18-letter words containing n, u, a
- contents insurance — the insurance for the personal property in a household
- continuation sheet — (in a document) a page that continues from the one before it, containing similar information
- continued fraction — a number plus a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction whose denominator contains a number and a fraction, and so on
- continuous casting — a technique of casting ingots, bars, etc., in which the metal is poured into an open-ended mold, being withdrawn as it solidifies so that the solid portion of the piece retains the fluid portion within the mold.
- contract furniture — furniture designed and manufactured for commercial installation, as in offices, waiting rooms, or lobbies.
- cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
- coronary care unit — a unit in a hospital dedicated to treating coronary heart disease
- coronary occlusion — partial or total obstruction of a coronary artery, as by a thrombus, usually resulting in infarction of the myocardium.
- coronary-care unit — a specialized hospital unit for the early care and treatment of heart-attack patients. Abbreviation: CCU.
- costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
- couldn't care less — If you say that you couldn't care less about someone or something, you are emphasizing that you are not interested in them or worried about them. In American English, you can also say that you could care less, with the same meaning.
- counter-adaptation — the act of adapting.
- counter-aggression — the action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly its territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like: The army is prepared to stop any foreign aggression.
- counterattractions — Plural form of counterattraction.
- counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
- counterculturalist — the culture and lifestyle of those people, especially among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.
- countercyclicality — The quality of being countercyclical.
- 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
- countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
- countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
- coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
- 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.
- crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
- cultural awareness — Someone's cultural awareness is their understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- cultural universal — a cultural pattern extant in every known society.
- cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- 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.
- cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
- custodial sentence — a sentence given by a court that involves a term of imprisonment
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
- cut-and-waste code — (humour, programming) Code that someone found online (e.g. in a blog) and copied and pasted into a product. The result is usually a lot of wasted time trying to track down obscure bugs from code that may have made sense in the original context but not in the new one. Also known as blog-driven development.
- cutthroat contract — a form of contract bridge for four persons in which partners are decided by the bidding.
- dangerous offender — an offender who is deemed by a court of law to be likely to engage in further violent conduct, and who thus becomes eligible for an indefinite prison sentence
- data communication — electronic transmission of information that has been encoded for storage and processing by computers.
- de bruijn notation — (language) A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- deficiency account — an account summarizing the financial condition of an individual or company in danger of bankruptcy.
- definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
- deinstitutionalize — to discharge (a patient) as from a mental institution
- delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
- destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
- devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
- diabetes insipidus — a disorder of the pituitary gland causing excessive thirst and excretion of large quantities of dilute urine
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- 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
- diazonium compound — any of a series of compounds that contain the group ArN 2 –, in which Ar represents an aryl group.