18-letter words containing s, a, n, r
- concrete universal — a principle that necessarily has universal import but is also concrete by virtue of its arising in historical situations.
- concussion grenade — a grenade designed to inflict damage by the force of its detonation rather than by the fragmentation of its casing.
- condensation trail — contrail.
- congregate housing — a type of housing in which each individual or family has a private bedroom or living quarters but shares with other residents a common dining room, recreational room, or other facilities.
- congregationalists — a form of Protestant church government in which each local religious society is independent and self-governing.
- congress of vienna — the European conference held at Vienna from 1814–15 to settle the territorial problems left by the Napoleonic Wars
- connected subgraph — (mathematics) A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
- consecrated ground — ground that has been made or declared sacred or holy, and is therefore suitable for Christian burial
- conservation grade — relating to food produced using traditional methods where possible, and following strict specifications regarding animal feeds and welfare, the use of chemical fertilizers, wildlife conservation, and land management
- conservative party — The Conservative Party is the main right-of-centre party in Britain.
- considered harmful — (programming, humour) A type of phrase based on the title of Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", which fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print articles taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies bore titles of the form "X considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realisation that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
- consolato del mare — a code of maritime law compiled in the Middle Ages: it drew upon ancient law and has influenced modern law.
- constituency party — a branch of a political party operating within a constituency
- construction paper — Construction paper is a type of stiff, colored paper that children use for drawing and for making things.
- contact dermatitis — dermatitis caused by direct contact with an irritating substance, as an allergen or chemical
- contents insurance — the insurance for the personal property in a household
- contradistinctions — Plural form of contradistinction.
- contrastive stress — a stress imposed on a word or syllable contrary to its normal accentuation in order to contrast it with an alternative word or syllable or to focus attention on it, as the stress given to the normally unstressed word of in government of the people, by the people, for the people in order to point up the parallel between of, by, and for and to distinguish of from words such as over or against.
- controlled-release — A controlled-release drug or preparation is released into the body in specified amounts over a specified period of time.
- conversation chair — an English chair of the 18th century designed to be straddled facing the back of the chair with the elbows resting on the crest rail: an English imitation of the voyeuse.
- conversation class — a class in which one learns to speak a foreign language
- conversation piece — something, esp an unusual object, that provokes conversation
- conversationalists — Plural form of conversationalist.
- cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
- coronary occlusion — partial or total obstruction of a coronary artery, as by a thrombus, usually resulting in infarction of the myocardium.
- correspondent bank — A correspondent bank is a bank that provides services such as accepting deposits for another bank.
- costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
- cot death syndrome — the unexplained sudden death of an infant during sleep
- couldn't care less — If you say that you couldn't care less about someone or something, you are emphasizing that you are not interested in them or worried about them. In American English, you can also say that you could care less, with the same meaning.
- counter-aggression — the action of a state in violating by force the rights of another state, particularly its territorial rights; an unprovoked offensive, attack, invasion, or the like: The army is prepared to stop any foreign aggression.
- counterattractions — Plural form of counterattraction.
- counterculturalism — The counterculture movement or lifestyle.
- counterculturalist — the culture and lifestyle of those people, especially among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.
- countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
- cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
- craniorachischisis — Lb pathology A defect of the neural tube in which both the brain and spinal cord are left open.
- 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.
- creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently
- critical constants — the physical constants that express the properties of a substance in its critical state
- cross-disciplinary — linking two or more fields of study
- crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
- cultural awareness — Someone's cultural awareness is their understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values.
- cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
- cultural universal — a cultural pattern extant in every known society.
- cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
- cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
- customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
- cytoarchitectonics — Cytoarchitecture.
- daisywheel printer — (printer) A kind of impact printer where the characters are arranged on the ends of the spokes of a wheel (resembling the petals on a daisy). The wheel (usually made of plastic) is rotated to select the character to print and then an electrically operated hammer mechanism bends the selected spoke forward slightly, sandwiching an ink ribbon between the character and the paper, as in a typewriter. One advantage of this arrangement over that of a typewriter is that different wheels may be inserted to produce different typefaces.