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18-letter words containing p, a, c, t

  • counter-adaptation — the act of adapting.
  • counterprogramming — the practice of scheduling a program opposite another program, esp. a popular one, that appeals to a different kind of audience, as in placing a romantic film directed at women opposite a sports program mainly watched by men
  • countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
  • coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
  • cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
  • creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
  • creeping featurism — (jargon)   /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
  • critical apparatus — the variant readings, footnotes, etc found in a scholarly work or a critical edition of a text
  • crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
  • cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
  • cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
  • curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
  • cyclopean concrete — concrete containing stones larger than 6 inches (15 cm).
  • decompartmentalize — to remove excessive compartmentalization from (an organization)
  • deficiency payment — a payment made to a commodity producer that represents the difference between the market price and the guaranteed price
  • depth-first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which extends the current path as far as possible before backtracking to the last choice point and trying the next alternative path. Depth-first search may fail to find a solution if it enters a cycle in the graph. This can be avoided if we never extend a path to a node which it already contains. Opposite of breadth first search. See also iterative deepening.
  • descriptive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
  • dialytic telescope — a type of achromatic telescope with a second correcting lens
  • diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
  • diphtheria vaccine — a vaccine used to produce immunity against diphtheria
  • diplomatic service — diplomatic corps
  • diplomatic shuttle — a series of diplomatic visits to other states made by an official, such as an ambassador or envoy
  • discharge printing — a fabric-printing method in which the material is dyed and then certain areas are discharged so as to permit the original hue or its color replacement to act as a pattern against the colored ground.
  • dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
  • display postscript — An extended form of PostScript permitting its interactive use with bitmap displays.
  • doctype decoration — (humour)   When a web author adds a doctype declaration but doesn't bother to write valid HTML.
  • domestic appliance — a machine used for household tasks, for example, a washing machine, refrigerator, etc.
  • east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
  • ejaculatio praecox — premature ejaculation during sexual intercourse
  • electric potential — the work required to transfer a unit positive electric charge from an infinite distance to a given point against an electric field
  • electroacupuncture — the insertion into the body of one or more needles through which an electric current is passed
  • electrocardiograph — A machine used for electrocardiography.
  • electron transport — the metabolic process in mitochondria or chloroplasts, in which electrons are transferred in stages from energy-rich compounds to molecular oxygen with liberation of energy
  • electrophotography — Any of several methods of photocopying in which an image is created and then transferred between surfaces using static electricity.
  • electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
  • equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
  • escape sb's notice — If something escapes your notice, you fail to recognize it or realize it.
  • ethnopsychological — Relating to ethnopsychology.
  • 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
  • examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
  • excess profits tax — a tax on profits exceeding a certain amount
  • extermination camp — a camp where people are imprisoned and killed
  • fall-back position — an alternative plan
  • family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
  • flat address space — (architecture)   The memory architecture in which any memory location can be selected from a single contiguous block by a single integer offset. Almost all popular processors have a flat address space, but the Intel x86 family has a segmented address space. A flat address space greatly simplifies programming because of the simple correspondence between addresses (pointers) and integers.
  • forward compatible — forward compatibility
  • 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 program — (language)   A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
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