20-letter words containing t, o, g, a
- career limiting move — (jargon) (CLM, Sun) Any action endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly one's job. E.g. "His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He won the prize for "best CLM"." A severe bug discovered by a customer might be a "CLM bug".
- cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
- celestial navigation — navigation by observation of the positions of the stars
- change a reservation — If you change a reservation, you move a booking to a different date because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they wish to stay there on a different date.
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- chromaticity diagram — a diagram in which values of two chromaticity coordinates are marked on a pair of rectangular axes, a point in the plane of these axes representing the chromaticity of any colour
- clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
- coalition government — a government containing members of two or more political parties
- cognitive dissonance — an uncomfortable mental state resulting from conflicting cognitions; usually resolved by changing some of the cognitions
- collective agreement — a negotiated agreement, which is not enforceable at law, between an employer and employees' representatives, covering rates of pay or terms and conditions of employment, or both
- college of education — a professional training college for teachers
- collegiate institute — (in certain provinces) a large secondary school with an academic, rather than vocational, emphasis
- comparative judgment — any judgment about whether there is a difference between two or more stimuli
- comparative religion — a field of study seeking to derive general principles from a comparison and classification of the growth and influence of various religions.
- compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
- compensation package — the sum of compensation awarded in a legal case
- compensatory damages — sum paid for a loss
- complementary angles — either of two angles that added together produce an angle of 90°.
- composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
- computer programming — the activity or profession of writing computer programs
- computing dictionary — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
- 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
- context-free grammar — (grammar) (CFG) A grammar where the syntax of each constituent (syntactic category or terminal symbol) is independent of the symbols occuring before and after it in a sentence. A context-free grammar describes a context-free language. Context-free grammars can be expressed by a set of "production rules" or syntactic rules. For example, a language with symbols "a" and "b" that must occur in unequal numbers can be represented by the CFG: S → U | V U → TaU | TaT | UaT V → TbV | TbT | VbT T → aTbT | bTaT | ε meaning the top-level category "S" consists of either a "U" or a "V" and so on. The special category "ε" represents the empty string. This grammar is context-free because each rule has a single symbol on its left-hand side.
- 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)
- contingency planning — planning for future events that seem less likely than others
- contingent liability — a possible liability that is dependent on the outcome of a future event
- continuing education — Continuing education is education for adults in a variety of subjects, most of which are practical, not academic.
- continuing-education — adult education.
- contradistinguishing — Present participle of contradistinguish.
- convective discharge — the repulsion of ions of a gas by a highly charged body, creating a discernible wind.
- corporate governance — the balance of control between the stakeholders, managers, and directors of an organization
- corrugated cardboard — cardboard usually made of three different layers, the two outer layers having a smooth surface while the central inner layer is corrugated
- creative imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
- cut the gordian knot — to find a quick, bold solution for a perplexing problem
- de facto segregation — racial, ethnic, or other segregation resulting from societal differences between groups, as socioeconomic or political disparity, without institutionalized legislation intended to segregate.
- declaratory judgment — a judgment that merely decides the rights of parties in a given transaction, situation, or dispute but does not order any action or award damages.
- decompartmentalizing — Present participle of decompartmentalize.
- deinstitutionalizing — Present participle of deinstitutionalize.
- demographic timebomb — a predicted shortage of school-leavers and consequently of available workers, caused by an earlier drop in the birth rate, resulting in an older workforce
- deontological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing with right action and the nature of duty, without regard to the goodness or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
- department of energy — the department of the U.S. federal government that sets forth and maintains the national energy policy, including energy conservation, environmental protection, etc. Abbreviation: DOE.
- developing-out paper — a sensitized printing paper requiring development in order to bring out the image. Abbreviation: D.O.P.
- development planning — the planning of the development of an area of land
- dialectical theology — a form of neoorthodox theology emphasizing the infinite tensions, paradoxes, and basic ambiguities inherent in Christian existence, and holding, against rationalism, that God is unknowable to humans except through divine grace and revelation.
- diamond in the rough — a diamond in its natural state
- dictionary catalogue — a catalogue of the authors, titles, and subjects of books in one alphabetical sequence
- differential housing — the casing that houses the differential of a motor vehicle
- directional drilling — a method of drilling for oil in which the well is not drilled vertically, as when a number of wells are to be drilled from a single platform to reach different areas of an oil field
- directory user agent — (DUA) The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another software element.