17-letter words containing i, g, n
- dante (alighieri) — (born Durante Alighieri) 1265-1321; It. poet: wrote The Divine Comedy
- david livingstone — David, 1813–73, Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa.
- deadly nightshade — a poisonous Eurasian solanaceous plant, Atropa belladonna, having dull purple bell-shaped flowers and small very poisonous black berries
- debt rescheduling — the process of changing the time frame or deadline for the repayment of debt, usually to ease the burden on the debtor
- decontextualizing — to remove (a linguistic element, an action, etc.) from a context: decontextualized works of art displayed in museums.
- dedifferentiating — Present participle of dedifferentiate.
- defending counsel — a barrister who defends a client in a trial
- deficit financing — Deficit financing is the financing of government spending through borrowing rather than revenue.
- definite integral — the evaluation of the indefinite integral between two limits, representing the area between the given function and the x-axis between these two values of x
- deindustrializing — Present participle of deindustrialize.
- demythologization — The act of demythologizing, or something demythologized.
- dendroclimatology — The science that uses dendrochronology to reconstruct historical climate conditions.
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- dephlogisticating — Present participle of dephlogisticate.
- descending rhythm — a rhythmic pattern created by the succession of metrical feet each of which is composed of one accented syllable followed by one or more unaccented syllables.
- designated driver — The designated driver in a group of people travelling together is the one who has agreed to drive, or who is insured to drive.
- designated hitter — In baseball, a designated hitter is a player who bats in place of the pitcher.
- designer clothing — Designer clothing is fashionable or luxury clothing made by, or carrying the label of, a well-known fashion designer.
- dictating machine — a device that records spoken words, as on audiocassettes, for playing back later to prepare a transcript
- dictionary-making — the work or activity of compiling dictionaries
- diethylene glycol — a syrupy colorless liquid, C 4 H 10 O 3 , used as a solvent for cellulose nitrate and as a fabric softener.
- difference engine — (computer, history) Charles Babbage's design for the first automatic mechanical calculator. The Difference Engine was a special purpose device intended for the production of mathematical tables. Babbage started work on the Difference Engine in 1823 with funding from the British Government. Only one-seventh of the complete engine, about 2000 parts, was built in 1832 by Babbage's engineer, Joseph Clement. This was demonstrated successfully by Babbage and still works perfectly. The engine was never completed and most of the 12,000 parts manufactured were later melted for scrap. It was left to Georg and Edvard Schuetz to construct the first working devices to the same design which were successful in limited applications. The Difference Engine No. 2 was finally completed in 1991 at the Science Museum, London, UK and is on display there. The engine used gears to compute cumulative sums in a series of registers: r[i] := r[i] + r[i+1]. However, the addition had the side effect of zeroing r[i+1]. Babbage overcame this by simultaneously copying r[i+1] to a temporary register during the addition and then copying it back to r[i+1] at the end of each cycle (each turn of a handle).
- differential gear — differential (def 7).
- digital footprint — one's unique set of digital activities, actions, and communications that leave a data trace on the Internet or on a computer or other digital device and can identify the particular user or device: Our online browsing habits are part of our passive digital footprint, created without our consent or knowledge, but our active digital footprint, especially on social media, can more easily be managed. Compare footprint (def 4).
- digital immigrant — a person who has become familiar with computers, the Internet, and other digital technology as a young adult or later in life. Compare digital native.
- digital recording — a method of sound recording in which an input audio waveform is sampled at regular intervals, usually between 40,000 and 50,000 times per second, and each sample is assigned a numerical value, usually expressed in binary notation.
- digital signature — an encrypted digital code appended to an electronic document to verify that it was created by a known source and has not been altered.
- dihydroergotamine — an ergot alkaloid, C 33 H 37 N 5 O 5 , used in the treatment of various types of migraine headache.
- dining room suite — a set of furniture used in a dining room
- dionysius exiguus — died a.d. 556? Scythian monk, chronologist, and scholar: devised the current system of reckoning the Christian era.
- dirt track racing — motorcycle racing on a dirt track
- disadvantagedness — The quality of being disadvantaged.
- disadvantageously — In a disadvantageous manner.
- disaster planning — disaster recovery
- discomgoogolation — a feeling of anxiety felt by someone who is unable to access the internet
- distance learning — education in which students receive instruction over the Internet, from a video, etc., instead of going to school.
- distance teaching — teaching via correspondence or the internet, where students are not physically present in a classroom
- distillers' grain — a by-product of the distillation process for making whisky, used as an animal foodstuff
- do the bidding of — to be obedient to; carry out the orders of
- do your own thing — If you do your own thing, you live, act, or behave in the way you want to, without paying attention to convention or depending on other people.
- dog in the manger — a person who selfishly keeps something that he or she does not really need or want so that others may not use or enjoy it.
- drilling platform — a structure, either fixed to the sea bed or mobile, which supports the machinery and equipment (the drilling rig), together with the stores, required for digging an offshore oil well
- drinking fountain — a water fountain that ejects a jet of water for drinking without a cup.
- drive-by shooting — an incident in which a person, building, or vehicle is shot at by someone in a moving vehicle
- droit du seigneur — the supposed right claimable by a feudal lord to have sexual relations with the bride of a vassal on her first night of marriage.
- early closing day — a day on which most shops in a town or area close after lunch
- east grand rapids — a town in W central Michigan, near Grand Rapids.
- eat flaming death — (humour, abuse) A construction popularised among hackers by the infamous CPU Wars comic; supposedly derive from a famously turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran "Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort (however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's 1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been an influence). Used in humorously overblown expressions of hostility. "Eat flaming death, EBCDIC users!"
- ectopic pregnancy — the development of a fertilized ovum outside the uterus, as in a Fallopian tube.
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.