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20-letter words containing t, r, i, c

  • armchair quarterback — a person who is not a quarterback (or general, etc.), but offers opinions and criticism on the performance or decisions of those who are
  • articulatory feature — a property of a speech sound based on its voicing or on its place or manner of articulation in the vocal tract, as voiceless, bilabial, or stop used in describing the sound (p).
  • artificial harmonics — harmonics of a note produced on a stringed instrument by lightly touching a stopped sounded string.
  • artificial pacemaker — an electronic device for use in certain cases of heart disease to assume the functions of the natural cardiac pacemaker
  • artificial satellite — a man-made device orbiting around the earth, moon, or another planet transmitting to earth scientific information or used for communication
  • artificial selection — a process in the breeding of animals and in the cultivation of plants by which the breeder chooses to perpetuate only those forms having certain desirable inheritable characteristics.
  • asexual reproduction — reproduction, as budding, fission, or spore formation, not involving the union of gametes.
  • association of stars — a sparsely populated group of between 10 and 1000 young stars of similar spectral type and common origin that are moving too fast to form a permanent, gravitationally bound system.
  • astatic galvanometer — a galvanometer that is unaffected by the earth's magnetic field and is used for measuring small currents.
  • asymmetrical warfare — warfare between a powerful military force and a weak guerilla force
  • at someone's service — ready to serve or cooperate with someone
  • at two hours' notice — with notification only two hours in advance
  • atmospheric pressure — Atmospheric pressure is the pressure of the atmosphere on the Earth's surface.
  • attachment parenting — a style of child rearing aimed at developing a strong emotional bond between the child and primary caregiver. See also attachment (def 3a).
  • attacks as a service — (security, legal)   A kind of cybercrime as a service in which the service provider performs denial of service attacks on behalf of others for money.
  • attic salt (or wit) — graceful, piercing wit
  • automobile insurance — Automobile insurance is insurance coverage for cars.
  • axiomatic set theory — (theory)   One of several approaches to set theory, consisting of a formal language for talking about sets and a collection of axioms describing how they behave. There are many different axiomatisations for set theory. Each takes a slightly different approach to the problem of finding a theory that captures as much as possible of the intuitive idea of what a set is, while avoiding the paradoxes that result from accepting all of it, the most famous being Russell's paradox. The main source of trouble in naive set theory is the idea that you can specify a set by saying whether each object in the universe is in the "set" or not. Accordingly, the most important differences between different axiomatisations of set theory concern the restrictions they place on this idea (known as "comprehension"). NBG (von Neumann-Bernays-Goedel) set theory sort of allows comprehension for all formulae without restriction, but distinguishes between two kinds of set, so that the sets produced by applying comprehension are only second-class sets. NBG is exactly as powerful as ZF, in the sense that any statement that can be formalised in both theories is a theorem of ZF if and only if it is a theorem of ZFC. MK (Morse-Kelley) set theory is a strengthened version of NBG, with a simpler axiom system. It is strictly stronger than NBG, and it is possible that NBG might be consistent but MK inconsistent. ML ("Modern Logic") is to NF as NBG is to ZF. (Its name derives from the title of the book in which Quine introduced an early, defective, form of it). It is stronger than ZF (it can prove things that ZF can't), but if NF is consistent then ML is too.
  • background radiation — low-intensity radiation from, for example, small amounts of radioisotopes in soil, air, building materials, etc
  • backwards compatible — backward compatibility
  • bacteriochlorophylls — Plural form of bacteriochlorophyll.
  • ballet-wrap cardigan — a cardigan with wrapover fronts which are fastened with wraparound ties
  • ballistic trajectory — the path of an unpowered object, as a missile, moving only under the influence of gravity and possibly atmospheric friction and with its surface providing no significant lift to alter the course of flight.
  • basal metabolic rate — the rate at which heat is produced by the body at rest, 12 to 14 hours after eating, measured in kilocalories per square metre of body surface per hour
  • basic lead carbonate — ceruse.
  • basic object adapter — (architecture)   (BOA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
  • basic rate interface — (communications)   (BRI, 2B+D, 2B1D) An Integrated Services Digital Network channel consisting of two 64 kbps "bearer" (B) channels and one 16 kbps "delta" (D) channel, giving a total data rate of 144 kbps. The B channels are used for voice or user data, and the D channel is used for control and signalling and/or X.25 packet networking. BRI is the kind of ISDN interface most likely to be found in residential service.
  • bats-wing coral-tree — a small tree, Erythrina verspertilio, of tropical and subtropical Australia with red flowers and leaves shaped like the wings of a bat
  • biological diversity — Biological diversity is the same as biodiversity.
  • black-throated diver — a diving bird, Gavia arctica, found in Europe and Asia, and a rare summer visitor to the UK
  • blending inheritance — the blending of characteristics of the parents in the offspring, as in a pink flower that results from the mating of a red flower with a white one
  • bolometric magnitude — the magnitude of a star derived either from the total energy that it radiates at all wavelengths or from the total energy of those of its wavelengths that are received on earth.
  • born-again christian — person: evangelical
  • bottom-up processing — a processing technique, either in the brain or in a computer, in which incoming information is analysed in successive steps and later-stage processing does not affect processing in earlier stages
  • boulogne billancourt — a suburb of Paris, in N France.
  • boulogne-billancourt — an industrial suburb of SW Paris. Pop: 106 367 (1999)
  • breadth-first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which tries all one-step extensions of current paths before trying larger extensions. This requires all current paths to be kept in memory simultaneously, or at least their end points. Opposite of depth-first search. See also best first search.
  • bring home the bacon — If you bring home the bacon, you achieve what you needed to achieve.
  • bring to sb's notice — If you bring something to someone's notice, you make them aware of it.
  • broadcast journalism — journalism as practiced in radio and television.
  • broadcasting station — a television or radio station
  • buck's horn plantain — a Eurasian plant, Plantago coronopus, having leaves resembling a buck's horn: family Plantaginaceae
  • buckminsterfullerene — a form of carbon that contains molecules having 60 carbon atoms arranged at the vertices of a polyhedron with hexagonal and pentagonal faces. It is produced in carbon arcs and occurs naturally in small amounts in certain minerals
  • by their own account — If you say that something concerning a particular person is true by his or her own account, you mean that you believe it because that person has said it is true.
  • calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
  • calcium permanganate — a violet, crystalline, deliquescent solid, Ca(MnO 4) 2 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a disinfectant and deodorizer.
  • call-level interface — (database, standard)   (SQL/CLI) A programming interface designed to support SQL access to databases from shrink-wrapped application programs. CLI was originally created by a subcommittee of the SQL Access Group (SAG). The SAG/CLI specification was published as the Microsoft Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) specification in 1992. In 1993, SAG submitted the CLI to the ANSI and ISO SQL committees. SQL/CLI provides an international standard implementation-independent CLI to access SQL databases. Client-server tools can easily access databases through dynamic link libraries. It supports and encourages a rich set of client-server tools. SQL/CLI is an addendum to 1992 SQL standard (SQL-92). It was completed as ISO standard ISO/IEC 9075-3:1995 Information technology -- Database languages -- SQL -- Part 3: Call-Level Interface (SQL/CLI). The current SQL/CLI effort is adding support for SQL3.
  • cancel a reservation — If you cancel a reservation, you stop it because someone who has booked a room has informed you that they no longer wish to stay there.
  • canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
  • cantabrian mountains — a mountain chain along the N coast of Spain, consisting of a series of high ridges that rise over 2400 m (8000 ft): rich in minerals (esp coal and iron)
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