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18-letter words containing m, a, t, g

  • companion planting — the cultivation of different types of plants in close proximity so as to benefit each other, as planting a deer-repellent plant in a flower garden.
  • compartmentalizing — Present participle of compartmentalize.
  • compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
  • complementary gene — one of a pair of genes, each from different loci, that together are required for the expression of a certain characteristic
  • computer-generated — produced by a computer program
  • configuration item — (jargon)   Hardware or software, or an aggregate of both, which is designated by the project configuration manager (or contracting agency) for configuration management.
  • continental margin — the offshore zone, consisting of the continental shelf, slope, and rise, that separates the dry-land portion of a continent from the deep ocean floor.
  • counterprogramming — the practice of scheduling a program opposite another program, esp. a popular one, that appeals to a different kind of audience, as in placing a romantic film directed at women opposite a sports program mainly watched by men
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • datacenter manager — (job)   A person who plans and directs all computer and peripheral operations, data entry, data control scheduling and quality control.
  • definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
  • demorgan's theorem — (logic)   A logical theorem which states that the complement of a conjunction is the disjunction of the complements or vice versa. In symbols: not (x and y) = (not x) or (not y) not (x or y) = (not x) and (not y) E.g. if it is not the case that I am tall and thin then I am either short or fat (or both). The theorem can be extended to combinations of more than two terms in the obvious way. The same laws also apply to sets, replacing logical complement with set complement, conjunction ("and") with set intersection, and disjunction ("or") with set union. A (C) programmer might use this to re-write if (!foo && !bar) ... as if (!(foo || bar)) ... thus saving one operator application (though an optimising compiler should do the same, leaving the programmer free to use whichever form seemed clearest).
  • dermot macmurrough — ?1110–71, king of Leinster, who, by enlisting the support of the English to win back his kingdom, was responsible for the English conquest of Ireland
  • determinate growth — growth of a plant stem that is terminated early by the formation of a bud
  • digital humanities — (used with a singular verb) the study of literature, philosophy, etc., as facilitated by computer technology or digital media: Digital humanities uses data analysis to find patterns in large bodies of text. the set of methodologies used in such scholarship.
  • digital multimeter — (electronics)   (DMM) A peice of test equipment used for measuring voltage, current, resistance, and possibly other electircal quantities and displaying the value in number form.
  • division algorithm — the theorem that an integer can be written as the sum of the product of two integers, one a given positive integer, added to a positive integer smaller than the given positive integer. Compare Euclidean algorithm.
  • dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
  • drug on the market — Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
  • electrocardiograms — Plural form of electrocardiogram.
  • electrocorticogram — a record of brain waves obtained by placing electrodes directly on the surface of the exposed cerebral cortex
  • electroretinograms — Plural form of electroretinogram.
  • endowment mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a life assurance policy and only the interest to the mortgagee during the term of the policy. The loan is repaid by the policy either when it matures or on the prior death of the policyholder
  • environment agency — an official agency providing information on environmental issues, esp rivers, flooding and pollution
  • ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
  • euclid's algorithm — (algorithm)   (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
  • farm the long acre — to graze cows on the verge of a road
  • federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • flower arrangement — floral display
  • foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
  • fragmentation bomb — a bomb designed to break into many small, high-velocity fragments when detonated.
  • fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
  • fuming nitric acid — a colorless, yellowish, or brownish fuming corrosive liquid, usually prepared from nitric acid by the addition of excess nitrogen dioxide: used in organic synthesis for nitration, and as an oxidizer in liquid propellants for rockets.
  • functional program — (language)   A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
  • gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
  • gamma distribution — a continuous two-parameter distribution from which the chi-square and exponential distributions are derived, written Gamma (α. β), where α and β are greater than zero, and defined in terms of the gamma function
  • gas chromatography — a chromatograph used for the separation of volatile substances.
  • gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
  • gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
  • general san martin — a city in E Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
  • generative grammar — a linguistic theory that attempts to describe the tacit knowledge that a native speaker has of a language by establishing a set of explicit, formalized rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable sentences. Compare transformational grammar.
  • genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
  • genital mutilation — any type of cutting or removal of all or some of the genital organs, especially excision of the clitoris.
  • gensym corporation — (company)   A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
  • gentleman-commoner — (formerly) a member of a class of commoners enjoying special privileges at Oxford University.
  • geometrical optics — the branch of optics dealing with light as rays, especially in the study of the effects of lenses and mirrors on light beams and of their combination in optical instruments.
  • german east africa — a former German territory in E Africa, the area now comprised of continental Tanzania and the independent republics of Rwanda and Burundi.
  • get someone's goat — to cause annoyance to someone
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