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20-letter words containing i, c, e, l

  • basal cell carcinoma — a common and usually curable skin cancer that arises from epithelial cells and rarely metastasizes: often associated with overexposure to sunlight.
  • basal metabolic rate — the rate at which heat is produced by the body at rest, 12 to 14 hours after eating, measured in kilocalories per square metre of body surface per hour
  • basic encoding rules — (protocol, standard)   (BER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing self-identifying and self-delimiting transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1 notations. BER is an self-identifying and self-delimiting encoding scheme, which means that each data value can be identified, extracted and decoded individually. Huw Rogers once described BER as "a triumph of bloated theory over clean implementation". He also criticises it as designed around bitstreams with arbitrary boundaries between data which can only be determined at a high level. Documents: ITU-T X.690, ISO 8825-1. See also CER, DER, PER.
  • basic lead carbonate — ceruse.
  • bats-wing coral-tree — a small tree, Erythrina verspertilio, of tropical and subtropical Australia with red flowers and leaves shaped like the wings of a bat
  • benzene hexachloride — a compound, C6H6Cl6, used as an insecticide
  • benzenesulfonic acid — a fine, needlelike substance, C 6 H 6 SO 3 , used chiefly as a catalyst and in the synthesis of phenol, resorcinol, and other organic products.
  • bernard of clairvaux — Saint. ?1090–1153, French abbot and theologian, who founded the stricter branch of the Cistercians in 1115
  • binary coded decimal — (data)   (BCD, packed decimal) A number representation where a number is expressed as a sequence of decimal digits and then each decimal digit is encoded as a four-bit binary number (a nibble). E.g. decimal 92 would be encoded as the eight-bit sequence 1001 0010. In some cases, the right-most nibble contains the sign (positive or negative). It is easier to convert decimal numbers to and from BCD than binary and, though BCD is often converted to binary for arithmetic processing, it is possible to build hardware that operates directly on BCD.
  • binary-coded decimal — a number in binary code written in groups of four bits, each group representing one digit of the corresponding decimal number
  • binomial coefficient — any of the numerical factors which multiply the successive terms in a binomial expansion; any term of the form n!/(n–k)!k!: written (nk), nCk, or Cnk
  • biogeochemical cycle — the cycle in which nitrogen, carbon, and other inorganic elements of the soil, atmosphere, etc. of a region are converted into the organic substances of animals or plants and released back into the environment
  • biological diversity — Biological diversity is the same as biodiversity.
  • biological half life — Physics. the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
  • biological half-life — the time required for half of a quantity of radioactive material absorbed by a living tissue or organism to be naturally eliminated
  • bismarck archipelago — a group of over 200 islands in the SW Pacific, northeast of New Guinea: part of Papua New Guinea. Main islands: New Britain, New Ireland, Lavongai, and the Admiralty Islands. Chief town: Rabaul, on New Britain. Pop: 566 610 (2000). Area: 49 658 sq km (19 173 sq miles)
  • black lung (disease) — a disease of the lungs caused by the inhalation of coal dust; anthracosis
  • black-bellied plover — a large plover, Pluvialis squatarola, of both the New and Old Worlds, having black underparts when in nuptial plumage.
  • black-throated diver — a diving bird, Gavia arctica, found in Europe and Asia, and a rare summer visitor to the UK
  • blackburnian warbler — a black-and-white North American wood warbler, Dendroica fusca, having an orange throat and an orange and black head.
  • blending inheritance — the blending of characteristics of the parents in the offspring, as in a pink flower that results from the mating of a red flower with a white one
  • blow up in sb's face — If something that you have planned blows up in your face, it goes wrong unexpectedly, with the result that you suffer.
  • bolometric magnitude — the magnitude of a star derived either from the total energy that it radiates at all wavelengths or from the total energy of those of its wavelengths that are received on earth.
  • boulogne billancourt — a suburb of Paris, in N France.
  • boulogne-billancourt — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
  • brachiocephalic vein — either of two major veins, formed by the merger of the subclavian and internal jugular veins, that drain blood from the head and arms.
  • brown recluse spider — a very poisonous, medium-sized spider (Loxosceles reclusa), common in the U.S., having a violin-shaped mark on its cephalothorax and only six eyes
  • buckminsterfullerene — a form of carbon that contains molecules having 60 carbon atoms arranged at the vertices of a polyhedron with hexagonal and pentagonal faces. It is produced in carbon arcs and occurs naturally in small amounts in certain minerals
  • calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
  • calcium metasilicate — a white powder, CaSiO 3 , insoluble in water, used as an antacid and as a filler for paper.
  • calcium permanganate — a violet, crystalline, deliquescent solid, Ca(MnO 4) 2 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a disinfectant and deodorizer.
  • california gold fern — an evergreen fern, Pityrogramma triangularis, growing from British Columbia to California, having the underside of the leaves covered with a deep yellow, powderlike substance.
  • call-level interface — (database, standard)   (SQL/CLI) A programming interface designed to support SQL access to databases from shrink-wrapped application programs. CLI was originally created by a subcommittee of the SQL Access Group (SAG). The SAG/CLI specification was published as the Microsoft Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) specification in 1992. In 1993, SAG submitted the CLI to the ANSI and ISO SQL committees. SQL/CLI provides an international standard implementation-independent CLI to access SQL databases. Client-server tools can easily access databases through dynamic link libraries. It supports and encourages a rich set of client-server tools. SQL/CLI is an addendum to 1992 SQL standard (SQL-92). It was completed as ISO standard ISO/IEC 9075-3:1995 Information technology -- Database languages -- SQL -- Part 3: Call-Level Interface (SQL/CLI). The current SQL/CLI effort is adding support for SQL3.
  • cancel a reservation — If you cancel a reservation, you stop it because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they no longer wish to stay there.
  • canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
  • capacitive crosstalk — Capacitive crosstalk is a situation in which a signal on one line can cause a smaller version of the same signal on an adjacent line because of the capacitance between the lines.
  • cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
  • capital transfer tax — (in Britain) a tax payable from 1974 to 1986 at progressive rates on the cumulative total of gifts of money or property made during the donor's lifetime or after his death. It was replaced by inheritance tax
  • capitation allowance — an amount of money given to a school based on the number of students it has
  • carbohydrate loading — the practice of eating high amounts of carbohydrates, sometimes after a period of low carbohydrate intake, for several days immediately before competing in an athletic event, especially a marathon, in order to store glycogen in the body, thereby providing greater reserves of energy.
  • carbon tetrachloride — a colourless volatile nonflammable sparingly soluble liquid made from chlorine and carbon disulphide; tetrachloromethane. It is used as a solvent, cleaning fluid, and insecticide. Formula: CCl4
  • career limiting move — (jargon)   (CLM, Sun) Any action endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly one's job. E.g. "His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He won the prize for "best CLM"." A severe bug discovered by a customer might be a "CLM bug".
  • carl friedrich gauss — (person)   A German mathematician (1777 - 1855), one of all time greatest. Gauss discovered the method of least squares and Gaussian elimination. Gauss was something of a child prodigy; the most commonly told story relates that when he was 10 his teacher, wanting a rest, told his class to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss did it in seconds, having noticed that 1+...+100 = 100+...+1 = (101+...+101)/2. He did important work in almost every area of mathematics. Such eclecticism is probably impossible today, since further progress in most areas of mathematics requires much hard background study. Some idea of the range of his work can be obtained by noting the many mathematical terms with "Gauss" in their names. E.g. Gaussian elimination (linear algebra); Gaussian primes (number theory); Gaussian distribution (statistics); Gauss [unit] (electromagnetism); Gaussian curvature (differential geometry); Gaussian quadrature (numerical analysis); Gauss-Bonnet formula (differential geometry); Gauss's identity (hypergeometric functions); Gauss sums (number theory). His favourite area of mathematics was number theory. He conjectured the Prime Number Theorem, pioneered the theory of quadratic forms, proved the quadratic reciprocity theorem, and much more. He was "the first mathematician to use complex numbers in a really confident and scientific way" (Hardy & Wright, chapter 12). He nearly went into architecture rather than mathematics; what decided him on mathematics was his proof, at age 18, of the startling theorem that a regular N-sided polygon can be constructed with ruler and compasses if and only if N is a power of 2 times a product of distinct Fermat primes.
  • cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
  • cat's-tail speedwell — a widely cultivated Eurasian plant, Veronica spicata, of the figwort family, having blue flowers in long, spikelike clusters.
  • catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
  • catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
  • cavalleria rusticana — an opera (1890) by Pietro Mascagni.
  • celestial navigation — navigation by observation of the positions of the stars
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
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