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18-letter words containing s, p, e, c, i, n

  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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!"
  • customs inspection — an inspection carried out by a customs department
  • 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
  • discharge printing — a fabric-printing method in which the material is dyed and then certain areas are discharged so as to permit the original hue or its color replacement to act as a pattern against the colored ground.
  • dispatch documents — documents sent with a parcel, etc, detailing information such as contents, delivery address, etc
  • dispensing chemist — a shop where drugs and medicines are sold or given out
  • domestic appliance — a machine used for household tasks, for example, a washing machine, refrigerator, etc.
  • dynamically scoped — dynamic scope
  • east india company — the company chartered by the English government in 1600 to carry on trade in the East Indies: dissolved in 1874.
  • eclipsing variable — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
  • eggshell porcelain — a type of very thin translucent porcelain originally made in China
  • eigendecomposition — (linear algebra) The factorization of a matrix into a canonical form, whereby the matrix is represented in terms of its eigenvalues and eigenvectors.
  • employment service — (in the United States) a government department established to collect and supply to the unemployed information about job vacancies and to employers information about availability of prospective workers
  • endangered species — animal, plant becoming extinct
  • energy consumption — amount of energy used
  • equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
  • escape sb's notice — If something escapes your notice, you fail to recognize it or realize it.
  • ethnopsychological — Relating to ethnopsychology.
  • examination script — a script with answers written on it by an examination candidate taking a written examination
  • exercise equipment — equipment that can be used for exercising, such as tread mills, rowing machines, etc
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
  • ftp software, inc. — (company)   Developers of the original PC/TCP Packet Driver specification. Address: 26 Princess St. Wakefield, MA 01880-3004. Telephone: +1 (617) 246 0900.
  • funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
  • galilean telescope — a refracting telescope that forms an erect image, consisting of an objective of relatively long focal length that causes light rays to converge and an eyepiece of short focal length that causes them to diverge.
  • general precession — the precession that results from both lunisolar precession and planetary precession; precession of the equinoxes.
  • gensym corporation — (company)   A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
  • gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
  • great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
  • handyman's special — fixer-upper.
  • helicopter gunship — military attack helicopter
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