20-letter words containing s, t, e, r, i, l
- cavalleria rusticana — an opera (1890) by Pietro Mascagni.
- cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
- cellulose triacetate — a triacetic ester of cellulose characterized by its resistance to most solvents, used chiefly in the manufacture of textile fibers.
- central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
- centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
- channel service unit — (communications) (CSU) A type of interface used to connect a terminal or computer to a digital medium in the same way that a modem is used for connection to an analogue medium. A CSU is provided by the communication carrier to customers who wish to use their own equipment to retime and regenerate the incoming signals. The customer must supply all of the transmit logic, receive logic and timing recovery in order to use the CSU, whereas a digital service unit DSU performs these functions.
- chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- child-abuse register — (in Britain) a list of children deemed to be at risk of abuse or injury from their parents or guardians, compiled and held by a local authority, area health authority, or NSPCC Special Unit
- childhood sweetheart — a boyfriend or girlfriend from an early stage of life
- chinese scholar tree — a spreading, round-headed tree, Sophora japonica, of the legume family, native to China and Korea, having yellowish-white flowers in loose, showy clusters, grown widely as a street tree.
- cholestyramine resin — a powdery synthetic resin that binds with and prevents the reabsorption of bile acids, used to reduce cholesterol levels, relieve itching associated with jaundice, etc.
- christopher columbus — Christopher (Sp. Cristóbal Colón; It. Cristoforo Colombo) 1446?–1506, Italian navigator in Spanish service: traditionally considered the discoverer of America 1492.
- cleansing department — the department of a local authority that collects refuse
- climbing bittersweet — bittersweet (def 4).
- climbing-bittersweet — Also called woody nightshade. a climbing or trailing plant, Solanum dulcamara, of the nightshade family, having small, violet, star-shaped flowers with a protruding yellow center and scarlet berries.
- cocktail shaker sort — (algorithm) A bi-directional bubble sort. Passes alternate between ascending through array indexes, pushing the largest item to the bottom; and descending through array indexes, pushing the smallest item to the top.
- collective ownership — ownership by a group for the benefit of members of that group
- compartmentalisation — Alternative form of compartmentalization.
- 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
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- 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
- consumer electronics — computers and other electronic devices designed for private individuals as opposed to businesses
- 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)
- 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
- council of ministers — the EU's most important decision-making body
- counterrevolutionist — A counterrevolutionary.
- craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
- cylinder head gasket — (in an automobile engine) a gasket placed between the cylinder and the cylinder heads to avoid leaks of coolant and compression
- democratic socialism — socialism, or a modified form of socialism, achieved by a gradual transition by and under democratic political processes.
- deoxyribonucleotides — Plural form of deoxyribonucleotide.
- dickless workstation — (abuse) Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
- diels-alder reaction — the reaction in which a conjugated diene combines with a double or triple bond of a given compound to form a ring of six carbon atoms.
- difference threshold — the minimum difference between two stimuli that is just detectable by a person
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- digital data service — (communications) (DDS) The class of service offered by telecommunications companies for transmitting digital data as opposed to voice.
- digital service unit — data service unit
- diplomatic secretary — secretary (def 5).
- diplomatic-secretary — secretary (def 5).
- disability insurance — insurance providing income to a policyholder who is disabled and cannot work.
- diskless workstation — (computer, networking) A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- distributive lattice — (theory) A lattice for which the least upper bound (lub) and greatest lower bound (glb) operators distribute over one another so that a lub (b glb c) == (a lub c) glb (a lub b) and vice versa. ("lub" and "glb" are written in LateX as \sqcup and \sqcap).
- diverticular disease — any disease of the colon involving the presence of diverticula
- drink with the flies — to drink alone
- drug delivery system — A drug delivery system is a system that is used as a medium or carrier for administering a pharmaceutical product to a patient.
- early warning system — Military. a network of radar installations designed to detect enemy aircraft or missiles in time for the effective deployment of defense systems.
- early-warning system — Military. a network of radar installations designed to detect enemy aircraft or missiles in time for the effective deployment of defense systems.