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20-letter words containing s, i, n, t

  • communication system — (communications)   A system or facility for transfering data between persons and equipment. The system usually consists of a collection of individual communication networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations and terminal equipment capable of interconnection and interoperation so as to form an integrated whole. These individual components must serve a common purpose, be technically compatible, employ common procedures, respond to some form of control and generally operate in unison.
  • compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
  • compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
  • compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
  • compensation package — the sum of compensation awarded in a legal case
  • complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
  • compression ignition — ignition of engine fuel by the heat of air compressed in the cylinders into which the fuel is introduced.
  • computer typesetting — a system for the high-speed composition of type by a device driven by punched paper tape or magnetic tape that has been processed by a computer
  • condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
  • conditioned response — a response that is transferred from the second to the first of a pair of stimuli. A well-known Pavlovian example is salivation by a dog when it hears a bell ring, because food has always been presented when the bell has been rung previously
  • conditioned stimulus — a stimulus to which an organism has learned to make a response by classical conditioning
  • confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
  • conflict of interest — a conflict between one's obligation to the public good and one's self-interest, as in the case of a public officeholder who owns stock in a company seeking government contracts
  • connector conspiracy — (business, standard)   The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, other designers) to come up with products that don't fit with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The term probably came into prominence with the appearance of the DEC KL-10, none of whose connectors matched anything else. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually *patented* by DEC, who reputedly refused to licence the design, thus effectively locking out competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy was a source of frustration for the owners of dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives. A related phenomenon is the invention of new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialised case-cracking tool to open the box. With the advent of more open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse. Compare backward combatability.
  • conservation of mass — the principle that the total mass of any isolated system is constant and is independent of any chemical and physical changes taking place within the system
  • conservative baptist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Conservative Baptist Association of America) organized in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1948.
  • conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
  • constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
  • construction company — a business enterprise concerned with the construction of buildings, bridges, etc
  • consultant physician — a physician who has attained the rank of consultant in a particular speciality
  • consumer electronics — computers and other electronic devices designed for private individuals as opposed to businesses
  • contact metamorphism — localized metamorphism resulting from the heat of an igneous intrusion.
  • context of situation — the totality of extralinguistic features having relevance to a communicative act.
  • continental congress — the assembly of delegates from the North American rebel colonies held during and after the War of American Independence. It issued the Declaration of Independence (1776) and framed the Articles of Confederation (1777)
  • continuous variation — variation in phenotypic traits such as body weight or height in which a series of types are distributed on a continuum rather than grouped into discrete categories. Compare discontinuous variation.
  • continuum hypothesis — the assertion that there is no set whose cardinality is greater than that of the integers and smaller than that of the reals
  • contradistinguishing — Present participle of contradistinguish.
  • controlled explosion — the deliberate detonation of an explosive device under strictly controlled circumstances
  • controlling interest — a quantity of shares in a business that is sufficient to ensure control over its direction
  • convective discharge — the repulsion of ions of a gas by a highly charged body, creating a discernible wind.
  • conventional weapons — weapons which are not nuclear
  • conversation stopper — a comment that is so shocking or boring that people stop talking
  • copulative asyndeton — a staccato effect produced by omitting copulative connectives between two or more items in a group, as in “Friends, Romans, countrymen.”.
  • corruption of minors — the criminal offence of inducing people below the age of consent to engage in sexual activity
  • cost-of-living index — a numerical scale by means of which cost-of-living levels can be compared with a base number
  • council of ministers — the EU's most important decision-making body
  • count one's chickens — If you say that someone is counting their chickens, you mean that they are assuming that they will be successful or get something, when this is not certain.
  • counterdemonstration — a demonstration that is held in reaction to another demonstration
  • counterrevolutionist — A counterrevolutionary.
  • craft apprenticeship — a period of training for a skilled trade in industry, such as for a plumber or electrician
  • craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
  • crime against nature — Law. sodomy.
  • crime and punishment — a novel (1866) by Feodor Dostoevsky.
  • cross-country skiing — the activity of skiing across open country for pleasure
  • crossover distortion — distortion that sometimes occurs at a frequency (crossover frequency) at which a crossover network switches signals from one speaker to another.
  • crossword dictionary — a dictionary that lists common clues found in crossword puzzles with potential answer words. In books, the lists are usually sorted by the number of letters in the answer, while an online crossword dictionary, such as the Dictionary.com Crossword Solver, is able to analyze queries electronically, examining either the clue or the number and pattern of letters already filled in to arrive at suggested answers.
  • cut of someone's jib — someone's manner, behaviour, style, etc
  • cutting-out scissors — a type of scissors used to cut out pieces of fabric for sewing
  • cylinder head gasket — (in an automobile engine) a gasket placed between the cylinder and the cylinder heads to avoid leaks of coolant and compression
  • cytosine arabinoside — cytarabine.
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