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20-letter words containing o, s, t, e, r, i

  • complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
  • composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
  • compression ignition — ignition of engine fuel by the heat of air compressed in the cylinders into which the fuel is introduced.
  • computer typesetting — a system for the high-speed composition of type by a device driven by punched paper tape or magnetic tape that has been processed by a computer
  • conditioned response — a response that is transferred from the second to the first of a pair of stimuli. A well-known Pavlovian example is salivation by a dog when it hears a bell ring, because food has always been presented when the bell has been rung previously
  • confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
  • conflict of interest — a conflict between one's obligation to the public good and one's self-interest, as in the case of a public officeholder who owns stock in a company seeking government contracts
  • connector conspiracy — (business, standard)   The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, other designers) to come up with products that don't fit with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The term probably came into prominence with the appearance of the DEC KL-10, none of whose connectors matched anything else. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually *patented* by DEC, who reputedly refused to licence the design, thus effectively locking out competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy was a source of frustration for the owners of dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives. A related phenomenon is the invention of new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialised case-cracking tool to open the box. With the advent of more open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse. Compare backward combatability.
  • conservation of mass — the principle that the total mass of any isolated system is constant and is independent of any chemical and physical changes taking place within the system
  • conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
  • conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
  • consumer electronics — computers and other electronic devices designed for private individuals as opposed to businesses
  • contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
  • continental congress — the assembly of delegates from the North American rebel colonies held during and after the War of American Independence. It issued the Declaration of Independence (1776) and framed the Articles of Confederation (1777)
  • controlled explosion — the deliberate detonation of an explosive device under strictly controlled circumstances
  • controlling interest — a quantity of shares in a business that is sufficient to ensure control over its direction
  • convective discharge — the repulsion of ions of a gas by a highly charged body, creating a discernible wind.
  • conversation stopper — a comment that is so shocking or boring that people stop talking
  • council of ministers — the EU's most important decision-making body
  • counterdemonstration — a demonstration that is held in reaction to another demonstration
  • counterrevolutionist — A counterrevolutionary.
  • craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
  • crossover distortion — distortion that sometimes occurs at a frequency (crossover frequency) at which a crossover network switches signals from one speaker to another.
  • cytosine arabinoside — cytarabine.
  • database transaction — (database)   A set of related changes applied to a database. The term typically implies that either all of the changes should be applied or, in the event of an error, none of them, i.e. the transaction should be atomic. Atomicity is one of the ACID properties a transaction can have, another is isolation - preventing interference between processes trying to access the database cocurrently. This is usually achieved by some form of locking - where one process takes exclusive control of a database table or row for the duration of the transaction, preventing other processes from accessing the locked data. The canonical example of a transaction is transferring money between two bank accounts by subtracting it from one and adding it to the other. Some relational database management systems require the user to explicitly start a transaction and then either commit it (if all the individual steps are successful) or roll it back (if there are any errors).
  • de facto segregation — racial, ethnic, or other segregation resulting from societal differences between groups, as socioeconomic or political disparity, without institutionalized legislation intended to segregate.
  • decomposed petri net — (parallel)   (DPN) A Petri net that has been split into multiple, interconnected nets. This makes it easier to analyse or run the net. DPNs are the basis of concurrency in ConC.
  • deep vein thrombosis — Deep vein thrombosis is a serious medical condition caused by blood clots in the legs moving up to the lungs. The abbreviation DVT is also used.
  • deep-vein thrombosis — a condition in which a blood clot forms in a vein deep beneath the skin, typically in the leg or pelvic area: Immobility and lack of exercise are risk factors for deep-vein thrombosis.
  • definite description — a description that is modified by the definite article or a possessive, such as the woman in white or Rosemary's baby
  • democratic socialism — socialism, or a modified form of socialism, achieved by a gradual transition by and under democratic political processes.
  • deoxyribonucleotides — Plural form of deoxyribonucleotide.
  • depreciation expense — A depreciation expense is the amount deducted from gross profit to allow for a reduction in the value of something because of its age or how much it has been used.
  • descriptive geometry — the study of the projection of three-dimensional figures onto a plane surface
  • descriptive notation — a method of denoting the squares on the chessboard in which each player names the files from the pieces that stand on them at the opening and numbers the ranks away from himself
  • desmopressin acetate — a vasopressin analogue, C 46 H 64 N 14 O 12 S 2 , used in the treatment of diabetes insipidus.
  • dickless workstation — (abuse)   Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
  • 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
  • diplomatic secretary — secretary (def 5).
  • diplomatic-secretary — secretary (def 5).
  • direct memory access — (architecture)   (DMA) A facility of some architectures which allows a peripheral to read and write memory without intervention by the CPU. DMA is a limited form of bus mastering.
  • directory assistance — a telephone company service that furnishes telephone directory information over the telephone.
  • directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.
  • discretionary income — money for luxuries
  • 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.
  • disproportionateness — The state or quality of being disproportionate or out of proportion.
  • distribution channel — trade: retailer
  • district court judge — a judge presiding over a lower court
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