20-letter words containing o, l, d
- cost-of-living index — a numerical scale by means of which cost-of-living levels can be compared with a base number
- criminal proceedings — action taken in a court to bring a criminal prosecution against someone
- crude oil evaluation — Crude oil evaluation is the process of assessing the chemical and physical properties of crude oil, against particular standards.
- cycloidal propulsion — propulsion of a vessel by propellers of controllable pitch that steer as well as propel.
- darkfield microscope — kind of microscope
- data dictionary file — (database) (DDF) A set of files describing the structure of a database file. DDFs define database tables and include information about file locations, field layouts and indexes. DDFs are the standard method for defining field and index characteristics for Btrieve files.
- de la madrid hurtado — Miguel [mee-gel] /miˈgɛl/ (Show IPA), 1934–2012, Mexican political leader: president 1982–88.
- death of ivan ilyich — a short novel (1884) by Leo Tolstoy.
- decahydronaphthalene — a colorless, aromatic liquid, C 10 H 18 , insoluble in water and soluble in alcohol and ether: used as a solvent for oils, fats, etc., in cleaning fluids, lubricants, etc.
- declaratory judgment — a judgment that merely decides the rights of parties in a given transaction, situation, or dispute but does not order any action or award damages.
- decompartmentalizing — Present participle of decompartmentalize.
- deduct from the bill — If you deduct an item or expense from the bill at a restaurant or hotel, you take a charge out of a customer's bill.
- degree of difficulty — a rating which reflects the difficulty of the manoeuvre or action an athlete is attempting to perform in sports such as gymnastics and diving, and which is factored into the final score
- deinstitutionalizing — Present participle of deinstitutionalize.
- democratic socialism — socialism, or a modified form of socialism, achieved by a gradual transition by and under democratic political processes.
- denali national park — a national park in S central Alaska, including Denali (mountain). 3030 sq. mi. (7850 sq. km).
- deontological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing with right action and the nature of duty, without regard to the goodness or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
- deoxyribonucleotides — Plural form of deoxyribonucleotide.
- department of health — government ministry for health matters
- dependency allowance — an allowance paid by a government to a person who cares for dependants
- deterritorialization — The eradication of social, political, or cultural practices from their native places and populations.
- developing-out paper — a sensitized printing paper requiring development in order to bring out the image. Abbreviation: D.O.P.
- development planning — the planning of the development of an area of land
- devil's bit scabious — a similar and related Eurasian marsh plant, Succisa pratensis
- dialectical theology — a form of neoorthodox theology emphasizing the infinite tensions, paradoxes, and basic ambiguities inherent in Christian existence, and holding, against rationalism, that God is unknowable to humans except through divine grace and revelation.
- dichloroethyl formal — a colorless liquid, C 5 H 10 O 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent and in the manufacture of certain synthetic rubbers.
- dickless workstation — (abuse) Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
- dictionary catalogue — a catalogue of the authors, titles, and subjects of books in one alphabetical sequence
- diels-alder reaction — the reaction in which a conjugated diene combines with a double or triple bond of a given compound to form a ring of six carbon atoms.
- difference threshold — the minimum difference between two stimuli that is just detectable by a person
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- diisobutyl phthalate — a clear, colorless liquid, C 14 H 26 O 4 , used chiefly as a plasticizer for nitrocellulose.
- dimensional analysis — a method for comparing the dimensions of the physical quantities occurring in a problem to find relationships between the quantities without having to solve the problem completely. Compare dimension (def 6).
- diophantine analysis — any of several methods for finding integral solutions for equations with more than one variable whose coefficients are integers.
- diphenylene diketone — a compound used in dye manufacture
- diplomatic secretary — secretary (def 5).
- diplomatic-secretary — secretary (def 5).
- dirac delta function — delta function.
- directional drilling — a method of drilling for oil in which the well is not drilled vertically, as when a number of wells are to be drilled from a single platform to reach different areas of an oil field
- disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
- discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- displacement tonnage — the number of long tons of water displaced by a vessel, light or load displacement being specified.
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- district high school — a school in a rural area that includes primary and post-primary classes
- district of columbia — a federal area in the E United States, on the Potomac, coextensive with the federal capital, Washington. 69 sq. mi. (179 sq. km). Abbreviation: DC (for use with zip code), D.C.
- doctor of philosophy — Also called doctorate. the highest degree awarded by a graduate school, usually to a person who has completed at least three years of graduate study and a dissertation approved by a board of professors.
- dolly varden pattern — a fabric print consisting of bouquets of flowers.
- domestic heating oil — a liquid petroleum product used to fuel residential building furnaces or boilers
- double decomposition — a reaction whose result is the interchange of two parts of two substances to form two new substances, as AgNO 3 + NaCl → AgCl + NaNO 3 .