17-letter words containing g, r, a, t, e
- ascertained goods — specific goods
- assistant manager — a person who assists a manager in their work
- astrophotographer — A person, especially an astronomer, who takes photographs of the stars.
- at their own game — If you beat someone at their own game, you use the same methods that they have used, but more successfully, so that you gain an advantage over them.
- attainment target — a general defined level of ability that a pupil is expected to achieve in every subject at each key stage in the National Curriculum
- augmented reality — an artificial environment created through the combination of real-world and computer-generated data
- australia antigen — an antigen present in the blood of some persons with one form of hepatitis
- auxiliary storage — secondary storage.
- average deviation — a measure of dispersion, computed by taking the arithmetic mean of the absolute values of the deviations of the functional values from some central value, usually the mean or median.
- average seek time — (storage) The mean time it takes to move the head of a disk drive from one track to another, averaged over the source and destination cylinders. Usually measured in milliseconds (ms). The average seek time gives a good measure of the speed of the drive in a multi-user environment where successive read/write request are largely uncorrelated. Ten ms is common for a hard disk and 200 ms for an eight-speed CD-ROM.
- background report — a report on someone or something that sheds light on their background, esp a report on the background of a person convicted of a crime before they are sentenced by a judge
- bacteriologically — In a bacteriological manner; with respect to bacteriology.
- baden-wurttemberg — a state of SW Germany. Capital: Stuttgart. Pop: 53 938 (2003 est). Area: 35 742 sq km (13 800 sq miles)
- bangalore torpedo — an explosive device in a long metal tube, used to blow gaps in barbed-wire barriers
- bar-tailed godwit — a large wader, Limosa lapponica, of the family Scolopacidae which, in migrating from Alaska to New Zealand, makes the longest journey without stopping for food taken by any animal
- base lending rate — a minimum interest rate on which financial institutions base the rates they use for lending
- baseboard heating — a heating system by pipes, through which steam or hot water circulates, near the base of the walls of rooms
- bell-hanger's bit — a bit for drilling small holes through studs or the like.
- biological father — the man whose semen fertilized the ovum from which a child was born
- biological mother — the mother who gave birth to a child
- biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
- blue dog democrat — a fiscally conservative member of the Democratic Party
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- bottlebrush grass — a North American grass, Hystrix patula, having loose flower spikes with long awns.
- breakdown voltage — the minimum applied voltage that would cause a given insulator or electrode to break down.
- brightening agent — a compound applied to a textile to increase its brightness by the conversion of ultraviolet radiation to visible (blue) light, used in detergents
- brighton and hove — a city and unitary authority in S England, in East Sussex. Pop: 251 500 (2003 est). Area: 72 sq km (28 sq miles)
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- broadview heights — a town in N Ohio.
- brokerage account — A brokerage account is an account with a broker where an investor can buy and sell and hold securities.
- budgetary control — a system of managing a business by applying a financial value to each forecast activity. Actual performance is subsequently compared with the estimates
- budgetary deficit — the amount by which government expenditure exceeds income from taxation, customs duties, etc, in any one fiscal year
- butterfly bandage — a butterfly-shaped strip of adhesive medical tape used, when stitches are not required, to keep a deep cut or incision tightly closed while it heals
- butterfly diagram — a graphical butterfly-shaped representation of the sunspot density on the solar disc in the 11-year sunspot cycle
- cabbage butterfly — a common white butterfly (Pieris rapae) whose green larvae feed upon cabbage and related plants
- california nutmeg — a tall, pungently aromatic California evergreen tree, Torreya californica, of the yew family, having a fissured, gray-brown bark and small, purple-streaked, green fruit.
- cantilever bridge — a bridge having spans that are constructed as cantilevers and often a suspended span or spans, each end of which rests on one end of a cantilever span
- carbon offsetting — a program in which a company, country, etc., reduces or offsets its carbon emissions through the funding of activities and projects that improve the environment: Carbon offsetting does not always have a quantifiable impact on the planet.
- caretaker manager — a person who temporarily holds the office of manager of a football club
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- categoric contact — behavior toward an individual on the basis of the type or group of people that person represents rather than on the basis of personal makeup.
- cathedral ceiling — a high ceiling formed by or suggesting an open-timbered roof.
- center of gravity — The center of gravity of an object is a point in it. If this point is above the base of the object, it stays stable, rather than falling over.
- centre of gravity — The centre of gravity of an object is a point in it. If this point is above the base of the object, it stays stable, rather than falling over.
- centrifugal brake — a safety mechanism on a hoist, crane, etc, that consists of revolving brake shoes that are driven outwards by centrifugal force into contact with a fixed brake drum when the rope drum revolves at excessive speed
- centrifugal force — In physics, centrifugal force is the force that makes objects move outwards when they are spinning around something or travelling in a curve.
- characterological — of or relating to character or the study of character
- charles the great — ("Charles the Great") a.d. 742–814, king of the Franks 768–814; as Charles I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 800–814.
- charter of rights — a section of the Canadian Constitution containing a statement of the basic rights of citizens of Canada.
- cigarette lighter — A cigarette lighter is a device which produces a small flame when you press a switch and which you use to light a cigarette or cigar.