18-letter words containing m, a, t, i, p
- combined operation — a military operation carried out jointly by allied forces
- commando operation — a major operation for treatment of cancer of the head and neck, involving removal of many facial structures and subsequent surgical reconstruction
- community hospital — (in the US) a local hospital
- compact video disc — a compact laser disc that plays both pictures and sound
- 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.
- comparative method — a body of procedures and criteria used by linguists to determine whether and how two or more languages are related and to reconstruct forms of their hypothetical parent language.
- 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
- 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
- compensation point — the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide at which the rate of carbon dioxide uptake by a photosynthesizing plant is exactly balanced by its rate of carbon dioxide release in respiration and photorespiration
- complementarianism — The doctrine that genders in a society should have complementary roles.
- complexity measure — (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
- compressor station — A compressor station is a facility with several compressors (= devices that increase the pressure of air or natural gas) and other equipment to pump natural gas under pressure over long distances.
- computer animation — animated film or video that is generated by computers
- concentration camp — A concentration camp is a prison in which large numbers of ordinary people are kept in very bad conditions, usually during a war.
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
- 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.
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
- deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
- decompartmentalize — to remove excessive compartmentalization from (an organization)
- deficiency payment — a payment made to a commodity producer that represents the difference between the market price and the guaranteed price
- 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.
- dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
- dimethyltryptamine — a hallucinogenic drug, C 12 H 16 N 2 , with an action of short duration. Abbreviation: DMT.
- diplomatic service — diplomatic corps
- diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
- disodium phosphate — sodium phosphate (def 2).
- dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
- domestic appliance — a machine used for household tasks, for example, a washing machine, refrigerator, etc.
- dot matrix printer — (hardware, printer) A kind of printer with a vertical column of up to 48 small closely packed needles or "pins" each of which can be individually forced forward to press an ink ribbon against the paper. The print head is repeatedly scanned across the page and different combinations of needles activated at each point. Dot matrix printers are noisy compared to non-impact printers.
- dot-matrix printer — device: prints using matrix dots
- east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
- eastern hemisphere — the eastern part of the terrestrial globe, including Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe.
- entrepreneurialism — The spirit or state of acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
- european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
- examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
- extermination camp — a camp where people are imprisoned and killed
- false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
- family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
- 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.
- fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
- forward compatible — forward compatibility
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- functional program — (language) A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
- gainful employment — an occupation that pays an income
- gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- 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.