18-letter words containing o, r, a, l, i, s
- cartilaginous fish — any fish of the class Chondrichthyes, including the sharks, skates, and rays, having a skeleton composed entirely of cartilage
- castration complex — an unconscious fear of having one's genitals removed, as a punishment for wishing to have sex with a parent
- catalogue raisonne — a descriptive catalogue, esp one covering works of art in an exhibition or collection
- cauliflower cheese — a dish of cauliflower with a cheese sauce, eaten hot
- cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
- centralized school — a public school formed from the pupils and teachers of a number of discontinued smaller schools, especially in a rural district.
- chagos archipelago — group of islands in the Indian Ocean 1,180 mi (1,899 km) northeast of Mauritius, comprising the British Indian Ocean Territory: chief island, Diego Garcia
- children of israel — the Jews; Hebrews
- chinese watermelon — a tropical Asian vine, Benincasa hispida, of the gourd family, having a brown, hairy stem, large, solitary, yellow flowers, and white, melonlike fruit.
- chronic alcoholism — long-term alcohol addiction
- circular dichroism — selective absorption of one of the two possible circular polarizations of light.
- circulatory system — the system concerned with the transport of blood and lymph, consisting of the heart, blood vessels, lymph vessels, etc
- citizen journalism — the involvement of non-professionals in reporting news, esp in blogs and other websites
- claustrophobically — In a claustrophobic way.
- closed corporation — a corporation the stock of which is owned by a small number of persons and is rarely traded on the open market
- closed scholarship — a scholarship for which only certain people, such as those from a particular school or with a particular surname, are eligible
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- collision coverage — Collision coverage is insurance cover for vehicle accidents.
- collision diameter — the distance between the centers of two colliding molecules when at their closest point of approach.
- complementarianism — The doctrine that genders in a society should have complementary roles.
- complexity measure — (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
- concrete universal — a principle that necessarily has universal import but is also concrete by virtue of its arising in historical situations.
- condensation trail — contrail.
- congregationalists — a form of Protestant church government in which each local religious society is independent and self-governing.
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- conversation class — a class in which one learns to speak a foreign language
- conversationalists — Plural form of conversationalist.
- coronary occlusion — partial or total obstruction of a coronary artery, as by a thrombus, usually resulting in infarction of the myocardium.
- 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.
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- crested dog's-tail — a common wiry perennial grass, Cynosurus cristatus, of meadows and pasture
- critical constants — the physical constants that express the properties of a substance in its critical state
- cross-disciplinary — linking two or more fields of study
- crude oil desalter — A crude oil desalter is equipment which removes inorganic salts from crude oil, using chemical or electrostatic separation.
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- crystal oscillator — a clear, transparent mineral or glass resembling ice.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- cultural sociology — the study of the origins and development of societal institutions, norms, and practices.
- 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.
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- dead as a doornail — completely dead
- depository library — a library designated by law to receive without charge all or a selection of the official publications of a government.
- dia de los muertos — Day of the Dead.
- diaminofluorescein — (organic compound) A fluorescein into which two amino groups have been substituted.
- digital switchover — the process of changing the method of transmitting television from analogue to digital format
- dihydrotachysterol — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble sterol, C 28 H 46 O, derived from ergosterol: used chiefly in the treatment of hypoparathyroidism.
- diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
- diplomatic service — diplomatic corps