18-letter words containing r, e, i, s
- reconnaissance car — a specially equipped and armed car used for making military reconnaissance.
- recursive function — a function defined in terms of the repeated application of a number of simpler functions to their own values, by specifying a base clause and a recursion formula
- red-light district — an area or district in a city in which many houses of prostitution are located.
- reduction division — the first division of meiosis in which the number of chromosomes is reduced to half the original number.
- reduction strategy — (theory) An algorithm for deciding which redex(es) to reduce next. Different strategies have different termination properties in the presence of recursive functions or values. See string reduction, normal order reduction, applicative order reduction, parallel reduction
- reflection density — a measure of the extent to which a surface reflects light or other electromagnetic radiation, equal to the logarithm to base ten of the reciprocal of the reflectance
- regional enteritis — Crohn's disease.
- registered charity — official aid organization
- registered company — a company which has officially registered its business
- registration plate — a plate mounted on the front and back of a motor vehicle bearing the registration number
- regression testing — (programming) Part of the test phase of software development where, as new modules are integrated into the system and the added functionality is tested, previously tested functionality is re-tested to assure that no new module has corrupted the system.
- regular expression — 1. (text, operating system) (regexp, RE) One of the wild card patterns used by Perl and other languages, following Unix utilities such as grep, sed, and awk and editors such as vi and Emacs. Regular expressions use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those described under glob. A regular expression is a sequence of characters with the following meanings (in Perl, other flavours vary): An ordinary character (not one of the special characters discussed below) matches that character. A backslash (\) followed by any special character matches the special character itself. The special characters are: "." matches any character except newline; "RE*" (where RE is any regular expression and the "*" is called the "Kleene star") matches zero or more occurrences of RE. If there is any choice, the longest leftmost matching string is chosen. "^" at the beginning of an RE matches the start of a line and "$" at the end of an RE matches the end of a line. (RE) matches whatever RE matches and \N, where N is a digit, matches whatever was matched by the RE between the Nth "(" and its corresponding ")" earlier in the same RE. Many flavours use \(RE\) instead of just (RE). The concatenation of REs is a RE that matches the concatenation of the strings matched by each RE. RE1 | RE2 matches whatever RE1 or RE2 matches. \< matches the beginning of a word and \> matches the end of a word. Many flavours use "\b" instead as the special character for "word boundary". RE{M} matches M occurences of RE. RE{M,} matches M or more occurences of RE. RE{M,N} matches between M and N occurences. Other flavours use RE\{M\} etc. Perl provides several "quote-like" operators for writing REs, including the common // form and less common ??. A comprehensive survey of regexp flavours is found in Friedl 1997 (see below). 2. Any description of a pattern composed from combinations of symbols and the three operators: Concatenation - pattern A concatenated with B matches a match for A followed by a match for B. Or - pattern A-or-B matches either a match for A or a match for B. Closure - zero or more matches for a pattern. The earliest form of regular expressions (and the term itself) were invented by mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene in the mid-1950s, as a notation to easily manipulate "regular sets", formal descriptions of the behaviour of finite state machines, in regular algebra.
- regular tertiaries — of the third order, rank, stage, formation, etc.; third.
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- reinsurance treaty — A reinsurance treaty is a contract that defines the terms of reinsurance business.
- remains to be seen — If you say that it remains to be seen whether something will happen, you mean that nobody knows whether it will happen.
- remanent magnetism — magnetization in minerals induced by a former magnetic field and persisting after the field changes.
- renter's insurance — Renter's insurance is insurance for renters to insure their property against loss.
- repossession order — If a bank or building society issues a repossession order, they officially tell someone that they are going to repossess their home.
- representativeness — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- reprocessing plant — a plant where materials are treated in order to make them reusable
- rescind a contract — If an insurer rescinds an insurance contract, it terminates it because facts have been concealed or misrepresented by the proposer.
- research assistant — a graduate who is employed on a temporary or part-time basis to assist the university with academic research
- research scientist — someone who conducts scientific research or investigation, in order to discover new things, etc
- research-intensive — focusing financial and other resources on research and development as opposed to capital and labor; noting or pertaining to a high ratio of expenditure on research in relation to the value of net output.
- residential school — (in Canada) a boarding school maintained by the Canadian government for Indian and Inuit children from sparsely populated settlements
- residual magnetism — remanence.
- resistance fighter — someone who fights (for freedom, etc) against an invader in an occupied country, or against their government, etc, often secretly or illegally
- resistance plasmid — any of a group of bacterial plasmids carrying genetic information that provide resistance to antibiotic drugs: some resistance plasmids are able to transfer themselves, and hence resistance, during conjugation
- resistance welding — welding utilizing pressure and heat that is generated in the pieces to be welded by resistance to an electric current.
- respiratory arrest — cessation of breathing
- respiratory system — the system by which oxygen is taken into the body and an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place; in mammals the system includes the nasal passages, pharynx, trachea, bronchi, and lungs.
- restoration comedy — English comedy of the period of the Restoration, stressing manners and social satire.
- restraining circle — any of three circles on the floor of a basketball court used for jump balls: other players must remain outside the circle during a jump ball
- restraint of trade — action tending to interrupt the free flow of goods and services, as by price fixing and other practices that have the effect of reducing competition.
- restriction enzyme — any of a group of enzymes that catalyze the cleavage of DNA molecules at specific sites: used for gene splicing in recombinant DNA technology and for chromosome mapping.
- restrictive clause — a relative clause that identifies the antecedent and that is usually not set off by commas in English. In The year that just ended was bad for crops, the clause that just ended is a restrictive clause.
- resurrection plant — a desert plant, Selaginella lepidophylla, occurring from Texas to South America, having stems that curl inward when dry.
- resuscitation room — an intensive care unit
- retirement pension — income: no longer at work
- retrograde amnesia — a memory disorder characterized by an inability to remember events or experiences that occurred before a significant point in time.
- reversionary bonus — a bonus added to the sum payable on death or at the maturity of a with-profits assurance policy
- revolutionary wars — American Revolution.
- rheims-douay bible — Douay Bible.
- rhode island white — one of a dual-purpose American breed of chickens having white feathers and a rose comb.
- rhodes scholarship — one of a number of scholarships at Oxford University, established by the will of Cecil Rhodes, for selected students (Rhodes scholars) from the British Commonwealth and the United States.
- ride a hobby horse — an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation: Her hobbies include stamp-collecting and woodcarving.
- risk based testing — (testing) Testing based on identification of potential risks (or "candidate risks"), which should be analysed by the project stakeholder or which might appear during the project's development.
- rock cornish (hen) — Cornish (sense 3) Cornish (sense 3b)
- rolled-steel joist — a steel beam, esp one with a cross section in the form of a letter H or I