20-letter words containing i, n, l, e, r, s
- 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
- 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.
- cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
- central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
- centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
- channel service unit — (communications) (CSU) A type of interface used to connect a terminal or computer to a digital medium in the same way that a modem is used for connection to an analogue medium. A CSU is provided by the communication carrier to customers who wish to use their own equipment to retime and regenerate the incoming signals. The customer must supply all of the transmit logic, receive logic and timing recovery in order to use the CSU, whereas a digital service unit DSU performs these functions.
- checkbook journalism — the practice of paying for a news story or an interview, or for exclusive broadcasting or publishing rights.
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- chinese scholar tree — a spreading, round-headed tree, Sophora japonica, of the legume family, native to China and Korea, having yellowish-white flowers in loose, showy clusters, grown widely as a street tree.
- cholestyramine resin — a powdery synthetic resin that binds with and prevents the reabsorption of bile acids, used to reduce cholesterol levels, relieve itching associated with jaundice, etc.
- cleansing department — the department of a local authority that collects refuse
- climbing bittersweet — bittersweet (def 4).
- climbing-bittersweet — Also called woody nightshade. a climbing or trailing plant, Solanum dulcamara, of the nightshade family, having small, violet, star-shaped flowers with a protruding yellow center and scarlet berries.
- collective ownership — ownership by a group for the benefit of members of that group
- college of cardinals — the collective body of cardinals having the function of electing and advising the pope
- common-sense realism — naive realism.
- compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
- compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- comprehensive school — a secondary school for children of all abilities from the same district
- conflict of interest — a conflict between one's obligation to the public good and one's self-interest, as in the case of a public officeholder who owns stock in a company seeking government contracts
- congressional record — (in the US) the government journal that publishes all proceedings of Congress
- consumer electronics — computers and other electronic devices designed for private individuals as opposed to businesses
- continental congress — the assembly of delegates from the North American rebel colonies held during and after the War of American Independence. It issued the Declaration of Independence (1776) and framed the Articles of Confederation (1777)
- controlled explosion — the deliberate detonation of an explosive device under strictly controlled circumstances
- controlling interest — a quantity of shares in a business that is sufficient to ensure control over its direction
- corresponding angles — a pair of nonadjacent angles, one interior and one exterior, on the same side of a transversal: these paired angles are equal if the lines cut by the transversal are parallel
- council of ministers — the EU's most important decision-making body
- counterrevolutionist — A counterrevolutionary.
- craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
- criminal proceedings — action taken in a court to bring a criminal prosecution against someone
- cylinder head gasket — (in an automobile engine) a gasket placed between the cylinder and the cylinder heads to avoid leaks of coolant and compression
- deoxyribonucleotides — Plural form of deoxyribonucleotide.
- dickless workstation — (abuse) Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
- diels-alder reaction — the reaction in which a conjugated diene combines with a double or triple bond of a given compound to form a ring of six carbon atoms.
- difference threshold — the minimum difference between two stimuli that is just detectable by a person
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- digital service unit — data service unit
- disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
- disciplinary hearing — a hearing at which the conduct of a member of an organization, profession etc is examined and a punishment may be handed down
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- drink with the flies — to drink alone
- drunk and disorderly — If someone is charged with being drunk and disorderly, they are charged with being drunk and behaving in a noisy, offensive, or violent way in public.
- duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
- early modern english — the English language represented in printed documents of the period starting with Caxton (1476) and ending with Dryden (1700).
- early sunday morning — a painting (1930) by Edward Hopper.
- early warning system — Military. a network of radar installations designed to detect enemy aircraft or missiles in time for the effective deployment of defense systems.