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18-letter words containing o, d, n, t

  • eigendecomposition — (linear algebra) The factorization of a matrix into a canonical form, whereby the matrix is represented in terms of its eigenvalues and eigenvectors.
  • eighty-column mind — (abuse)   The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the transition from punched card to paper tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried "face down, 9-edge first" (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This directive is inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which are as follows: He died at the console Of hunger and thirst. Next day he was buried, Face down, 9-edge first. The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base and its thinking. See fear and loathing, card walloper.
  • electrodesiccation — The drying of tissue, and the prevention of bleeding, using a high-frequency electric current.
  • electrodynamometer — An instrument that measures electric current by indicating the strength of repulsion or attraction between the magnetic fields of two sets of coils, one fixed and one movable.
  • electronic editing — editing of a sound or vision tape recording by electronic rerecording rather than by physical cutting
  • electrovalent bond — a type of chemical bond in which one atom loses an electron to form a positive ion and the other atom gains the electron to form a negative ion. The resulting ions are held together by electrostatic attraction
  • endowment mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a life assurance policy and only the interest to the mortgagee during the term of the policy. The loan is repaid by the policy either when it matures or on the prior death of the policyholder
  • engelbart, douglas — Douglas Engelbart
  • eraser stains code — (humour, programming)   Code that has been refactored many times, leaving swaths of legacy code and design; like paper that has been written on and erased so many times that the pencil marks are no longer the problem - the large greasy stain is.
  • ethnomethodologist — A person engaged in ethnomethodology.
  • euglenoid movement — the expansion and contraction of the cell body of various flagellates
  • every now and then — from time to time; occasionally
  • executive decision — a decision made by a person or group that has executive power
  • fabric conditioner — a product used when washing clothes to make them feel softer
  • fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
  • fast-food industry — the industry surrounding fast-food restaurants
  • fatty degeneration — deterioration of the cells of the body, accompanied by the formation of fat globules within the diseased cells.
  • federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
  • feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
  • fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
  • field of quotients — a field whose elements are pairs of elements of a given commutative integral domain such that the second element of each pair is not zero. The field of rational numbers is the field of quotients of the integral domain of integers.
  • finite-dimensional — (of a vector space) having a basis consisting of a finite number of elements.
  • fire and brimstone — When people talk about fire and brimstone, they are referring to hell and how they think people are punished there after death.
  • fire-and-brimstone — threatening punishment in the hereafter: a fire-and-brimstone sermon.
  • first and foremost — primarily
  • fishing expedition — a legal proceeding mainly for the purpose of interrogating an adversary, or of examining his or her property and documents, in order to gain useful information.
  • floating underflow — underflow
  • flotsam and jetsam — the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. Compare jetsam, lagan.
  • fly off the handle — a part of a thing made specifically to be grasped or held by the hand.
  • forced development — the processing of underexposed photographic film to increase the image density
  • fore-edge painting — a technique of painting a picture on the fore edge of a book, often in such a manner that only when the pages are slightly fanned the picture is revealed.
  • foreign-trade zone — free port (def 1).
  • forgive and forget — be reconciled
  • foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
  • foundling hospital — an institutional home for foundlings.
  • fourth commandment — “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”: fourth of the Ten Commandments.
  • fringe-toed lizard — an iguanid lizard, Uma notata, of sandy deserts of the western U.S. and Mexico, having a wedge-shaped snout and toes fringed with long, pointed scales.
  • from hand to mouth — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
  • from the ground up — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
  • fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
  • functional disease — a disease in which there is an abnormal change in the function of an organ, but no structural alteration in the tissues involved (opposed to organic disease).
  • funding operations — the conversion of government floating stock or short-term debt into holdings of long-term bonds
  • galactic longitude — the angular distance in degrees measured eastward in the galactic plane from a radius drawn from the earth as center to the constellation Sagittarius.
  • gamma distribution — a continuous two-parameter distribution from which the chi-square and exponential distributions are derived, written Gamma (α. β), where α and β are greater than zero, and defined in terms of the gamma function
  • garden loosestrife — any of various plants belonging to the genus Lysimachia, of the primrose family, having clusters of usually yellow flowers, as L. vulgaris (garden loosestrife) or L. quadrifolia (whorled loosestrife)
  • gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
  • geodetic surveying — the surveying of the earth's surface, making allowance for its curvature and giving an accurate framework for smaller-scale surveys
  • get off the ground — project: start well
  • get one's end away — to have sexual intercourse
  • gilbert and george — a team of artists, Gilbert Proesch, Italian, born 1942, and George Passmore, British, born 1943: noted esp for their photomontages and performance works
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