20-letter words containing f, e, c
- chemical fingerprint — a distinctive characteristic or pattern indicating the presence of a certain molecule, used to identify a chemical.
- chief superintendent — an officer of senior rank in a British police force or other similarly organized force
- clean bill of health — a good report of one's physical condition
- clean-bill-of-health — a certificate, carried by a ship, attesting to the presence or absence of infectious diseases among the ship's crew and at the port from which it has come.
- clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
- college of cardinals — the collective body of cardinals having the function of electing and advising the pope
- college of education — a professional training college for teachers
- come off second best — to be defeated in competition
- commissioned officer — a military officer holding a commission, such as Second Lieutenant in the British Army, Acting Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force, and officers of all ranks senior to these
- committee of inquiry — (in parliament) a group set up to investigate something
- commune with oneself — to think; ponder
- complete unification — (programming) W.P. Weijland's name for unification without occur check.
- confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
- conference committee — a committee made up of members from both houses whose task is to eliminate any differences between versions of legislation on the same subject passed in the different chambers
- conferencing over ip — (communications, standard) (CoIP) Standards for the transmission of multimedia over the Internet. CoIP extends VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) with text, images, video. The main CoIP standard is based on H.323. The VoIP forum of the IMTC merged with the H.323 Activity Group in January 1999 to form the Conferencing over IP (CoIP) Activity Group. VoIP uses "VoIP Devices" as gateways to route voice data packets over the Internet or PSTN. Protocols such as SGCP and its successor MGCP extend VoIP to handle media other than voice data.
- conflict of interest — a conflict between one's obligation to the public good and one's self-interest, as in the case of a public officeholder who owns stock in a company seeking government contracts
- conformal projection — a map projection in which angles formed by lines are preserved: a map made using this projection preserves the shape of any small area.
- conservation of mass — the principle that the total mass of any isolated system is constant and is independent of any chemical and physical changes taking place within the system
- contempt of congress — contempt of a U.S. Congressional body, as of an investigating committee, shown by a witness summoned or appearing before it.
- context of situation — the totality of extralinguistic features having relevance to a communicative act.
- context-free grammar — (grammar) (CFG) A grammar where the syntax of each constituent (syntactic category or terminal symbol) is independent of the symbols occuring before and after it in a sentence. A context-free grammar describes a context-free language. Context-free grammars can be expressed by a set of "production rules" or syntactic rules. For example, a language with symbols "a" and "b" that must occur in unequal numbers can be represented by the CFG: S → U | V U → TaU | TaT | UaT V → TbV | TbT | VbT T → aTbT | bTaT | ε meaning the top-level category "S" consists of either a "U" or a "V" and so on. The special category "ε" represents the empty string. This grammar is context-free because each rule has a single symbol on its left-hand side.
- 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
- correctional officer — a prison guard
- cost-of-living index — a numerical scale by means of which cost-of-living levels can be compared with a base number
- council of ministers — the EU's most important decision-making body
- council of the reich — the Reichsrat.
- council of the union — the legislature of the former Soviet Union and its successor states, consisting of an upper house (Soviet of the Union or Council of the Union) whose delegates are elected on the basis of population, and a lower house (Soviet of Nationalities or Council of Nationalities) whose delegates are elected to represent the various nationalities.
- counter-inflationary — designed to reduce inflation
- counterproliferation — Action intended to prevent an increase or spread in the possession of nuclear weapons.
- coupling coefficient — The coupling coefficient of a pair of coils is a measure of the magnetic effect passing between them.
- court of last resort — (in the US) a supreme court
- court of st. james's — the British royal court: so called from St. James's Palace, London, the former scene of royal receptions.
- covenant of warranty — warranty (def 2b).
- covenant-of-warranty — warranty (def 2b).
- craft apprenticeship — a period of training for a skilled trade in industry, such as for a plumber or electrician
- cream of tomato soup — a creamy soup made from tomatoes
- crisis of confidence — a serious loss of confidence
- cut of someone's jib — someone's manner, behaviour, style, etc
- darkfield microscope — kind of microscope
- data dictionary file — (database) (DDF) A set of files describing the structure of a database file. DDFs define database tables and include information about file locations, field layouts and indexes. DDFs are the standard method for defining field and index characteristics for Btrieve files.
- de facto segregation — racial, ethnic, or other segregation resulting from societal differences between groups, as socioeconomic or political disparity, without institutionalized legislation intended to segregate.
- death of ivan ilyich — a short novel (1884) by Leo Tolstoy.
- decaffeinated coffee — Decaffeinated coffee is coffee that does not contain caffeine.
- deduct from the bill — If you deduct an item or expense from the bill at a restaurant or hotel, you take a charge out of a customer's bill.
- definite description — a description that is modified by the definite article or a possessive, such as the woman in white or Rosemary's baby
- degree of difficulty — a rating which reflects the difficulty of the manoeuvre or action an athlete is attempting to perform in sports such as gymnastics and diving, and which is factored into the final score
- dichloroethyl formal — a colorless liquid, C 5 H 10 O 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent and in the manufacture of certain synthetic rubbers.
- difference amplifier — A difference amplifier is a device that amplifies the difference between two inputs, rejecting any signals common to both.
- difference threshold — the minimum difference between two stimuli that is just detectable by a person
- differential pricing — a situation in which different prices are charged for the same product or service