18-letter words containing e, p, a, m, i, n
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
- decompartmentalize — to remove excessive compartmentalization from (an organization)
- deep-sea fisherman — a person who takes part in deep-sea fishing
- deficiency payment — a payment made to a commodity producer that represents the difference between the market price and the guaranteed price
- definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
- delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
- dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
- dimethyltryptamine — a hallucinogenic drug, C 12 H 16 N 2 , with an action of short duration. Abbreviation: DMT.
- dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
- domestic appliance — a machine used for household tasks, for example, a washing machine, refrigerator, etc.
- 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.
- dot matrix printer — (hardware, printer) A kind of printer with a vertical column of up to 48 small closely packed needles or "pins" each of which can be individually forced forward to press an ink ribbon against the paper. The print head is repeatedly scanned across the page and different combinations of needles activated at each point. Dot matrix printers are noisy compared to non-impact printers.
- dot-matrix printer — device: prints using matrix dots
- dynamically scoped — dynamic scope
- east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
- eastern hemisphere — the eastern part of the terrestrial globe, including Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe.
- economic geography — a branch of geography that deals with the relation of physical and economic conditions to the production and utilization of raw materials and their manufacture into finished products.
- entrepreneurialism — The spirit or state of acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
- european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
- examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
- extermination camp — a camp where people are imprisoned and killed
- false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
- gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- gensym corporation — (company) A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
- giant peacock moth — the largest European moth, an emperor, Saturnia pyri, reaching 15 cm (6 in.) in wingspan. It is mottled brown with a prominent ocellus on each wing and being night-flying can be mistaken for a bat
- give someone pause — to make someone hesitant or uncertain
- gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
- grumbling appendix — a condition in which the appendix causes intermittent pain but appendicitis has not developed
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- handyman's special — fixer-upper.
- hearing impairment — partial deafness
- hydroxytryptamines — Plural form of hydroxytryptamine.
- hyperaldosteronism — aldosteronism.
- hyperbilirubinemia — an abnormally high level of bilirubin in the blood, manifested by jaundice, anorexia, and malaise, occurring in association with liver disease and certain hemolytic anemias.
- hypochromic anemia — an anemia characterized by an abnormally low concentration of hemoglobin in the red blood cells, often due to iron deficiency.
- imaginary operator — An imaginary operator is the part of a complex number that defines the magnitude of the part of the complex number at right angles to the real number part.
- impedance matching — the technique of choosing or adjusting electric circuits and components so that the impedance of the load is equal to the internal impedance of the power source, thereby optimizing the power transfer from source to load.
- impingement attack — a form of corrosion of metals caused by erosion of the oxide layer by a moving fluid in which there are suspended particles or air bubbles
- imploded consonant — a consonant which is pronounced with or by implosion
- impressionableness — The quality of being impressionable.
- in compliance with — in accordance with
- incremental backup — (operating system) A kind of backup that copies all files which have changed since the date of the previous backup. The first backup of a file system should include all files - a "full backup". Call this level 0. The next backup could also be a full level 0 backup but it is usually much quicker to do a level 1 backup which will include only those files which have changed since the level 0 backup. Together the level 0 and level 1 backups will include the latest version of every file. Level 1 backups can be made until, say, the backup tape is nearly full, after which we can switch to level 2. Each level includes those files which have changed since the last backup at a lower level. The more levels you use, the longer it will take to restore the latest version of a file (or all files) if you don't know when it was last modified. Compare differential backup.
- inner automorphism — an automorphism that maps an element x into an element of the form axa −1 where a −1 is the inverse of a.
- investment company — a company that invests its funds in other companies and issues its own securities against these investments.