18-letter words containing o, e, c, u
- ecumenical council — a solemn assembly in the Roman Catholic Church, convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.
- 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.
- ejaculatio praecox — premature ejaculation during sexual intercourse
- electroacupuncture — the insertion into the body of one or more needles through which an electric current is passed
- electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
- electrostatic unit — any unit that belongs to a system of electrical cgs units in which the electric constant is given the value of unity and is taken as a pure number
- electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
- energy consumption — amount of energy used
- equinoctial circle — celestial equator
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- euclid's algorithm — (algorithm) (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
- european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
- executable content — (operating system) Executable programs sent by one computer to another via a network. For example a Java applet is executable content. Usage: rare.
- executive decision — a decision made by a person or group that has executive power
- executive director — a member of the board of directors of a company who is also an employee (usually full-time) of that company and who often has a specified area of responsibility, such as finance or production
- executive producer — a producer of a film or television programme who is involved with business or technical issues rather than the technical aspects of film or television production
- eyewitness account — a description given by someone who was present at an event
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- fibonacci sequence — (mathematics) The infinite sequence of numbers beginning 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... in which each term is the sum of the two terms preceding it. The ratio of successive Fibonacci terms tends to the golden ratio, namely (1 + sqrt 5)/2.
- first class module — (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
- fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
- fixed-focus camera — a camera with an unadjustable focal length and with a relatively large depth of field.
- fluorescent screen — a transparent screen coated on one side with a phosphor that fluoresces when exposed to X-rays or cathode rays
- fluorodeoxyglucose — (carbohydrate) A fluorine analog of glucose that is used in positron emission tomography.
- formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
- four-color problem — the problem, solved in 1976, of proving the theorem that any geographic map can be colored using only four colors so that no connected countries with a common boundary are colored the same color.
- fourth commandment — “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”: fourth of the Ten Commandments.
- fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
- frederick douglass — Frederick, 1817–95, U.S. ex-slave, abolitionist, and orator.
- frequency function — probability density function (def 2).
- frequency response — the effectiveness with which a circuit, device, or system processes and transmits signals fed into it, as a function of the signal frequency.
- 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).
- functional testing — (testing) (Or "black-box testing", "closed-box testing") The application of test data derived from functional requirements without regard to how the system is implemented.
- funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
- 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.
- genetic counseling — the counseling of individuals with established or potential genetic problems, concerned with inheritance patterns and risks to future offspring.
- geodetic surveying — the surveying of the earth's surface, making allowance for its curvature and giving an accurate framework for smaller-scale surveys
- give someone curry — to assault (a person) verbally or physically
- good conduct medal — a medal awarded an enlisted person for meritorious behavior during the period of service.
- governor's council — a council chosen to assist or inform a governor on legislative or executive matters.
- goya (y lucientes) — Fran‧ˈcis‧co Jo‧ˈsé‧ de (fʀɑnˈθiskɔhɔˈsɛ ðɛ) ; fränt hēsˈk^ōh^ōseˈ the) 1746-1828; Sp. painter
- grand council fire — a formal gathering of camp fire members requiring a minimum attendance of three troops.
- guidance counselor — advisor in schools
- haulage contractor — a person or firm that transports goods by lorry
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- hebdomadal council — the governing council or senate of Oxford University
- heimlich manoeuvre — a technique in first aid to dislodge a foreign body in a person's windpipe by applying sudden upward pressure on the upper abdomen
- helicopter gunship — military attack helicopter
- helmholtz function — the thermodynamic function of a system that is equal to its internal energy minus the product of its absolute temperature and entropy: A decrease in the function is equal to the maximum amount of work available during a reversible isothermal process.