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20-letter words containing n, a, p, r

  • buck's horn plantain — a Eurasian plant, Plantago coronopus, having leaves resembling a buck's horn: family Plantaginaceae
  • buoyancy compensator — an inflatable vest used to control one's buoyancy underwater or to rest at the surface, usually having a connecting hose for inflation or deflation by mouth and a CO 2 cartridge for rapid, emergency inflation.
  • caesar and cleopatra — a comedy (1898) by G. B. Shaw.
  • calcium permanganate — a violet, crystalline, deliquescent solid, Ca(MnO 4) 2 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a disinfectant and deodorizer.
  • canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
  • capacitive reactance — the opposition of capacitance to alternating current, equal to the reciprocal of the product of the angular frequency of the current times the capacitance. Symbol: X C.
  • cape prince of wales — a cape in W Alaska, on the Bering Strait opposite the coast of the extreme northeast of Russia: the westernmost point of North America
  • capillary attraction — a force that is the resultant of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension in liquids which are in contact with solids, as in a capillary tube: when the cohesive force is greater, the surface of the liquid tends to rise in the tube, as with mercury; when the adhesive force is greater, the surface tends to be depressed, as with water
  • capital transactions — the flow of money and assets
  • capital transfer tax — (in Britain) a tax payable from 1974 to 1986 at progressive rates on the cumulative total of gifts of money or property made during the donor's lifetime or after his death. It was replaced by inheritance tax
  • carbocyclic compound — any of a group of organic chemical compounds in which all the atoms composing the ring are carbon atoms, as benzene or cyclopropane.
  • card up one's sleeve — a plan or resource kept secret or held in reserve
  • carpathian mountains — a mountain system of central and E Europe, extending from Slovakia to central Romania: mainly forested, with rich iron ore resources. Highest peak: Gerlachovka, 2663 m (8788 ft)
  • casing head pressure — The casing head pressure is the pressure on the casing, which is measured at the wellhead.
  • cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
  • catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
  • cavendish experiment — the experiment, conducted by Henry Cavendish, that determined the constant of gravitation by using a torsion balance and measuring the torsion produced by two masses placed at given distances from the masses on the balance.
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
  • centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
  • change-speed gearbox — A change-speed gearbox is a set of movable or constant gears which allows the speed ratio between input and output shafts to be changed either manually or automatically.
  • chapter of accidents — a series of misfortunes
  • checkerboard pattern — checked pattern that looks like a draughtboard
  • chemical fingerprint — a distinctive characteristic or pattern indicating the presence of a certain molecule, used to identify a chemical.
  • child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
  • chromatic adaptation — the alteration by photosynthesizing organisms of the proportions of their photosynthetic pigments in response to the intensity and colour of the available light, as shown by algae in the littoral zone, which change from green to red as the zone is descended
  • cleansing department — the department of a local authority that collects refuse
  • cold-weather payment — (in Britain) a payment made by the government to people on low incomes when the temperature falls below a certain level for a specific number of days
  • colonial experiencer — affluent young Englishman who gained experience of farming, etc in colonial Australia
  • colorpoint shorthair — any of a breed of domestic cat, bred by crossing a Siamese and an American shorthair, with blue, almond-shaped eyes and a short, glossy, white coat shading to a darker color at the face, ears, feet, and tail
  • comparative judgment — any judgment about whether there is a difference between two or more stimuli
  • comparative religion — a field of study seeking to derive general principles from a comparison and classification of the growth and influence of various religions.
  • compare and contrast — note similarities, differences
  • compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
  • compartmentalization — to divide into categories or compartments.
  • compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
  • compensatory damages — sum paid for a loss
  • complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
  • complementary angles — either of two angles that added together produce an angle of 90°.
  • complementary colors — any of two colors of the spectrum that, combined in the right intensities, produce white or nearly white light
  • complementary colour — one of any pair of colours, such as yellow and blue, that give white or grey when mixed in the correct proportions
  • complementary strand — either of the two chains that make up a double helix of DNA, with corresponding positions on the two chains being composed of a pair of complementary bases.
  • computer programming — the activity or profession of writing computer programs
  • computing dictionary — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
  • conformal projection — a map projection in which angles formed by lines are preserved: a map made using this projection preserves the shape of any small area.
  • connector conspiracy — (business, standard)   The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, other designers) to come up with products that don't fit with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The term probably came into prominence with the appearance of the DEC KL-10, none of whose connectors matched anything else. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually *patented* by DEC, who reputedly refused to licence the design, thus effectively locking out competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy was a source of frustration for the owners of dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives. A related phenomenon is the invention of new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialised case-cracking tool to open the box. With the advent of more open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse. Compare backward combatability.
  • conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
  • construction company — a business enterprise concerned with the construction of buildings, bridges, etc
  • contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
  • conversation stopper — a comment that is so shocking or boring that people stop talking
  • coordination complex — one of a number of complex compounds in which an atom or group of atoms is bound to the central atom by a shared pair of electrons supplied by the coordinated group and not by the central atom
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