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20-letter words containing i, s, a, t, o

  • carbon sequestration — the prevention of greenhouse gas build-up in the earth's atmosphere by methods such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide or pumping carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs
  • carpathian mountains — a mountain system of central and E Europe, extending from Slovakia to central Romania: mainly forested, with rich iron ore resources. Highest peak: Gerlachovka, 2663 m (8788 ft)
  • cartesian coordinate — Usually, Cartesian coordinates. a member of a system of coordinates for locating a point on a plane (Cartesian plane) by its distance from each of two intersecting lines, or in space by its distance from each of three planes intersecting at a point.
  • 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
  • cast the first stone — the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
  • catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
  • 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.
  • celestial navigation — navigation by observation of the positions of the stars
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
  • cellulose triacetate — a triacetic ester of cellulose characterized by its resistance to most solvents, used chiefly in the manufacture of textile fibers.
  • central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
  • certificate of stock — stock certificate.
  • change a reservation — If you change a reservation, you move a booking to a different date because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they wish to stay there on a different date.
  • chapter of accidents — a series of misfortunes
  • charismatic movement — any of various groups, within existing denominations, that emphasize communal prayer and the charismatic gifts of speaking in tongues, healing, etc
  • chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
  • chikamatsu monzaemon — (born Sugimori Nobumori) 1653-1724; Jpn. dramatist: called the Shakespeare of Japan
  • child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
  • childhood sweetheart — a boyfriend or girlfriend from an early stage of life
  • 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.
  • christopher strachey — (person)   Professor of Computation at Oxford, England, born 1916, died May 1975. He invented the term "currying". See also: General Purpose Macro-generator.
  • clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
  • co-operative society — In Britain, a co-operative society is a commercial organization with several shops in a particular district. Customers can join this organization and get a share of its profits.
  • cocktail shaker sort — (algorithm)   A bi-directional bubble sort. Passes alternate between ascending through array indexes, pushing the largest item to the bottom; and descending through array indexes, pushing the smallest item to the top.
  • cognitive dissonance — an uncomfortable mental state resulting from conflicting cognitions; usually resolved by changing some of the cognitions
  • collegiate institute — (in certain provinces) a large secondary school with an academic, rather than vocational, emphasis
  • colorpoint shorthair — any of a breed of domestic cat, bred by crossing a Siamese and an American shorthair, with blue, almond-shaped eyes and a short, glossy, white coat shading to a darker color at the face, ears, feet, and tail
  • combination sandwich — a big sandwich with a mixed filling
  • come out in the wash — If you say that something will come out in the wash, you mean that people will eventually find out the truth about it.
  • commonwealth hackish — (jargon)   Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
  • communication skills — the ability to convey information and ideas effectively
  • communication system — (communications)   A system or facility for transfering data between persons and equipment. The system usually consists of a collection of individual communication networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations and terminal equipment capable of interconnection and interoperation so as to form an integrated whole. These individual components must serve a common purpose, be technically compatible, employ common procedures, respond to some form of control and generally operate in unison.
  • compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
  • compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
  • 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
  • compensation package — the sum of compensation awarded in a legal case
  • complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
  • composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
  • condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
  • confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
  • connector conspiracy — (business, standard)   The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, other designers) to come up with products that don't fit with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The term probably came into prominence with the appearance of the DEC KL-10, none of whose connectors matched anything else. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually *patented* by DEC, who reputedly refused to licence the design, thus effectively locking out competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy was a source of frustration for the owners of dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives. A related phenomenon is the invention of new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialised case-cracking tool to open the box. With the advent of more open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse. Compare backward combatability.
  • conservation of mass — the principle that the total mass of any isolated system is constant and is independent of any chemical and physical changes taking place within the system
  • conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
  • conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
  • constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
  • construction company — a business enterprise concerned with the construction of buildings, bridges, etc
  • consultant physician — a physician who has attained the rank of consultant in a particular speciality
  • contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
  • context of situation — the totality of extralinguistic features having relevance to a communicative act.
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