18-letter words containing o, u, t, a, e
- curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
- custodial sentence — a sentence given by a court that involves a term of imprisonment
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- customs and excise — Customs and Excise is a British government department which is responsible for collecting taxes on imported and exported goods. Compare Customs Service.
- cut-and-waste code — (humour, programming) Code that someone found online (e.g. in a blog) and copied and pasted into a product. The result is usually a lot of wasted time trying to track down obscure bugs from code that may have made sense in the original context but not in the new one. Also known as blog-driven development.
- de bruijn notation — (language) A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
- defense calculator — IBM 701
- deficiency account — an account summarizing the financial condition of an individual or company in danger of bankruptcy.
- deinstitutionalize — to discharge (a patient) as from a mental institution
- departure platform — a raised area at a railway station from which passengers can board trains prior to their departing
- dermot macmurrough — ?1110–71, king of Leinster, who, by enlisting the support of the English to win back his kingdom, was responsible for the English conquest of Ireland
- dia de los muertos — Day of the Dead.
- diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
- digital audio tape — a cassette containing magnetic tape used for high-fidelity digital recording or playback of audio. Abbreviation: DAT.
- diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
- disodium phosphate — sodium phosphate (def 2).
- dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
- distance education — education in which students receive instruction over the Internet, from a video, etc., instead of going to school.
- double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
- drainpipe trousers — trousers with very narrow legs
- dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
- driver's education — high-school driving classes
- drug on the market — Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
- dwarf storage unit — (humour) (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
- dysfunctionalities — Plural form of dysfunctionality.
- eastern algonquian — a subgroup of the Algonquian language family, comprising the languages spoken aboriginally from Nova Scotia to northeastern North Carolina.
- eat your heart out — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
- ejaculatio praecox — premature ejaculation during sexual intercourse
- electroacupuncture — the insertion into the body of one or more needles through which an electric current is passed
- electrostatic unit — any unit that belongs to a system of electrical cgs units in which the electric constant is given the value of unity and is taken as a pure number
- electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
- engelbart, douglas — Douglas Engelbart
- equinoctial circle — celestial equator
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- euclid's algorithm — (algorithm) (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
- european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
- evolution strategy — (ES) A kind of evolutionary algorithm where individuals (potential solutions) are encoded by a set of real-valued "object variables" (the individual's "genome"). For each object variable an individual also has a "strategy variable" which determines the degree of mutation to be applied to the corresponding object variable. The strategy variables also mutate, allowing the rate of mutation of the object variables to vary. An ES is characterised by the population size, the number of offspring produced in each generation and whether the new population is selected from parents and offspring or only from the offspring. ES were invented in 1963 by Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) while searching for the optimal shapes of bodies in a flow.
- executable content — (operating system) Executable programs sent by one computer to another via a network. For example a Java applet is executable content. Usage: rare.
- extemporaneousness — The degree or property of being extemporaneous.
- eyewitness account — a description given by someone who was present at an event
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- fettuccine alfredo — fettuccine in cream sauce with grated Parmesan cheese.
- first class module — (programming) A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
- floating underflow — underflow
- football supporter — a person who supports a particular football team
- foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
- 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.