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15-letter words containing s, p, e, r

  • cassette player — A cassette player is a machine that is used for playing cassettes and sometimes also recording them.
  • cast aspersions — If you cast aspersions on someone or something, you suggest that they are not very good in some way.
  • castanospermine — a substance obtained from the Australian chestnut or black bean tree
  • casters-up mode — [IBM, probably from slang belly up] Yet another synonym for "broken" or "down". Usually connotes a major failure. A system (hardware or software) which is "down" may be already being restarted before the failure is noticed, whereas one which is "casters up" is usually a good excuse to take the rest of the day off (as long as you're not responsible for fixing it).
  • castner process — a process for extracting sodium from sodium hydroxide, devised by Hamilton Young Castner (1858–98)
  • cell disruption — Cell disruption is when a biological material becomes smaller to release proteins and enzymes.
  • centipede grass — a slow-growing grass, Eremochloa ophiuroides, introduced into the U.S. from China and used for lawns in warm areas.
  • cephalothoraxes — Plural form of cephalothorax.
  • cervical plexus — a network of nerves branching from the spinal nerves of the neck region and innervating the neck, chest, diaphragm, and part of the face.
  • ceteris paribus — other things being equal
  • chairpersonship — a person who presides over a meeting, committee, board, etc.
  • character space — a space in a computer file into which a character can be fitted or which can be left blank
  • charleston peak — a mountain in SE Nevada: highest peak in the Spring Mountains. 11,919 feet (3635 meters).
  • cheap assembler — (tool)   (CHASM) A shareware assembler for MS-DOS.
  • chemoautotrophs — Plural form of chemoautotroph.
  • chemopsychiatry — the study and application of chemical substances in psychiatry
  • chest protector — a protective pad worn over the chest by a catcher or umpire to shield the body from foul tips.
  • chief inspector — an officer of high rank in British police forces
  • chile saltpeter — sodium nitrate, esp. as found naturally in Chile and Peru
  • chile saltpetre — a naturally occurring form of sodium nitrate: a soluble white or colourless mineral occurring in arid regions, esp in Chile and Peru
  • chinese juniper — a shrub or tree, Juniperus chinensis, of China, Mongolia, and Japan, having scalelike leaves and small, round, purplish-brown fruit.
  • chinese parsley — coriander leaves used as an herb; cilantro
  • choral speaking — recitation of poetry, dramatic pieces, etc. by a chorus of speakers
  • christadelphian — a member of a Christian millenarian sect founded in the US about 1848, holding that only the just will enter eternal life, that the wicked will be annihilated, and that the ignorant, the unconverted, and infants will not be raised from the dead
  • chryse planitia — a plain on Mars, the landing site of the Viking I spacecraft.
  • ciliary process — one of the folds on the ciliary body, connected with the suspensory ligament of the crystalline lens.
  • circumscriptive — That circumscribes or outlines.
  • circumspectness — the quality of being circumspect
  • class president — the student president of a school or college class
  • cleptoparasites — Plural form of cleptoparasite.
  • clumber spaniel — a type of thickset spaniel having a broad heavy head
  • committeeperson — a member of a committee.
  • company manners — rules of politeness that people, esp children, are supposed to observe in the presence of other people
  • comparativeness — of or relating to comparison.
  • comparison test — a comparison of particular qualities or traits in two or more things in order to get a measurable assessment
  • complementaries — forming a complement; completing.
  • complementizers — Plural form of complementizer.
  • complimentaries — of the nature of, conveying, or expressing a compliment, often one that is politely flattering: a complimentary remark.
  • composite print — a photograph characterized by overlapping or juxtaposed images resulting from a multiple exposure or the combining of negatives (composite print)
  • comprehensively — Something that is done comprehensively is done thoroughly.
  • comprehensivize — to make (an educational system) comprehensive
  • compressed slip — (networking)   (CSLIP) VanJacobsen TCP header compression. A version of SLIP using compression. CSLIP has no effect on the data portion of the packet and has nothing to do with compression by modem. It does reduce the TCP header from 40 bytes to 7 bytes, a noticeable difference when doing telnet with lots of little packets. CSLIP has no effect on UDP, only TCP.
  • compressibility — the ability to be compressed
  • compromise rail — a rail for linking rails having different sections.
  • comptrollership — controller (def 1).
  • computer ethics — (philosophy)   Ethics is the field of study that is concerned with questions of value, that is, judgments about what human behaviour is "good" or "bad". Ethical judgments are no different in the area of computing from those in any other area. Computers raise problems of privacy, ownership, theft, and power, to name but a few. Computer ethics can be grounded in one of four basic world-views: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, or Existentialism. Idealists believe that reality is basically ideas and that ethics therefore involves conforming to ideals. Realists believe that reality is basically nature and that ethics therefore involves acting according to what is natural. Pragmatists believe that reality is not fixed but is in process and that ethics therefore is practical (that is, concerned with what will produce socially-desired results). Existentialists believe reality is self-defined and that ethics therefore is individual (that is, concerned only with one's own conscience). Idealism and Realism can be considered ABSOLUTIST worldviews because they are based on something fixed (that is, ideas or nature, respectively). Pragmatism and Existentialism can be considered RELATIVIST worldviews because they are based or something relational (that is, society or the individual, respectively). Thus ethical judgments will vary, depending on the judge's world-view. Some examples: First consider theft. Suppose a university's computer is used for sending an e-mail message to a friend or for conducting a full-blown private business (billing, payroll, inventory, etc.). The absolutist would say that both activities are unethical (while recognising a difference in the amount of wrong being done). A relativist might say that the latter activities were wrong because they tied up too much memory and slowed down the machine, but the e-mail message wasn't wrong because it had no significant effect on operations. Next consider privacy. An instructor uses her account to acquire the cumulative grade point average of a student who is in a class which she instructs. She obtained the password for this restricted information from someone in the Records Office who erroneously thought that she was the student's advisor. The absolutist would probably say that the instructor acted wrongly, since the only person who is entitled to this information is the student and his or her advisor. The relativist would probably ask why the instructor wanted the information. If she replied that she wanted it to be sure that her grading of the student was consistent with the student's overall academic performance record, the relativist might agree that such use was acceptable. Finally, consider power. At a particular university, if a professor wants a computer account, all she or he need do is request one but a student must obtain faculty sponsorship in order to receive an account. An absolutist (because of a proclivity for hierarchical thinking) might not have a problem with this divergence in procedure. A relativist, on the other hand, might question what makes the two situations essentially different (e.g. are faculty assumed to have more need for computers than students? Are students more likely to cause problems than faculty? Is this a hold-over from the days of "in loco parentis"?).
  • computer screen — the working area on the monitor of a computer
  • computer system — a computer or a set of computers that works together
  • computer vision — a robot analogue of human vision in which information about the environment is received by one or more video cameras and processed by computer: used in navigation by robots, in the control of automated production lines, etc.
  • computerisation — (chiefly, British) alternative spelling of computerization.
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