18-letter words containing i, n
- counterproposition — a proposition made in place of or in opposition to a preceding one.
- counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
- counterrevolutions — Plural form of counterrevolution.
- countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
- countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
- coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- craniorachischisis — Lb pathology A defect of the neural tube in which both the brain and spinal cord are left open.
- creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
- credibility rating — a supposed measure of how far a person can be believed or trusted
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently
- criminal profiling — the analysis of a person's psychological and behavioural characteristics, so as to assess whether they are likely to have committed a crime under investigation
- critical constants — the physical constants that express the properties of a substance in its critical state
- crocodile-infested — full of crocodiles
- cross-disciplinary — linking two or more fields of study
- crown-jewel option — an option given by a company subjected to an unwelcome takeover bid to a friendly firm, allowing this firm to buy one or more of its best businesses if the bid succeeds
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- cultural universal — a cultural pattern extant in every known society.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
- cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
- currency principle — the principle that banks should be permitted to issue notes only against bullion or coin.
- current efficiency — the ratio of the actual mass of a substance liberated from an electrolyte by the passage of current to the theoretical mass liberated according to Faraday's law
- curriculum council — a council appointed to oversee the development and implementation of a curriculum
- cursor dipped in x — (jargon) The metaphorical source of the electronic equivalent of a poisoned-pen letter. Derived from English metaphors of the form "pen dipped in X" (where X = e.g. "acid", "bile", "vitriol"). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
- cushing's syndrome — a medical condition characterized by obesity, hypertension, excessive hair growth, etc., caused by an overactive adrenal gland or large doses of corticosteroids
- custodial sentence — a sentence given by a court that involves a term of imprisonment
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
- customs inspection — an inspection carried out by a customs department
- cycle of indiction — indiction (def 3).
- cycle-of-indiction — a proclamation made every 15 years in the later Roman Empire, fixing the valuation of property to be used as a basis for taxation.
- cytoarchitectonics — Cytoarchitecture.
- dagwood (sandwich) — a thick sandwich with a variety of fillings, often of apparently incompatible foods
- daisywheel printer — (printer) A kind of impact printer where the characters are arranged on the ends of the spokes of a wheel (resembling the petals on a daisy). The wheel (usually made of plastic) is rotated to select the character to print and then an electrically operated hammer mechanism bends the selected spoke forward slightly, sandwiching an ink ribbon between the character and the paper, as in a typewriter. One advantage of this arrangement over that of a typewriter is that different wheels may be inserted to produce different typefaces.
- danish west indies — the former possession of Denmark in the W Lesser Antilles, sold to the US in 1917
- data communication — electronic transmission of information that has been encoded for storage and processing by computers.
- data flow analysis — (programming) A process to discover the dependencies between different data items manipulated by a program. The order of execution in a data driven language is determined solely by the data dependencies. For example, given the equations 1. X = A + B 2. B = 2 + 2 3. A = 3 + 4 a data-flow analysis would find that 2 and 3 must be evaluated before 1. Since there are no data dependencies between 2 and 3, they may be evaluated in any order, including in parallel. This technique is implemented in hardware in some pipelined processors with multiple functional units. It allows instructions to be executed as soon as their inputs are available, independent of the original program order.
- daytime television — television broadcasts that are shown during the daytime rather than in the evening
- de bruijn notation — (language) A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
- de-differentiation — a process by which structures or behaviors that were specialized for a specific function lose their specialization and become simplified or generalized.
- de-objectification — to present as an object, especially of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize.
- dead as a doornail — completely dead
- dead man's fingers — a soft coral, Alcyonium digitatum, with long finger-like polyps
- dead-man's fingers — any of various fungi, sponges, plant roots, animal parts, etc., having fingerlike projections and a pale or dull color, as the gray-black woodland fungus Xylaria polymorpha or the whitish spongy gills of a food crab.
- dead-stick landing — Aeronautics, Aerospace. a landing of an airplane or space vehicle with the engine cut off.
- deadweight tonnage — the capacity in long tons of cargo, passengers, fuel, stores, etc. (deadweight tons) of a vessel: the difference between the loaded and light displacement tonnage of the vessel.