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18-letter words containing m, e, g, n

  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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
  • datacenter manager — (job)   A person who plans and directs all computer and peripheral operations, data entry, data control scheduling and quality control.
  • dead man's fingers — a soft coral, Alcyonium digitatum, with long finger-like polyps
  • dead-man's fingers — any of various fungi, sponges, plant roots, animal parts, etc., having fingerlike projections and a pale or dull color, as the gray-black woodland fungus Xylaria polymorpha or the whitish spongy gills of a food crab.
  • 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).
  • dependency grammar — a type of generative grammar in which grammatical structure is determined by the relationship between a governor and its dependents
  • 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.
  • dispensing chemist — a shop where drugs and medicines are sold or given out
  • domain engineering — (systems analysis)   1. The development and evolution of domain specific knowledge and artifacts to support the development and evolution of systems in the domain. Domain engineering includes engineering of domain models, components, methods and tools and may also include asset management. 2. The engineering process of analysing and modelling a domain, designing and modelling a generic solution architecture for a product line within that domain, implementing and using reusable components of that architecture and maintaining and evolving the domain, architecture and implementation models. 3. A reuse-based approach to defining the scope (domain definition), specifying the structure (domain architecture) and building the Assets (requirements, designs, software code, documentation) for a class of systems, subsystems or applications. Domain engineering can include domain definition, domain analysis, developing the domain architecture domain implementation.
  • don't get me wrong — You say 'Don't get me wrong' when you want to make sure that someone does not get an incorrect idea about what you are doing or saying, or about why you are doing or saying it.
  • 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.
  • economic geography — a branch of geography that deals with the relation of physical and economic conditions to the production and utilization of raw materials and their manufacture into finished products.
  • eigendecomposition — (linear algebra) The factorization of a matrix into a canonical form, whereby the matrix is represented in terms of its eigenvalues and eigenvectors.
  • 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.
  • electronic meeting — (messaging)   The use of a network of personal computers to improve communication that takes place in a meeting. Electronic meetings are effective with as few as two participants and with over 100 participants. Participants can be face-to-face in a meeting room or distributed around the world. They may all be participating at the same time or different times.
  • electroretinograms — Plural form of electroretinogram.
  • emergency services — The emergency services are the public organizations whose job is to take quick action to deal with emergencies when they occur, especially the fire brigade, the police, and the ambulance service.
  • emergent evolution — the doctrine that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as life and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities
  • 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
  • energy consumption — amount of energy used
  • environment agency — an official agency providing information on environmental issues, esp rivers, flooding and pollution
  • ethnomethodologist — A person engaged in ethnomethodology.
  • ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
  • euglenoid movement — the expansion and contraction of the cell body of various flagellates
  • exchange programme — an arrangement in which people from different countries visit each other's country, perhaps to strengthen links between them or to improve foreign language skills
  • 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.
  • ferdinand magellan — Ferdinand, c1480–1521, Portuguese navigator: discoverer of the Straits of Magellan 1520 and the Philippines 1521.
  • flower arrangement — floral display
  • fluegelman, andrew — Andrew Fluegelman
  • for the time being — the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
  • foreign investment — investment from foreign countries
  • forget-me-not blue — a shade of blue similar to the shade of the flowers of a forget-me-not
  • foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
  • fragile x syndrome — a widespread form of mental retardation caused by a faulty gene on the X chromosome.
  • fragile-x syndrome — an inherited condition characterized by learning disability: affected individuals have an X-chromosome that is easily damaged under certain conditions
  • fragmentation bomb — a bomb designed to break into many small, high-velocity fragments when detonated.
  • from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
  • fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
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