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18-letter words containing t, e, r, h

  • cot death syndrome — the unexplained sudden death of an infant during sleep
  • 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.
  • countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
  • court of exchequer — (formerly) an English civil court where Crown revenue cases were tried
  • cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
  • creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
  • crested flycatcher — any of various tyrant flycatchers (esp. genus Myiarchus) with a prominent crest
  • crested wheatgrass — a forage grass, Agropyron cristatum, native to Eurasia and grown in the Great Plains as pasturage, hay, and for erosion control.
  • crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
  • cyclic pitch lever — a lever in a helicopter to change the angle of attack of individual rotor blades, causing the helicopter to move forwards, backwards, or sideways
  • cytoarchitectonics — Cytoarchitecture.
  • daisywheel printer — (printer)   A kind of impact printer where the characters are arranged on the ends of the spokes of a wheel (resembling the petals on a daisy). The wheel (usually made of plastic) is rotated to select the character to print and then an electrically operated hammer mechanism bends the selected spoke forward slightly, sandwiching an ink ribbon between the character and the paper, as in a typewriter. One advantage of this arrangement over that of a typewriter is that different wheels may be inserted to produce different typefaces.
  • deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
  • dear john (letter) — a letter from one's fiancée or girlfriend breaking off an engagement or love affair, or from one's wife asking for a divorce
  • death-valley curve — a curve on a graph showing how the capital of a new company plotted against time declines sharply as the venture capital is used up before income reaches predicted levels
  • dechristianization — The act of dechristianizing; the systematic removal of Christianity or Christian elements.
  • demorgan's theorem — (logic)   A logical theorem which states that the complement of a conjunction is the disjunction of the complements or vice versa. In symbols: not (x and y) = (not x) or (not y) not (x or y) = (not x) and (not y) E.g. if it is not the case that I am tall and thin then I am either short or fat (or both). The theorem can be extended to combinations of more than two terms in the obvious way. The same laws also apply to sets, replacing logical complement with set complement, conjunction ("and") with set intersection, and disjunction ("or") with set union. A (C) programmer might use this to re-write if (!foo && !bar) ... as if (!(foo || bar)) ... thus saving one operator application (though an optimising compiler should do the same, leaving the programmer free to use whichever form seemed clearest).
  • dendrochronologist — One who carries out dendrochronology.
  • depth-first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which extends the current path as far as possible before backtracking to the last choice point and trying the next alternative path. Depth-first search may fail to find a solution if it enters a cycle in the graph. This can be avoided if we never extend a path to a node which it already contains. Opposite of breadth first search. See also iterative deepening.
  • dermot macmurrough — ?1110–71, king of Leinster, who, by enlisting the support of the English to win back his kingdom, was responsible for the English conquest of Ireland
  • destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
  • determinate growth — growth of a plant stem that is terminated early by the formation of a bud
  • devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
  • diatomaceous earth — an unconsolidated form of diatomite
  • dichloracetic acid — a highly corrosive acid. Formula: C2H2Cl2O2
  • dielectric heating — the heating of a nonconducting substance caused by dielectric loss when the material is placed in a variable electric field.
  • diethylstilbestrol — a nonsteroidal synthetic estrogen, C 18 H 20 O 2 , used in medicine chiefly in the treatment of menopausal symptoms and in animal feeds for chemical caponization: formerly used during pregnancy for the prevention of miscarriage but discontinued owing to its association with an increased risk of vaginal and cervical cancers in women having had fetal exposure. Abbreviation: DES.
  • digital switchover — the process of changing the method of transmitting television from analogue to digital format
  • dihydrotachysterol — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble sterol, C 28 H 46 O, derived from ergosterol: used chiefly in the treatment of hypoparathyroidism.
  • dimethyltryptamine — a hallucinogenic drug, C 12 H 16 N 2 , with an action of short duration. Abbreviation: DMT.
  • diphosphoglycerate — an ester of phosphoric acid and glyceric acid that occurs in the blood and that promotes the release of hemoglobin-bound oxygen.
  • diphtheria vaccine — a vaccine used to produce immunity against diphtheria
  • 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.
  • disenfranchisement — to disfranchise.
  • divergent thinking — thinking in an unusual and unstereotyped way, e.g. to generate several possible solutions to a problem
  • down to the ground — thoroughly; completely
  • drinking chocolate — sweetened cocoa powder
  • drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
  • drug on the market — Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
  • duchenne dystrophy — the most common form of muscular dystrophy, usually affecting only boys
  • duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
  • dysthymic disorder — a psychiatric disorder characterized by generalized depression that lasts for at least a year
  • eastern hemisphere — the eastern part of the terrestrial globe, including Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe.
  • eat your heart out — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
  • eighty-twenty rule — (programming)   The program-design version of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the problem can be solved with 20% of the effort that it would take to solve the whole problem. For example, parsing e-mail addresses in "From:" lines in e-mail messages is notoriously difficult if you follow the RFC 2822 specification. However, about 60% of actual "From:" lines are in the format "From: Their Name <[email protected]>", with a far more constrained idea of what can be in "user" or "host" than in RFC 2822. Another 25% just add double-quotes around "Their Name". Matching just those two patterns would thus cover 85% of "From:" lines, with a tiny portion of the code required to fully implement RFC2822. (Adding support for "From: [email protected]" and "From: [email protected] (Their Name) " brings coverage to almost 100%, leaving only really baroque things that RFC-2822 permits, like "From: Pete(A wonderful \) chap)
  • electric discharge — electricity emitted
  • electrocardiograph — A machine used for electrocardiography.
  • electrophotography — Any of several methods of photocopying in which an image is created and then transferred between surfaces using static electricity.
  • electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
  • elementary teacher — a teacher in an elementary school
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