • down to the ground — thoroughly; completely
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