16-letter words containing i, r, a
- astroengineering — (scifi) The construction of megastructures in space by technologically advanced beings.
- at liberty to do — If someone is at liberty to do something, they have been given permission to do it.
- at one's leisure — when one has free time
- at-risk register — an official list of people or things considered to be exposed to possible threat, such as children in potentially abusive households or historic buildings in need of maintenance
- athanasian creed — a profession of faith widely used in the Western Church which, although formerly attributed to Athanasius, probably originated in Gaul between 381 and 428 ad
- atherothrombotic — (medicine) Pertaining to or caused by atherothrombosis, the sudden disruption of an atherosclerotic plaque.
- atlantic charter — the joint declaration issued by F. D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on Aug 14, 1941, consisting of eight principles to guide a postwar settlement
- atlantic croaker — a person or thing that croaks.
- atmospheric tide — a movement of atmospheric masses caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon and by daily solar heating.
- atomic structure — the concept of an atom as a central positively charged nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons surrounded by a number of electrons. The number of electrons is equal to the number of protons: the whole entity is thus electrically neutral
- atrioventricular — of, relating to, or affecting both the atria and the ventricles of the heart
- attitude problem — a frame of mind perceived by others to be hostile or uncooperative
- attorney-in-fact — a person authorized by power of attorney to act on the authorizer's behalf outside a court of law.
- attributive noun — a noun that occurs before and modifies another noun, as toy in toy store or tour in tour group.
- audience chamber — a room where a monarch or head of state conducts formal interviews
- audience figures — the number of people regularly watching a television programme or listening to a radio programme
- audio conference — a meeting that is conducted by the use of audio telecommunications
- auditory aphasia — aphasia in which there is no comprehension of spoken words; word deafness.
- auditory vesicle — the pouch that is formed by the invagination of an ectodermal placode and that develops into the internal ear.
- aurora australis — the aurora seen around the South Pole
- australian crawl — a stroke in which the feet are kicked like paddles while the arms reach forward and pull back through the water
- australian rules — a game resembling rugby football, played in Australia between teams of 18 men each on an oval pitch, with a ball resembling a large rugby ball. Players attempt to kick the ball between posts (without crossbars) at either end of the pitch, scoring six points for a goal (between the two main posts) and one point for a behind (between either of two outer posts and the main posts). They may punch or kick the ball and run with it provided that they bounce it every ten yards
- australopithecus — an extinct genus of small-brained,large-toothed bipedal hominids that lived in Africa between one and four million years ago.
- austro-hungarian — of or relating to the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)
- authoritarianism — Authoritarianism is the state of being authoritarian or the belief that people with power, especially the State, have the right to control other people's actions.
- authority figure — a person whose real or apparent authority over others inspires or demands obedience and emulation: Parents, teachers, and police officers are traditional authority figures for children.
- autobiographical — An autobiographical piece of writing relates to events in the life of the person who has written it.
- autoethnographic — Using ethnographic techniques to describe one's own life, or events in which one is a participant.
- automatic camera — a camera in which the lens aperture or the shutter speed or both are automatically adjusted to the prevailing conditions
- automatic redial — a telephone service feature whereby the last number dialed is automatically called again, either after a specified time or when activated by the user.
- automatic repeat — a key on the keyboard of a typewriter, computer, etc, which, when depressed continuously, produces the character repeatedly until the key is released
- automatrix, inc. — (company) The company which produced CAM-PC. Address: Ballston Spa, NY, USA.
- autoradiographic — Of or pertaining to an autoradiograph, a radiographic image produced by the decay of a radioactive substance.
- autoregressively — In an autoregressive manner.
- autostereoscopic — Of or pertaining to autostereoscopy.
- autotransfusions — Plural form of autotransfusion.
- auxiliary police — a part-time reserve attached to a regular police force
- auxiliary rafter — a rafter reinforcing a principal rafter.
- aversion therapy — a method of suppressing an undesirable habit, such as excessive smoking, by causing the subject to associate an unpleasant effect, such as an electric shock or nausea, with the habit
- avian diphtheria — a virus disease of chickens and other birds characterized by warty excrescences on the comb and wattles, and often by diphtherialike changes in the mucous membranes of the head.
- axis of symmetry — Mathematics. a straight line for which every point on a given curve has corresponding to it another point such that the line connecting the two points is bisected by the given line.
- axminster carpet — a type of patterned carpet with a cut pile
- azodicarbonamide — (chemistry) An organic chemical, a yellow to orange red, odorless, crystalline powder, used in food industry as a food additive, a flour bleaching agent and improving agent and in foaming plastics.
- azuero peninsula — a peninsula in SW Panama, bordered on the E by the Gulf of Panama.
- babe-in-a-cradle — a tall orchid, Epiblema grandiflorum, of SW Australia with lilac to mauve flowers
- back-propagation — (Or "backpropagation") A learning algorithm for modifying a feed-forward neural network which minimises a continuous "error function" or "objective function." Back-propagation is a "gradient descent" method of training in that it uses gradient information to modify the network weights to decrease the value of the error function on subsequent tests of the inputs. Other gradient-based methods from numerical analysis can be used to train networks more efficiently. Back-propagation makes use of a mathematical trick when the network is simulated on a digital computer, yielding in just two traversals of the network (once forward, and once back) both the difference between the desired and actual output, and the derivatives of this difference with respect to the connection weights.
- back-seat driver — If you refer to a passenger in a car as a back-seat driver, they annoy you because they constantly give you advice.
- background music — music of any kind that is played while some other activity is going on, so that people do not actively attend to it
- background noise — any type of noise that is not the sound that you are specifically listening to or monitoring
- backward-looking — If you describe someone or something as backward-looking, you disapprove of their attitudes, ideas, or actions because they are based on old-fashioned opinions or methods.