18-letter words containing o, n, c, t
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- fifth monarchy men — (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.
- file control block — (operating system) (FCB) An MS-DOS data structure that stores information about an open file. The number of FCBs is configured in CONFIG.SYS with a command FCBS=x,y where x (between 1 and 255 inclusive, default 4) specifies the number of file control blocks to allocate and therefore the number of files that MS-DOS can have open at one time. y (not needed from DOS 5.0 onward) specifies the number of files to be closed automatically if all x are in use.
- fitness instructor — physical trainer, exercise teacher
- flat on one's back — lying supine
- fluorescent screen — a transparent screen coated on one side with a phosphor that fluoresces when exposed to X-rays or cathode rays
- fly in the face of — to move through the air using wings.
- forced development — the processing of underexposed photographic film to increase the image density
- forensic chemistry — the application of facts concerning chemistry to questions of civil and criminal law.
- forensic scientist — science expert: provides evidence
- 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.
- frequency function — probability density function (def 2).
- ftp software, inc. — (company) Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
- 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 program — (language) A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
- 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.
- 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.
- galilean telescope — a refracting telescope that forms an erect image, consisting of an objective of relatively long focal length that causes light rays to converge and an eyepiece of short focal length that causes them to diverge.
- garbage collection — (programming) (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the run-time system), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like Lisp represent expressions as graphs built from cells which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic dynamic storage allocation to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on virtual memory size. The three main methods are mark-sweep garbage collection, reference counting and copying garbage collection. See also the AI koan about garbage collection.
- gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- general contractor — a person who contracts to construct a building or buildings, for a stipulated sum, in accordance with certain plans and specifications, or to remodel or build an addition to a building
- genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
- genetic counseling — the counseling of individuals with established or potential genetic problems, concerned with inheritance patterns and risks to future offspring.
- geneva conventions — one of a series of international agreements, first made in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1864, establishing rules for the humane treatment of prisoners of war and of the sick, the wounded, and the dead in battle.
- gensym corporation — (company) A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
- gentleman-commoner — (formerly) a member of a class of commoners enjoying special privileges at Oxford University.
- geodetic surveying — the surveying of the earth's surface, making allowance for its curvature and giving an accurate framework for smaller-scale surveys
- get one's own back — of, relating to, or belonging to oneself or itself (usually used after a possessive to emphasize the idea of ownership, interest, or relation conveyed by the possessive): He spent only his own money.
- giant peacock moth — the largest European moth, an emperor, Saturnia pyri, reaching 15 cm (6 in.) in wingspan. It is mottled brown with a prominent ocellus on each wing and being night-flying can be mistaken for a bat
- golden bantam corn — a horticultural variety of sweet corn having yellow kernels.
- good conduct medal — a medal awarded an enlisted person for meritorious behavior during the period of service.
- goods and chattels — personal property
- government deficit — A government deficit is a situation in which a government spends more money than it has.
- goya (y lucientes) — Fran‧ˈcis‧co Jo‧ˈsé‧ de (fʀɑnˈθiskɔhɔˈsɛ ðɛ) ; fränt hēsˈk^ōh^ōseˈ the) 1746-1828; Sp. painter
- grand canyon state — Arizona (used as a nickname).
- great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
- gyromagnetic ratio — the ratio of the magnetic moment of a rotating charged particle to its angular momentum.
- 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
- helicopter gunship — military attack helicopter
- helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
- 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.
- heptadecanoic acid — a colourless crystalline water-insoluble carboxylic acid used in organic synthesis. Formula: CH3(CH2)15COOH
- herringbone stitch — a type of cross-stitch in embroidery similar to the catch stitch in sewing, consisting of an overlapped V -shaped stitch that when worked in a continuous pattern produces a twill-weave effect.
- high speed connect — (hardware) (HSC) A Hewlett-Packard bus like EISA.
- historical fiction — the genre of literature, film, etc., comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages.
- historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
- honorary secretary — a unpaid person who is one of the managers of an organization