15-letter words containing p, t, e, r
- chief inspector — an officer of high rank in British police forces
- chile saltpeter — sodium nitrate, esp. as found naturally in Chile and Peru
- chile saltpetre — a naturally occurring form of sodium nitrate: a soluble white or colourless mineral occurring in arid regions, esp in Chile and Peru
- chiropterophily — Pollination by bats.
- christadelphian — a member of a Christian millenarian sect founded in the US about 1848, holding that only the just will enter eternal life, that the wicked will be annihilated, and that the ignorant, the unconverted, and infants will not be raised from the dead
- chromatographer — A person skilled in chromatography or who operates a chromatograph.
- chromium-plated — having been plated with chromium
- chryse planitia — a plain on Mars, the landing site of the Viking I spacecraft.
- cigarette paper — a piece of thin paper rolled around tobacco to form a cigarette
- cinematographed — a motion-picture projector.
- cinematographer — A cinematographer is a person who decides what filming techniques should be used during the shooting of a film.
- cinematographic — a motion-picture projector.
- circumscriptive — That circumscribes or outlines.
- circumspectness — the quality of being circumspect
- class president — the student president of a school or college class
- cleptoparasites — Plural form of cleptoparasite.
- commit to paper — to write down; record
- committeeperson — a member of a committee.
- common property — property belonging to all members of a community.
- comparativeness — of or relating to comparison.
- comparison test — a comparison of particular qualities or traits in two or more things in order to get a measurable assessment
- competition car — a car that has been modified to compete in racing
- compleat angler — a book on fishing (1653) by Izaak Walton.
- complementaries — forming a complement; completing.
- complementarily — In a complementary manner.
- complementarity — a state or system that involves complementary components
- complementizers — Plural form of complementizer.
- complete theory — (logic) An abstract logical theory in which all true statements have formal proofs within the theory.
- complimentaries — of the nature of, conveying, or expressing a compliment, often one that is politely flattering: a complimentary remark.
- complimentarily — of the nature of, conveying, or expressing a compliment, often one that is politely flattering: a complimentary remark.
- composite print — a photograph characterized by overlapping or juxtaposed images resulting from a multiple exposure or the combining of negatives (composite print)
- compressibility — the ability to be compressed
- compton-burnett — Dame Ivy. 1884–1969, English novelist. Her novels include Men and Wives (1931) and Mother and Son (1955)
- comptrollership — controller (def 1).
- computer cookie — HTTP cookie
- computer dating — the use of computers by dating agencies to match their clients
- computer ethics — (philosophy) Ethics is the field of study that is concerned with questions of value, that is, judgments about what human behaviour is "good" or "bad". Ethical judgments are no different in the area of computing from those in any other area. Computers raise problems of privacy, ownership, theft, and power, to name but a few. Computer ethics can be grounded in one of four basic world-views: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, or Existentialism. Idealists believe that reality is basically ideas and that ethics therefore involves conforming to ideals. Realists believe that reality is basically nature and that ethics therefore involves acting according to what is natural. Pragmatists believe that reality is not fixed but is in process and that ethics therefore is practical (that is, concerned with what will produce socially-desired results). Existentialists believe reality is self-defined and that ethics therefore is individual (that is, concerned only with one's own conscience). Idealism and Realism can be considered ABSOLUTIST worldviews because they are based on something fixed (that is, ideas or nature, respectively). Pragmatism and Existentialism can be considered RELATIVIST worldviews because they are based or something relational (that is, society or the individual, respectively). Thus ethical judgments will vary, depending on the judge's world-view. Some examples: First consider theft. Suppose a university's computer is used for sending an e-mail message to a friend or for conducting a full-blown private business (billing, payroll, inventory, etc.). The absolutist would say that both activities are unethical (while recognising a difference in the amount of wrong being done). A relativist might say that the latter activities were wrong because they tied up too much memory and slowed down the machine, but the e-mail message wasn't wrong because it had no significant effect on operations. Next consider privacy. An instructor uses her account to acquire the cumulative grade point average of a student who is in a class which she instructs. She obtained the password for this restricted information from someone in the Records Office who erroneously thought that she was the student's advisor. The absolutist would probably say that the instructor acted wrongly, since the only person who is entitled to this information is the student and his or her advisor. The relativist would probably ask why the instructor wanted the information. If she replied that she wanted it to be sure that her grading of the student was consistent with the student's overall academic performance record, the relativist might agree that such use was acceptable. Finally, consider power. At a particular university, if a professor wants a computer account, all she or he need do is request one but a student must obtain faculty sponsorship in order to receive an account. An absolutist (because of a proclivity for hierarchical thinking) might not have a problem with this divergence in procedure. A relativist, on the other hand, might question what makes the two situations essentially different (e.g. are faculty assumed to have more need for computers than students? Are students more likely to cause problems than faculty? Is this a hold-over from the days of "in loco parentis"?).
- computer memory — memory (def 11).
- computer screen — the working area on the monitor of a computer
- computer system — a computer or a set of computers that works together
- computer vision — a robot analogue of human vision in which information about the environment is received by one or more video cameras and processed by computer: used in navigation by robots, in the control of automated production lines, etc.
- computer-phobia — a person who distrusts or is intimidated by computers.
- computerisation — (chiefly, British) alternative spelling of computerization.
- computerization — to control, perform, process, or store (a system, operation, or information) by means of or in an electronic computer or computers.
- conception rate — the success rate of artificial insemination in agricultural animals, usually expressed as a percentage
- concert pianist — a person who earns a living from giving solo performances on the piano in front of audiences
- concrete poetry — poetry in which the visual form of the poem is used to convey meaning
- concurrent lisp — (language) A concurrent version of Lisp. Sugimoto et al implemented an interpreter on a "large scale computer" and were planning to implement it on multiple microprocessors.
- connected graph — (mathematics) A graph such that there is a path between any pair of nodes (via zero or more other nodes). Thus if we start from any node and visit all nodes connected to it by a single edge, then all nodes connected to any of them, and so on, then we will eventually have visited every node in the connected graph.
- conservatorship — the legal status of a person appointed by a court to protect the interests of someone, such as a child, who is unable to manage his or her own affairs