18-letter words containing m, e, t, a
- come back to earth — to return to reality from a fantasy or daydream
- come the raw prawn — to attempt deception
- commando operation — a major operation for treatment of cancer of the head and neck, involving removal of many facial structures and subsequent surgical reconstruction
- commedia dell'arte — a form of popular comedy developed in Italy during the 16th to 18th centuries, with stock characters such as Punchinello, Harlequin, and Columbine, in situations improvised from a plot outline
- commendation medal — a U.S. military decoration awarded for meritorious achievement or service
- commercial attache — an attaché in an embassy or legation representing the commercial interests of his or her country.
- committed facility — an agreement by a bank to provide a customer with funds up to a specified limit at a specified rate of interest
- commodity exchange — an exchange where commodities are traded
- common command set — (storage, standard) (CCS) Additional requirements and features for direct-access SCSI devices. In 1985 when the first SCSI standard was being finalised as an American National Standard, the X3T9.2 Task Group was approached by some manufacturers who wanted changes. Rather than delay the SCSI standard, X3T9.2 formed an ad hoc group to define CCS.
- common denominator — In mathematics, a common denominator is a number which can be divided exactly by all the denominators in a group of fractions.
- commonwealth games — an event held every four years in which sportspeople from the countries of the Commonwealth compete
- communication line — a line carrying communications
- community language — a language spoken by members of a minority group or community within a majority language context
- 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
- compact video disc — a compact laser disc that plays both pictures and sound
- 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.
- complementary base — either of the nucleotide bases linked by a hydrogen bond on opposite strands of DNA or double-stranded RNA: guanine is the complementary base of cytosine, and adenine is the complementary base of thymine in DNA and of uracil in RNA.
- complementary gene — one of a pair of genes, each from different loci, that together are required for the expression of a certain characteristic
- 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
- computer-generated — produced by a computer program
- 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.
- 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.
- consolato del mare — a code of maritime law compiled in the Middle Ages: it drew upon ancient law and has influenced modern law.
- contact dermatitis — dermatitis caused by direct contact with an irritating substance, as an allergen or chemical
- container terminal — a transport terminal that handles containerized cargo
- content data model — (standard, documentation, language) (CDM) An SGML-based specification for interactive maintenance manuals, developed by the Air Force Human Resourceas Laboratory (AFHRL) with assistance from RJO Enterprises, Incorporated. CDM models data hierachically and data are identified by their content structure with SGML mark-up used to identify information classes such as "system information", "functions", "tasks" and "steps".
- 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.
- continental system — French system.
- convenience market — the area of business which involves selling convenience foods
- 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.
- 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.
- crookes radiometer — a type of radiometer consisting of an evacuated glass bulb containing a set of lightweight vanes, each blackened on one side. The vanes are mounted on a vertical axis and revolve when light, or other radiant energy, falls on them
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- 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.