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18-letter words containing m, c, n, u

  • commutation ticket — a ticket entitling the holder to travel over the same route, as on a railroad, a specified number of times at a reduced rate
  • compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
  • composite function — a function obtained from two given functions, where the range of one function is contained in the domain of the second function, by assigning to an element in the domain of the first function that element in the range of the second function whose inverse image is the image of the element.
  • composition rubber — manufactured rubber
  • computer animation — animated film or video that is generated by computers
  • computer scientist — a person with advanced knowledge of computers and how they work
  • computer telephony — Computer Telephone Integration
  • computer-generated — produced by a computer program
  • conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
  • 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.
  • considered harmful — (programming, humour)   A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
  • consumer terrorism — the practice of introducing dangerous substances to foodstuffs or other consumer products, esp to extort money from the manufacturers
  • costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
  • counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
  • 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
  • counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
  • 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.
  • cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
  • cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
  • 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.
  • cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
  • curriculum council — a council appointed to oversee the development and implementation of a curriculum
  • cushing's syndrome — a medical condition characterized by obesity, hypertension, excessive hair growth, etc., caused by an overactive adrenal gland or large doses of corticosteroids
  • customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
  • customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
  • customs inspection — an inspection carried out by a customs department
  • data communication — electronic transmission of information that has been encoded for storage and processing by computers.
  • destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
  • diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
  • diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
  • diazonium compound — any of a series of compounds that contain the group ArN 2 –, in which Ar represents an aryl group.
  • dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
  • dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
  • double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
  • 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.
  • ecumenical council — a solemn assembly in the Roman Catholic Church, convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.
  • eighty-column mind — (abuse)   The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the transition from punched card to paper tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried "face down, 9-edge first" (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This directive is inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which are as follows: He died at the console Of hunger and thirst. Next day he was buried, Face down, 9-edge first. The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base and its thinking. See fear and loathing, card walloper.
  • electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
  • energy consumption — amount of energy used
  • ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
  • 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
  • executive chairman — the most senior internal position within a company, combining the duties of chairman and chief executive
  • exercise equipment — equipment that can be used for exercising, such as tread mills, rowing machines, etc
  • 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.
  • formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
  • fourth commandment — “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”: fourth of the Ten Commandments.
  • frequency spectrum — The frequency spectrum of an electrical signal is the distribution of the amplitudes and phases of each frequency component against frequency.
  • fu manchu mustache — a mustache whose ends droop to the chin.
  • 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.
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