20-letter words containing i, a, t, r, c, s

feather in one's cap — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
federal constitution — Constitution of the United States.
file descriptor leak — (programming) (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
financial instrument — A financial instrument is a document or contract that can be traded in a market, that represents an asset to one party and a liability or equity to the other.
firearms certificate — a certificate that entitles the holder to own and keep a firearm
first earl of cromer — 1st Earl of, Evelyn Baring.
first-cause argument — an argument for the existence of God, asserting the necessity of an uncaused cause of all subsequent series of causes, on the assumption that an infinite regress is impossible.
fission-track dating — the dating of samples of minerals by comparing the tracks in them by fission fragments of the uranium nuclei they contain, before and after irradiation by neutrons
for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
frosting on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
generative semantics — a theory of generative grammar holding that the deep structure of a sentence is equivalent to its semantic representation, from which the surface structure can then be derived using only one set of rules that relate underlying meaning and surface form rather than separate sets of semantic and syntactic rules.
go like the clappers — to move extremely fast
graphics accelerator — (graphics, hardware) Hardware (often an extra circuit board) to perform tasks such as plotting lines and surfaces in two or three dimensions, filling, shading and hidden line removal.
gravimetric analysis — analysis by weight.
great-circle sailing — sailing between two points more or less according to an arc of a great circle, in practice almost always using a series of rhumb lines of different bearings to approximate the arc, whose own bearing changes constantly unless it coincides with a meridian or the equator.
hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
heteropolysaccharide — (carbohydrate) any polysaccharide formed from two or more different kinds of monosaccharide.
hipparchus satellite — an astronometric satellite launched in 1989 by the European Space Agency that measured the position, proper motion, and brightness of 118 218 stars down to 12th magnitude and the magnitude and colour of a million stars down to 10th magnitude
hire-purchase system — a system of payment for a commodity in regular installments while using it.
historical sociology — the sociological study of the origins and development of societies and of other social phenomena that seeks underlying laws and principles.
horizontal scan rate — (hardware) (HSR) The measure of how many scan lines of pixels a monitor can display in one second, expressed in kHz (generally somewhere between 20 and 100 kHz). The HSR is controlled by the horizontal sync signal generated by the video controller, but is limited by the speed with which the monitor can scan the electron beam horizontally across the screen and then return it to the beginning of the next line.
hydrostatic pressure — Hydrostatic pressure is the pressure exerted by a liquid that depends on how deep it is.
hyperadrenocorticism — Cushing's syndrome.
hypercholesterolemia — the presence of an excessive amount of cholesterol in the blood.
hyperhomocysteinemia — (medicine) The presence of an excessive amount of homocysteine in the blood.
implicit parallelism — (parallel) A feature of a programming language for a parallel processing system which decides automatically which parts to run in parallel. The best way of providing implicit parallelism is still (1995) an active research topic. The problem is to generate the right number of parallel tasks of the right size (or "granularity"). Too many tasks and the system gets bogged down in house-keeping, or memory for waiting tasks runs out, too few tasks and processors are left idle. The best performance is usually achieved with explicit parallelism where the programmer can annotate his program to indicate which parts should be executed as independent parallel tasks.
in bad circumstances — (of a person) in a bad financial situation
in the circumstances — a condition, detail, part, or attribute, with respect to time, place, manner,agent, etc., that accompanies, determines, or modifies a fact or event; a modifying or influencing factor: Do not judge his behavior without considering every circumstance.
in-service education — training and education given to employed teachers throughout their career
income tax inspector — a person whose job is to assess individuals' income tax liability
incremental analysis — (testing) Partial analysis of an incomplete product to allow early feedback on its development.
indicated horsepower — the horsepower of a reciprocating engine as shown by an indicator record. Abbreviation: ihp, IHP.
industrial democracy — control of an organization by the people who work for it, esp by workers holding positions on its board of directors
industrial insurance — industrial life insurance.
industrial sociology — the sociological study of social relationships and social structures in business settings.
inelastic scattering — a scattering of particles due to an inelastic collision that also changes their wavelengths and phases.
insulin-coma therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
integrity constraint — (database) A constraint (rule) that must remain true for a database to preserve data integrity. Integrity constraints are specified at database creation time and enforced by the database management system. Examples from a genealogical database would be that every individual must be their parent's child or that they can have no more than two natural parents.
intercalary meristem — meristem in the internode of a stem.
intermediate section — The intermediate section is the section of the borehole after the top hole, which has more consolidated rock.
interplanetary space — the region of space occurring around the sun and planets of the solar system. The density is normally negligible although cosmic rays, meteorites, gas clouds, etc, can occur
into/in cold storage — If you put an idea or plan into cold storage or in cold storage, you delay it for a while rather than acting on it as you originally intended.
isochronous transfer — isochronous
jack russell terrier — any of a breed of terrier with short hair and a mottled brown and white coat
joint life insurance — life insurance covering two or more persons, the benefits of which are paid after the first person dies.
keep a straight face — look serious, avoid smiling
keratoconjunctivitis — inflammation of the cornea and conjunctiva.
kick over the traces — either of the two straps, ropes, or chains by which a carriage, wagon, or the like is drawn by a harnessed horse or other draft animal.
lafayette escadrille — a contingent of American aviators who in 1916 served as volunteers (Escadrille Américaine) in the French air force and in 1918 became the 103rd Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army.
life-support machine — A life-support machine is the equipment that is used to keep a person alive when they are very ill and cannot breathe without help.

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