18-letter words containing o, s, t, e
- catch one's breath — When you catch your breath while you are doing something energetic, you stop for a short time so that you can start breathing normally again.
- catherine of siena — Saint. 1347–80, Italian mystic and ascetic; patron saint of the Dominican order. Feast day: April 29
- cathode dark space — Crookes dark space.
- center of symmetry — a point within a crystal through which any straight line extends to points on opposite surfaces of the crystal at equal distances.
- centralized school — a public school formed from the pupils and teachers of a number of discontinued smaller schools, especially in a rural district.
- centre of pressure — the point in a body at which the resultant pressure acts when the body is immersed in a fluid
- centum call second — (unit) (CCS) A unit used (in North America) to quantify the total traffic running in a network. 1 CCS is 100 call-seconds. That means 1 CCS could be 2 calls of 50 seconds duration or 20 calls of 5 seconds duration.
- cesarean (section) — a surgical operation for delivering a baby by cutting through the mother's abdominal and uterine walls
- change one's spots — to reform one's character
- character disorder — a disorder characterized by socially undesirable behavior, as poor control of impulses or inability to maintain close emotional relationships, and by absence of anxiety or guilt.
- charge of quarters — a member of the armed forces who handles administration in his or her unit, esp after duty hours
- chartered surveyor — (in Britain) a surveyor who is registered with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as having the qualifications, training, and experience to satisfy their professional requirements
- chebyshev equation — Tchebycheff equation.
- chinese revolution — the overthrow of the last Manchu emperor and the establishment of a republic in China (1911–12)
- 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.
- chord of the sixth — sixth chord.
- chrétien de troyes — 12th century, French poet, who wrote the five Arthurian romances Erec; Cligès; Lancelot, le chevalier de la charette; Yvain, le chevalier au lion; and Perceval, le conte del Graal (?1155–?1190), the first courtly romances
- christian brothers — a religious congregation of laymen founded in France in 1684 for the education of the poor
- christian democrat — a member or supporter of a Christian Democratic party
- christian endeavor — an organization of young people of various evangelical Protestant churches, formed in 1881 to promote Christian principles and service.
- christian reformed — of or relating to a Protestant denomination (Christian Reformed Church) organized in the U.S. in 1857 by groups that had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church.
- christopher sholes — Christopher Latham [ley-thuh m,, -th uh m] /ˈleɪ θəm,, -ðəm/ (Show IPA), 1819–90, U.S. inventor of the typewriter.
- chromatic semitone — the pitch difference between one note and its sharpened or flattened equivalent
- cigar-store indian — a wooden statue of an American Indian, traditionally displayed at the entrance of cigar stores.
- 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
- classified section — the part of a publication that contains classified advertising
- clean up one's act — to start to behave in a responsible manner
- cleopatra's needle — either of two Egyptian obelisks, originally set up at Heliopolis about 1500 bc: one was moved to the Thames Embankment, London, in 1878, the other to Central Park, New York, in 1880
- 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-box testing — functional testing
- coals to newcastle — If someone is taking coals to Newcastle, they are trying to give or sell someone something that they already have a lot of.
- coast rhododendron — a rhododendron, Rhododendron macrophyllum, of western North America, having large clusters of rose-purple flowers spotted with brown: the state flower of Washington.
- coast-guard cutter — a cutter used by the U.S. Coast Guard.
- coffee-table music — unadventurous music
- coitus interruptus — the deliberate withdrawal of the penis from the vagina before ejaculation
- collection charges — the charges levied to cover expenses for the collection of debt
- college of justice — the official name for the Scottish Court of Session; the supreme court of Scotland
- collision diameter — the distance between the centers of two colliding molecules when at their closest point of approach.
- color transparency — a positive color image photographically produced on transparent film or glass and viewed by transmitted light, usually by projection.
- comb-footed spider — any of numerous spiders constituting the family Theridiidae, having a comblike row of bristles on the tarsi of the hind legs.
- combination square — an adjustable device for carpenters, used as a try square, miter square, level, etc.
- combustion chamber — an enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as the space above the piston in the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine or the chambers in a gas turbine or rocket engine in which fuel and oxidant burn
- combustion furnace — a furnace used in the laboratory to carry out elemental analysis of organic compounds
- come home to roost — If bad or wrong things that someone has done in the past have come home to roost, or if their chickens have come home to roost, they are now experiencing the unpleasant effects of these actions.
- come to grips with — If you come to grips with a problem, you consider it seriously, and start taking action to deal with it.
- come to terms with — If you come to terms with something difficult or unpleasant, you learn to accept and deal with it.
- common command set — (storage, standard) (CCS) Additional requirements and features for direct-access SCSI devices. In 1985 when the first SCSI standard was being finalised as an American National Standard, the X3T9.2 Task Group was approached by some manufacturers who wanted changes. Rather than delay the SCSI standard, X3T9.2 formed an ad hoc group to define CCS.
- commonwealth games — an event held every four years in which sportspeople from the countries of the Commonwealth compete
- compact video disc — a compact laser disc that plays both pictures and sound