20-letter words containing i, e, c, o
- the price of someone — what someone deserves, esp a fitting punishment
- the thinking process — thought; the activity of thinking
- theosophical society — a society founded by Madame Blavatsky and others, in New York in 1875, advocating a worldwide eclectic religion based largely on Brahmanic and Buddhistic teachings.
- therapeutic abortion — abortion performed when a woman's pregnancy endangers her health.
- there is no call for — If you say that there is no call for someone to behave in a particular way, you are criticizing their behaviour, usually because you think it is rude.
- thermal conductivity — the amount of heat per unit time per unit area that can be conducted through a plate of unit thickness of a given material, the faces of the plate differing by one unit of temperature.
- thermodynamic system — a system whose states of equilibrium can be specified by a few macroscopic properties.
- three-thorned acacia — honey locust.
- to cross the rubicon — If you say that someone has crossed the Rubicon, you mean that they have reached a point where they cannot change a decision or course of action.
- to disturb the peace — If someone is accused of disturbing the peace, they are accused of behaving in a noisy and offensive way in public.
- to line your pockets — If you say that someone is lining their own or someone else's pockets, you disapprove of them because they are making money dishonestly or unfairly.
- to reach new heights — to become higher than ever before
- to stick in the craw — to be unacceptable or displeasing to someone
- to use shock tactics — to attempt to influence people by shocking them
- tom, dick, and jerry — a hot mixed drink containing rum, brandy, egg, nutmeg, and sometimes milk
- toxemia of pregnancy — an abnormal condition of pregnancy characterized by hypertension, fluid retention, edema, and the presence of protein in the urine.
- toxic shock syndrome — a rapidly developing, sometimes fatal infection characterized by sudden onset of fever, gastrointestinal upsets, a sunburnlike rash, and a drop in blood pressure: caused by a Staphylococcus aureus toxin and occurring especially in menstruating women using high-absorbency tampons. Abbreviation: TSS.
- traditional medicine — systems of medicine developed before the era of modern medicine, based on cultural beliefs and practices handed down from generation to generation
- transcendental logic — (in Kantian epistemology) the study of the mind with reference to its perceptions of external objects and to the objective truth of such perceptions.
- transposition cipher — a cipher that rearranges the letters of the plain text in a different sequence.
- tribromoacetaldehyde — bromal.
- trichloroacetic acid — a toxic, deliquescent, and colorless crystalline compound, C 2 HCl 3 O 2 , soluble in water, alcohol, and ether: used in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, herbicides, and other chemicals, and as a reagent for the detection of albumin. Abbreviation: TCA.
- trigonometric series — an infinite series involving sines and cosines of increasing integral multiples of a variable.
- trimetric projection — a three-dimensional projection with three different linear scales at arbitrary angles.
- triple witching hour — the last hour of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the four Fridays each year when stock options, stock index futures, and options on such futures simultaneously expire: regarded as a time of extreme volatility in trading.
- troilus and cressida — a satiric comedy (1598–1602?) by Shakespeare.
- tropical continental — a type of warm, dry air mass originating at low latitudes over land areas
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- tropospheric scatter — transmission of radio frequency signals that have been scattered from irregularities in the troposphere to locations hundreds of kilometers distant.
- turnip-rooted celery — celeriac.
- twisted stomach worm — stomach worm.
- ultimate constituent — an element of a construction that cannot be further divided into grammatical constituents: the morphemes of an utterance are usually considered to be its ultimate constituents.
- under the microscope — If you say that something is under the microscope, you mean that it is being studied very closely, usually because it is believed that something is wrong with it.
- uniform crime report — an annual report issued by the FBI that presents data on selected categories of crimes reported to the police. Abbreviation: UCR.
- university education — a course of study undertaken and completed at a university
- unsaddling enclosure — the area at a racecourse where horses are unsaddled after a race and often where awards are given to owners, trainers, and jockeys
- until further notice — If a situation is said to exist until further notice, it will continue for an uncertain length of time until someone changes it.
- upper income bracket — a grouping of the highest earning tax payers
- vertical combination — the integration within one company of individual businesses working separately in related phases of the production and sale of a product.
- vertical envelopment — envelopment of an enemy accomplished by parachuting and landing airborne troops at the rear of the enemy's position.
- vertical integration — the joining together of all companies or firms involved in manufacturing a product into one company or firm
- vesicular stomatitis — a disease of horses, swine, and cattle, similar in its symptoms to foot-and-mouth disease, and characterized by blisters on the lips, snout, and oral mucous membranes.
- video graphics array — (hardware) (VGA) A display standard for IBM PCs, with 640 x 480 pixels in 16 colours and a 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a text mode with 720 x 400 pixels. IBM technical references define the *product name* of their original VGA display board as "Video Graphics Array", in contrast to the preceding boards, the "Color Graphics Adapter" (CGA) and "Enhanced Graphics Adapter" (EGA). See also Super Video Graphics Adapter.
- viscount northcliffe — Viscount, Alfred Charles William Harmsworth.
- vitoria de conquista — a city in Bahía state, E central Brazil.
- vocalic alliteration — the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group (consonantal alliteration) as in from stem to stern, or with a vowel sound that may differ from syllable to syllable (vocalic alliteration) as in each to all. Compare consonance (def 4a).
- vocational education — educational training that provides practical experience in a particular occupational field, as agriculture, home economics, or industry.
- voice over broadband — a transmission technique that enables a user to make and receive telephone calls over a broadband connection
- wardrobe malfunction — an embarrassing situation caused by the clothes a person is wearing
- warehouse facilities — places for storing goods