18-letter words containing m, e, n, s, t, r
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
- consolato del mare — a code of maritime law compiled in the Middle Ages: it drew upon ancient law and has influenced modern law.
- consumer terrorism — the practice of introducing dangerous substances to foodstuffs or other consumer products, esp to extort money from the manufacturers
- contact dermatitis — dermatitis caused by direct contact with an irritating substance, as an allergen or chemical
- costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
- cot death syndrome — the unexplained sudden death of an infant during sleep
- counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
- 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
- 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.
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
- 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).
- departmental store — a department store.
- destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
- dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
- disenfranchisement — to disfranchise.
- donor insemination — a process which involves using sperm which has been voluntarily given for use in the insemination of another person
- eastern hemisphere — the eastern part of the terrestrial globe, including Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe.
- eastern meadowlark — any of several American songbirds of the genus Sturnella, of the family Icteridae, especially S. magna (eastern meadowlark) and S. neglecta (western meadowlark) having a brownish and black back and wings and a yellow breast, noted for their clear, tuneful song.
- electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
- electroretinograms — Plural form of electroretinogram.
- elementary student — primary school pupil
- employment service — (in the United States) a government department established to collect and supply to the unemployed information about job vacancies and to employers information about availability of prospective workers
- energy consumption — amount of energy used
- entrepreneurialism — The spirit or state of acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
- entry requirements — the types and grades of examination required to enter a university
- establishmentarian — Adhering to, advocating, or relating to the principle of an established church.
- examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
- exercise equipment — equipment that can be used for exercising, such as tread mills, rowing machines, etc
- extemporaneousness — The degree or property of being extemporaneous.
- false imprisonment — the unlawful restraint of a person from exercising the right to freedom of movement.
- 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.
- feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
- 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.
- fire and brimstone — When people talk about fire and brimstone, they are referring to hell and how they think people are punished there after death.
- fire-and-brimstone — threatening punishment in the hereafter: a fire-and-brimstone sermon.
- first and foremost — primarily
- foreign investment — investment from foreign countries
- forensic chemistry — the application of facts concerning chemistry to questions of civil and criminal law.
- frequency spectrum — The frequency spectrum of an electrical signal is the distribution of the amplitudes and phases of each frequency component against frequency.
- from stem to stern — If something happens from stem to stern on a boat, it involves the whole of the boat.
- gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
- general san martin — a city in E Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
- genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
- 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.
- 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.
- germline insertion — the insertion of cloned genes into the egg or sperm cell of an organism, using a gene transfer technique, in order to perpetuate a desired trait in its descendants, as pest-resistance in a crop plant.
- glomerulonephritis — a kidney disease affecting the capillaries of the glomeruli, characterized by albuminuria, edema, and hypertension.
- gnu superoptimiser — (GSO) A function sequence generator that uses an exhaustive generate-and-test approach to find the shortest instruction sequence for a given function. Written by Torbjorn Granlund <[email protected]> and Tom Wood. You have to tell the superoptimiser which function and which CPU you want to get code for. This is useful for compiler writers. FTP superopt-2.2.tar.Z from a GNU archive site. Generates code for DEC Alpha, SPARC, Intel 80386, 88000, RS/6000, 68000, 29000 and Pyramid (SP, AP and XP).