18-letter words containing m, e, r, u, t
- 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
- court of st. james — the British royal court
- 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.
- 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.
- departure platform — a raised area at a railway station from which passengers can board trains prior to their departing
- 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
- destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
- dia de los muertos — Day of the Dead.
- 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
- diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
- dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
- 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.
- distributed memory — (architecture) The kind of memory in a parallel processor where each processor has fast access to its own local memory and where to access another processor's memory it must send a message via the inter-processor network. Opposite: shared memory.
- distributed system — A collection of (probably heterogeneous) automata whose distribution is transparent to the user so that the system appears as one local machine. This is in contrast to a network, where the user is aware that there are several machines, and their location, storage replication, load balancing and functionality is not transparent. Distributed systems usually use some kind of client-server organisation. Distributed systems are considered by some to be the "next wave" of computing.
- 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.
- electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
- elementary student — primary school pupil
- 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
- 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
- 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).
- 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
- extemporaneousness — The degree or property of being extemporaneous.
- 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.
- first class module — (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
- 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.
- 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.
- from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
- from the housetops — publicly and widely
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
- geiger-muller tube — a tube functioning as an ionization chamber within a Geiger counter.
- 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).
- going to jerusalem — musical chairs.
- government housing — housing owned and managed by the federal or state government, which is rented out to tenants, esp as a form of affordable housing
- gulf stream system — a major ocean-current system consisting of the Gulf Stream and the Florida and North Atlantic currents.
- handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
- have money to burn — to have more money than one needs, so that some can be spent foolishly
- heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.