17-letter words containing n, e, r, d
- darwinian-fitness — health.
- data service unit — (communications) (DSU or "data service unit") A device used in digital transmission for connecting a CSU (Channel Service Unit) to Data Terminal Equipment (a terminal or computer), in the same way that a modem is used for connection to an analogue medium. A DSU provides a standard interface to a user's terminal which is compatible with modems and handles such functions as signal translation, regeneration, reformatting, and timing. The transmitting portion of the DSU processeses the customers' signal into bipolar pulses suitable for transmission over the digital facility. The receiving portion of the DSU is used both to extract timing information and to regenerate mark and space information from the received bipolar signal.
- daughter language — a language that has evolved from another specified language.
- de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
- dead in the water — If you say that someone or something is dead in the water, you are emphasizing that they have failed, and that there is little hope of them being successful in the future.
- dead tree edition — dead tree
- debt rescheduling — the process of changing the time frame or deadline for the repayment of debt, usually to ease the burden on the debtor
- decellularization — (biology, medicine) The loss of cells from tissue.
- deconstructionism — The belief in, or application of, deconstruction.
- deconstructionist — a philosophical and critical movement, starting in the 1960s and especially applied to the study of literature, that questions all traditional assumptions about the ability of language to represent reality and emphasizes that a text has no stable reference or identification because words essentially only refer to other words and therefore a reader must approach a text by eliminating any metaphysical or ethnocentric assumptions through an active role of defining meaning, sometimes by a reliance on new word construction, etymology, puns, and other word play.
- decriminalisation — (chiefly, British) Alternative form of decriminalization.
- decriminalization — to eliminate criminal penalties for or remove legal restrictions against: to decriminalize marijuana.
- dedifferentiating — Present participle of dedifferentiate.
- dedifferentiation — the reversion of the cells of differentiated tissue to a less specialized form
- deduction theorem — the property of many formal systems that the conditional derived from a valid argument by taking the conjunction of the premises as antecedent and the conclusion as consequent is true
- deep-frozen foods — foodstuffs that have been frozen for storage
- deepwater horizon — an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, 40 miles (64km) south-east off the coast of Louisiana, that suffered a massive oil spill following an explosion in April 2010
- defamiliarisation — (arts) The representation of objects anew, in a way that we do not recognize, or that changes our reading of them.
- defamiliarization — Art, Literature. a theory and technique, originating in the early 20th century, in which an artistic or literary work presents familiar objects or situations in an unfamiliar way, prolonging the perceptive process and allowing for a fresh perspective.
- defence secretary — the member of a government who is responsible for the country's armed forces
- deferred sentence — a sentence that is postponed for a specific period to allow a court to examine the conduct of the offender during the deferment
- definite integral — the evaluation of the indefinite integral between two limits, representing the area between the given function and the x-axis between these two values of x
- degenerate matter — the highly compressed state of matter, esp in white dwarfs and neutron stars, supported against gravitational collapse by quantum mechanical effects
- dehistoricization — The process or result of dehistoricizing.
- dehydrochlorinase — an enzyme that catalyzes the removal of hydrogen and chlorine atoms or ions from chlorinated hydrocarbons.
- dehydrochlorinate — to remove hydrogen chloride or chlorine and hydrogen from (a substance).
- deindustrializing — Present participle of deindustrialize.
- delay instruction — delayed control-transfer
- dematerialisation — The act or process of dematerializing.
- dematerialization — The act or process of dematerializing.
- democritus junior — Harold Hitz [hits] /hɪts/ (Show IPA), 1888–1964, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 1945–58.
- demonstrativeness — The state or quality of being demonstrative.
- denatured alcohol — ethanol rendered unfit for human consumption by the addition of a noxious substance, as in methylated spirits
- dendroarchaeology — (archaeology) the science that uses dendrochronology to date wooden material from archaeological sites.
- dendroclimatology — The science that uses dendrochronology to reconstruct historical climate conditions.
- denial of service — a deliberate interruption in access to a computer system or network, esp by using multiple computers to generate an unmanageable volume of traffic (distributed denial of service)
- denial-of-service — pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service: a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.
- denominate number — a number associated with a unit of measurement.
- deoxyribonuclease — DNase.
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- depersonalisation — Alternative spelling of depersonalization.
- depersonalization — the act or an instance of depersonalizing
- dephosphorylation — the removal of a phosphate group from an organic compound, as in the changing of ATP to ADP.
- deportation order — a notification that a foreign national is legally required to leave the country
- deprofessionalise — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deprofessionalize — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- descending rhythm — a rhythmic pattern created by the succession of metrical feet each of which is composed of one accented syllable followed by one or more unaccented syllables.
- designated driver — The designated driver in a group of people travelling together is the one who has agreed to drive, or who is insured to drive.
- designated hitter — In baseball, a designated hitter is a player who bats in place of the pitcher.
- designer clothing — Designer clothing is fashionable or luxury clothing made by, or carrying the label of, a well-known fashion designer.