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18-letter words containing s, e, p

  • compensation order — (in Britain) the requirement of a court that an offender pay compensation for injury, loss, or damage resulting from an offence, either in preference to or as well as a fine
  • compensation point — the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide at which the rate of carbon dioxide uptake by a photosynthesizing plant is exactly balanced by its rate of carbon dioxide release in respiration and photorespiration
  • complementarianism — The doctrine that genders in a society should have complementary roles.
  • complementary base — either of the nucleotide bases linked by a hydrogen bond on opposite strands of DNA or double-stranded RNA: guanine is the complementary base of cytosine, and adenine is the complementary base of thymine in DNA and of uracil in RNA.
  • complexity measure — (algorithm)   A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
  • composite function — a function obtained from two given functions, where the range of one function is contained in the domain of the second function, by assigning to an element in the domain of the first function that element in the range of the second function whose inverse image is the image of the element.
  • composition rubber — manufactured rubber
  • composition series — a normal series of subgroups in which no additional subgroups can be inserted.
  • comprehensibleness — The quality of being comprehensible; comprehensibility.
  • compression stroke — The compression stroke is the stroke in an engine in which the air or air/fuel mixture is compressed before ignition.
  • compressor program — a computer program that compresses data
  • compressor station — A compressor station is a facility with several compressors (= devices that increase the pressure of air or natural gas) and other equipment to pump natural gas under pressure over long distances.
  • computer scientist — a person with advanced knowledge of computers and how they work
  • concentration span — the length of time a person can concentrate on something
  • conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.
  • conceptualisations — Plural form of conceptualisation.
  • conceptualizations — Plural form of conceptualization.
  • condensation point — a point of which every neighborhood contains an uncountable number of points of a given set.
  • connected subgraph — (mathematics)   A connected graph consisting of a subset of the nodes and edges of some other graph.
  • conservative party — The Conservative Party is the main right-of-centre party in Britain.
  • 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.
  • constructive proof — (mathematics)   A proof that something exists that provides an example or a method for actually constructing it. For example, for any pair of finite real numbers n < 0 and p > 0, there exists a real number 0 < k < 1 such that f(k) = (1-k)*n + k*p = 0. A constructive proof would proceed by rearranging the above to derive an equation for k: k = 1/(1-n/p) From this and the constraints on n and p, we can show that 0 < k < 1. A few mathematicians actually reject *all* non-constructive arguments as invalid; this means, for instance, that the law of the excluded middle (either P or not-P must hold, whatever P is) has to go; this makes proof by contradiction invalid. See intuitionistic logic. Constructive proofs are popular in theoretical computer science, both because computer scientists are less given to abstraction than mathematicians and because intuitionistic logic turns out to be an appropriate theoretical treatment of the foundations of computer science.
  • continuous process — A continuous process is a process in which the product comes out without interruption and not in groups.
  • conversation piece — something, esp an unusual object, that provokes conversation
  • cordless telephone — a portable battery-powered telephone with a short-range radio link to a fixed base unit
  • 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
  • corps of engineers — a branch of the U.S. Army responsible for military and many civil engineering projects.
  • corpuscular theory — the theory, originally proposed by Newton, and revived with the development of the quantum theory, that light consists of a stream of particles
  • correspondent bank — A correspondent bank is a bank that provides services such as accepting deposits for another bank.
  • corridors of power — the higher echelons of government, the Civil Service, etc, considered as the location of power and influence
  • costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
  • counter-hypothesis — a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
  • counterproposition — a proposition made in place of or in opposition to a preceding one.
  • 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.
  • creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently
  • crookes dark space — the dark space between the cathode glow and the negative glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
  • crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
  • cursor dipped in x — (jargon)   The metaphorical source of the electronic equivalent of a poisoned-pen letter. Derived from English metaphors of the form "pen dipped in X" (where X = e.g. "acid", "bile", "vitriol"). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
  • curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
  • customs inspection — an inspection carried out by a customs department
  • 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.
  • deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
  • decision procedure — a procedure, as an algorithm, for determining in a finite number of steps the validity of any of a certain class of propositions.
  • deep-discount bond — a fixed-interest security that pays little or no interest but is issued at a substantial discount to its redemption value, thus largely substituting capital gain for income
  • deep-sea fisherman — a person who takes part in deep-sea fishing
  • delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
  • departmental store — a department store.
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