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20-letter words containing s, t, e, r

  • christopher columbus — Christopher (Sp. Cristóbal Colón; It. Cristoforo Colombo) 1446?–1506, Italian navigator in Spanish service: traditionally considered the discoverer of America 1492.
  • christopher strachey — (person)   Professor of Computation at Oxford, England, born 1916, died May 1975. He invented the term "currying". See also: General Purpose Macro-generator.
  • 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.
  • clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
  • co-operative society — In Britain, a co-operative society is a commercial organization with several shops in a particular district. Customers can join this organization and get a share of its profits.
  • 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
  • commissioning editor — a person who commissions authors to write books and magazine articles
  • compare and contrast — note similarities, differences
  • 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
  • compensatory damages — sum paid for a loss
  • complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
  • complementary angles — either of two angles that added together produce an angle of 90°.
  • complementary colors — any of two colors of the spectrum that, combined in the right intensities, produce white or nearly white light
  • complementary strand — either of the two chains that make up a double helix of DNA, with corresponding positions on the two chains being composed of a pair of complementary bases.
  • composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • congressman-at-large — (in the US) a member of the House of Representatives who was elected by the voters of an entire state as opposed to the voters of a single Congressional district
  • 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
  • constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
  • 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.
  • contempt of congress — contempt of a U.S. Congressional body, as of an investigating committee, shown by a witness summoned or appearing before it.
  • 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
  • controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
  • 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.
  • conversation stopper — a comment that is so shocking or boring that people stop talking
  • council of ministers — the EU's most important decision-making body
  • counterdemonstration — a demonstration that is held in reaction to another demonstration
  • counterrevolutionist — A counterrevolutionary.
  • court of last resort — (in the US) a supreme court
  • court of st. james's — the British royal court: so called from St. James's Palace, London, the former scene of royal receptions.
  • 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
  • cream of tomato soup — a creamy soup made from tomatoes
  • crime against nature — Law. sodomy.
  • crime and punishment — a novel (1866) by Feodor Dostoevsky.
  • cross someone's path — to meet or thwart someone
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