16-letter words containing s, e, n, t, i, c
- bare necessities — only the essentials
- bastard culverin — a 16th-century cannon, smaller than a culverin, firing a shot of between 5 and 8 pounds (11 and 17.6 kg).
- batch processing — manufacturing products or treating materials in batches, by passing the output of one process to subsequent processes
- batesian mimicry — mimicry in which a harmless species is protected from predators by means of its resemblance to a harmful or inedible species
- bbn technologies — (company) A company, originally known as Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. BBN were awarded the original contract to build the ARPANET and have been extensively involved in Internet development. They are responsible for managing NNSC, CSNET, and NEARnet. The language LOGO was developed at BBN, as was the BBN Butterfly supercomputer.
- be of assistance — Someone or something that is of assistance to you is helpful or useful to you.
- bearish tendency — a tendency for share prices to fall
- beta abstraction — [lambda-calculus] The conversion of an expression to an application of a lambda abstraction to an argument expression. Some subterm of the original expression becomes the argument of the abstraction and the rest becomes its body. E.g. 4+1 --> (\ x . x+1) 4 The opposite of beta abstraction is beta reduction. These are the two kinds of beta conversion.
- black nightshade — a poisonous solanaceous plant, Solanum nigrum, a common weed in cultivated land, having small white flowers with backward-curved petals and black berry-like fruits
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- bragg scattering — the diffraction phenomenon exhibited by a crystal bombarded with x-rays in such a way that each plane of the crystal lattice acts as a reflector (Bragg reflector)
- braking distance — the distance a vehicle travels from the point at which its brakes are applied to the point at which it comes to a stop
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- breast screening — a radiological or other examination of a woman's breasts to check for signs of cancer
- bring to justice — to capture, try, and usually punish (a criminal, an outlaw, etc)
- bristlecone pine — a coniferous tree, Pinus aristata, of the western US, bearing cones with bristle-like prickles: one of the longest-lived trees, useful in radiocarbon dating
- building society — In Britain, a building society is a business which will lend you money when you want to buy a house. You can also invest money in a building society, where it will earn interest. Compare savings and loan association.
- business account — a bank account or type of bank account used for business transactions rather than personal ones
- cabinet minister — a minister who is a member of the cabinet
- cable television — Cable television is a television system in which signals are sent along wires rather than by radio waves.
- cache on a stick — (architecture) (COAST) Intel Corporation attempt to's standardise the modular L2 cache subsystem in Pentium-based computers. A COAST module should be about 4.35" wide by 1.14" high. According to earlier specifications from Motorola, a module between 4.33" and 4.36" wide, and between 1.12" and 1.16" high is within the COAST standard. Some module vendors, including some major motherboard suppliers, greatly violate the height specification. Another COAST specification violated by many suppliers concerns clock distribution in synchronous modules. The specification requires that the clock tree to each synchronous chip be balanced, i.e. equal length from edge of the connector to individual chips. An unbalanced clock tree increases reflections and noise. For a 256 kilobyte cache module the standard requires the same clock be used for both chips but some vendors use separate clocks to reduce loading on the clock driver and hence increase the clock speed. However, this creates unbalanced loading in other motherboard configurations, such as motherboards with soldered caches in the system.
- calcium arsenate — a toxic, white powder, Ca3(AsO4)2, used as an insecticide in the form of a spray or dust
- call in question — a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply.
- canaries current — an ocean current of the North Atlantic flowing southward past Spain and North Africa.
- canine distemper — distemper1 (def 1a).
- capital sentence — the punishment of death for a crime
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- cardinal virtues — the most important moral qualities, traditionally justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude
- case insensitive — case sensitivity
- case sensitivity — (text) Whether a text matching operation distinguishes upper-case (capital) letters from lower case (is "case sensitive") or not ("case insensitive"). Case in file names should be preserved (for readability) but ignored when matching (so the user doesn't have to get it right). MS-DOS does not preserve case in file names, Unix preserves case and matches are case sensitive. Any decent text editor will allow the user to specify whether or not text searches should be case sensitive. Case sensitivity is also relevant in programming (most programming languages distiguish between case in the names of identifiers), and addressing (Internet domain names are case insensitive but RFC 822 local mailbox names are case sensitive). Case insensitive operations are sometimes said to "fold case", from the idea of folding the character code table so that upper and lower case letters coincide. The alternative "smash case" is more likely to be used by someone who considers this behaviour a misfeature or in cases where one case is actually permanently converted to the other. "MS-DOS will automatically smash case in the names of all the files you create".
- casting director — the person in charge of choosing of actors for a production
- cataractogenesis — The formation of a cataract.
- category listing — A category listing is a list of different product categories such as menswear, womenswear, and childrenswear.
- cavity resonator — a conducting surface enclosing a space in which an oscillating electromagnetic field can be maintained, the dimensions of the cavity determining the resonant frequency of the oscillations. It is used in microwave devices for frequencies exceeding 300 megahertz
- centennial state — Colorado (used as a nickname).
- cesarean section — Also called Cesarean section, C-section. an operation by which a fetus is taken from the uterus by cutting through the walls of the abdomen and uterus.
- character string — a series of characters that can be manipulated as a group, but do not necessarily represent anything
- characterisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of characterization.
- chattering class — well-educated members of the upper-middle or upper class who freely express especially liberal opinions or judgments on current issues and events.
- checking deposit — a deposit on which cheques may be drawn
- chemiluminescent — Of, pertaining to, or employing chemiluminescence.
- chemoluminescent — (chemistry) Exhibiting chemoluminescence.
- chinese chestnut — a chestnut (Castanea mollissima) with large, sweet nuts, often crossed with other chestnuts because of its resistance to chestnut blight
- chinese crescent — crescent (def 6).
- chinese wisteria — a high-climbing Chinese vine, Wisteria sinensis, of the legume family, having hanging clusters of fragrant, bluish-violet flowers and long, velvety pods.
- choriomeningitis — (medicine) A form of cerebral meningitis associated with inflammation of the choroid plexus.
- christening robe — a long white dress worn by a baby at his or her christening
- christmas dinner — the main meal on Christmas day, eaten any time in the afternoon or evening
- chryselephantine — (of ancient Greek statues) made of or overlaid with gold and ivory
- chymotrypsinogen — the inactive precursor of chymotrypsin