16-letter words containing m, i, s, o, n, a
- bronchial asthma — asthma.
- busman's holiday — If you have a holiday, but spend it doing something similar to your usual work, you can refer to it as a busman's holiday.
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- chemical weapons — toxic chemicals used as weapons
- chinese cinnamon — cassia (def 1).
- chorioamnionitis — Inflammation of the fetal membranes (amnion and chorion) due to a bacterial infection, most often associated with prolonged labour.
- closing argument — In a court case, a lawyer's closing argument is their final speech, in which they give a summary of their case.
- coadministration — Joint administration.
- collaborationism — The act of collaborating, especially with an enemy.
- combination last — a shoe last that has a narrower heel or instep than the standard last.
- combination shot — a shot in pool in which the cue ball strikes at least one object ball before contact is made with the ball to be pocketed.
- combination skin — facial skin that is dry in some areas and greasy in others
- commensurability — The quality of being commensurable or commensurate.
- commission agent — a person who sells goods and services for a fee
- commonsensically — sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.
- communicableness — The state or quality of being communicable.
- communion sunday — any Sunday on which communion is administered.
- communitarianism — A theory or system of social organization based on small self-governing communities.
- commutation-test — the act of substituting one thing for another; substitution; exchange.
- compartmentalise — to divide into categories or compartments.
- complex analysis — the branch of mathematics dealing with analytic functions of a complex variable.
- compositionality — The property of being compositional.
- compression wave — a shock wave that compresses the medium through which it is transmitted.
- confederationism — The advocacy of confederation as a means of government.
- configurationism — Gestalt psychology
- consequentialism — the doctrine that an action is right or wrong according as its consequences are good or bad
- constant mapping — (networking) A precursor to ARP used by some TCP software in which the destination Ethernet address is constructed from the top 24 bits of the source Ethernet address followed by the low 24 bits of the (class A) destination Internet address. For this scheme the top 24 bits of the Ethernet address must be the same on all hosts on the network.
- contagious magic — magic that attempts to affect a person through something once connected with him or her, as a shirt once worn by the person or a footprint left in the sand; a branch of sympathetic magic based on the belief that things once in contact are in some way permanently so, however separated physically they may subsequently become.
- contemporariness — existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time: Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.
- contractarianism — any of various theories that justify moral principles and political choices because they depend on a social contract involving certain ideal conditions, as lack of ignorance or uncertainty.
- controversialism — The attitude or tendency to engage in controversy.
- contumaciousness — The property of being contumacious.
- coping mechanism — something a person does to deal with a difficult situation
- creative commons — Sometimes, creative commons. a set of various licenses that allow people to share their copyrighted work to be copied, edited, built upon, etc., while retaining the copyright to the original work (often used attributively): We’re happy for other sites to share these photos under Creative Commons; a creative commons license.
- crime of passion — a crime, often a murder, committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- crime passionnel — a crime committed from passion, esp sexual passion
- crosscontaminate — Alternative spelling of cross-contaminate.
- data compression — the act of compressing.
- demilitarisation — The removal of a military force, usually at the end of hostilities or as part of a treaty.
- demineralisation — Alternative spelling of demineralization.
- demoiselle crane — a gray crane, Anthropoides virgo, of northern Africa, Europe, and Asia, having long, white plumes behind each eye.
- demolition squad — a group of demolishers
- demutualizations — Plural form of demutualization.
- depolymerisation — (chemistry) alternative spelling of depolymerization.
- destigmatization — The process or act of destigmatizing.
- developmentalism — An economic theory which states that the best way for Third World countries to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and to impose high tariffs on imported goods.
- developmentalist — an expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.
- devonshire cream — clotted cream.
- diamond district — the part of a town where diamond merchants and jewellers have their businesses
- dinosaurs mating — (humour) The activity said to occur when yet another big iron merger or buy-out occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the mainframe industry. Also described as "elephants mating": lots of noise and action at a high level, with an eventual outcome in the somewhat distant future. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was "IBM and the Seven Dwarves": Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. Early on, RCA sold out to Univac and GE also sold out, and it was "IBM and the BUNCH" (an acronym for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out by Bull. Univac in turn merged with Sperry to form Sperry/Univac, which was later merged (although the employees of Sperry called it a hostile takeover) with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1986 (this was when the phrase "dinosaurs mating" was coined). In 1991 AT&T absorbed NCR, only to spit it out again in 1996. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988 and later others. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.