18-letter words containing i, c, e, l
- electrostatic lens — an electron lens consisting of a system of metal electrodes, the electrostatic field of which focuses the charged particles
- electrostatic unit — any unit that belongs to a system of electrical cgs units in which the electric constant is given the value of unity and is taken as a pure number
- electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
- emotional literacy — the ability to deal with one's emotions and recognize their causes
- employment service — (in the United States) a government department established to collect and supply to the unemployed information about job vacancies and to employers information about availability of prospective workers
- enantioselectivity — (chemistry) The selectivity of a reaction towards one of a pair of enantiomers.
- epicycloidal wheel — one of the planetary gears of an epicyclic train
- equinoctial circle — celestial equator
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- equivalent circuit — an arrangement of simple electrical components that is electrically equivalent to a complex circuit and is used to simplify circuit analysis
- erectile impotence — impotence caused by the inability of the penis to become sufficiently firm to penetrate the vagina
- essence of violets — an alcoholic solution derived from violets, used as perfume
- established church — a Church that is officially recognized as a national institution, esp the Church of England
- ethical investment — an investment in a company whose activities or products are not considered by the investor to be unethical
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- ethnopsychological — Relating to ethnopsychology.
- euclid's algorithm — (algorithm) (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
- exclusive brethren — one of the two main divisions of the Plymouth Brethren, which, in contrast to the Open Brethren, restricts its members' contacts with those outside the sect
- family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
- ferdinand schiller — Ferdinand Canning Scott [kan-ing] /ˈkæn ɪŋ/ (Show IPA), 1864–1937, English philosopher in the U.S.
- 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.
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- field independence — a psychological trait associated with having an internal locus of orientation (contrasted with field dependence).
- filchner ice shelf — an ice barrier in Antarctica, in the SE Weddell Sea, bordered on the W by Berkner Island.
- file control block — (operating system) (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
- financial services — A company or organization that provides financial services is able to help you do things such as make investments or buy a pension or mortgage.
- firecracker flower — a plant, Dichelostemma ida-maia, of the amaryllis family, native to California and Oregon, having clusters of tubular scarlet flowers.
- first class module — (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
- fischer von erlach — Johann Bernhard [yaw-hahn bern-hahrt] /ˈyɔ hɑn ˈbɛrn hɑrt/ (Show IPA), 1656–1723, Austrian architect.
- fly in the face of — to move through the air using wings.
- formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
- forward compatible — forward compatibility
- frederick douglass — Frederick, 1817–95, U.S. ex-slave, abolitionist, and orator.
- fuel-saving device — a device that increases the fuel efficiency of a vehicle, so that it uses less fuel for a further distance
- functional disease — a disease in which there is an abnormal change in the function of an organ, but no structural alteration in the tissues involved (opposed to organic disease).
- functional testing — (testing) (Or "black-box testing", "closed-box testing") The application of test data derived from functional requirements without regard to how the system is implemented.
- funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
- galactic longitude — the angular distance in degrees measured eastward in the galactic plane from a radius drawn from the earth as center to the constellation Sagittarius.
- galilean telescope — a refracting telescope that forms an erect image, consisting of an objective of relatively long focal length that causes light rays to converge and an eyepiece of short focal length that causes them to diverge.
- garbage collection — (programming) (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the run-time system), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like Lisp represent expressions as graphs built from cells which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic dynamic storage allocation to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on virtual memory size. The three main methods are mark-sweep garbage collection, reference counting and copying garbage collection. See also the AI koan about garbage collection.
- gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- general confession — a prayer confessing sins
- general precession — the precession that results from both lunisolar precession and planetary precession; precession of the equinoxes.
- genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
- genetic counseling — the counseling of individuals with established or potential genetic problems, concerned with inheritance patterns and risks to future offspring.
- geometrical optics — the branch of optics dealing with light as rays, especially in the study of the effects of lenses and mirrors on light beams and of their combination in optical instruments.
- glyceryl trioleate — olein.
- gnu public licence — (legal) Properly known as the General Public License. Improperly known as the General Public Virus.
- governor's council — a council chosen to assist or inform a governor on legislative or executive matters.
- goya (y lucientes) — Fran‧ˈcis‧co Jo‧ˈsé‧ de (fʀɑnˈθiskɔhɔˈsɛ ðɛ) ; fränt hēsˈk^ōh^ōseˈ the) 1746-1828; Sp. painter