18-letter words containing i, s, e, n
- catalogue raisonne — a descriptive catalogue, esp one covering works of art in an exhibition or collection
- catalonian jasmine — a shrub, Jasminum grandiflorum, of India, having crimson-tinged, fragrant white flowers, grown as an ornamental and for perfume.
- catherine of siena — Saint. 1347–80, Italian mystic and ascetic; patron saint of the Dominican order. Feast day: April 29
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- causa sine qua non — an indispensable condition; requisite.
- celestial guidance — the guidance of a spacecraft or missile by reference to the position of one or more celestial bodies
- centralized school — a public school formed from the pupils and teachers of a number of discontinued smaller schools, especially in a rural district.
- cervical screening — a screening for cervical cancer
- cesarean (section) — a surgical operation for delivering a baby by cutting through the mother's abdominal and uterine walls
- chambered nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
- chattering classes — The chattering classes are people such as journalists, broadcasters, or public figures who comment on events but have little or no influence over them.
- chebyshev equation — Tchebycheff equation.
- chickenheartedness — Alternative form of chicken-heartedness.
- children of israel — the Jews; Hebrews
- children's crusade — a crusade to recover Jerusalem from the Saracens, undertaken in 1212 by thousands of French and German children who perished, were sold into slavery, or were turned back.
- chinese fire drill — a state of chaotic, often clamorous disorder.
- chinese gooseberry — kiwi (sense 2)
- chinese revolution — the overthrow of the last Manchu emperor and the establishment of a republic in China (1911–12)
- chinese water deer — a small Chinese or Korean deer, Hydropotes inermis, having tusks and no antlers: introduced into England and France
- chinese watermelon — a tropical Asian vine, Benincasa hispida, of the gourd family, having a brown, hairy stem, large, solitary, yellow flowers, and white, melonlike fruit.
- chrétien de troyes — 12th century, French poet, who wrote the five Arthurian romances Erec; Cligès; Lancelot, le chevalier de la charette; Yvain, le chevalier au lion; and Perceval, le conte del Graal (?1155–?1190), the first courtly romances
- christian brethren — Brother of the Christian Schools.
- christian brothers — a religious congregation of laymen founded in France in 1684 for the education of the poor
- christian democrat — a member or supporter of a Christian Democratic party
- christian endeavor — an organization of young people of various evangelical Protestant churches, formed in 1881 to promote Christian principles and service.
- christian reformed — of or relating to a Protestant denomination (Christian Reformed Church) organized in the U.S. in 1857 by groups that had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church.
- christine de pisan — ?1364–?1430, French poet and prose writer, born in Venice. Her works include ballads, rondeaux, lays, and a biography of Charles V of France
- chromatic semitone — the pitch difference between one note and its sharpened or flattened equivalent
- cigar-store indian — a wooden statue of an American Indian, traditionally displayed at the entrance of cigar stores.
- citizen journalism — the involvement of non-professionals in reporting news, esp in blogs and other websites
- citizenship papers — the document stating that a naturalized person has been formally declared a citizen
- civil disobedience — Civil disobedience is the refusal by ordinary people in a country to obey laws or pay taxes, usually as a protest.
- classical armenian — the oldest form of the Armenian language according to written sources, in use from the 5th to the 18th century.
- classified section — the part of a publication that contains classified advertising
- clean as a whistle — If you describe something as clean as a whistle, you mean that it is completely clean.
- closed corporation — a corporation the stock of which is owned by a small number of persons and is rarely traded on the open market
- closed-box testing — functional testing
- closure conversion — (theory) The transformation of continuation passing style code so that the only free variables of functions are names of other functions. See also Lambda lifting.
- coitus interruptus — the deliberate withdrawal of the penis from the vagina before ejaculation
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- collision coverage — Collision coverage is insurance cover for vehicle accidents.
- collision diameter — the distance between the centers of two colliding molecules when at their closest point of approach.
- combination square — an adjustable device for carpenters, used as a try square, miter square, level, etc.
- combustion chamber — an enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as the space above the piston in the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine or the chambers in a gas turbine or rocket engine in which fuel and oxidant burn
- combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
- comparison shopper — an employee of a retail store hired to visit competing stores in order to gather information regarding styles, quality, prices, etc., of merchandise offered by competitors.
- compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
- compassionlessness — The quality, state, or condition of being compassionless; uncompassion.
- compensation award — an amount of money awarded as compensation in a court case
- compensation order — (in Britain) the requirement of a court that an offender pay compensation for injury, loss, or damage resulting from an offence, either in preference to or as well as a fine