17-letter words containing t, u, r, a, c
- barkhausen effect — the phenomenon of short, sudden changes in the magnetism of a ferromagnetic substance occurring when the intensity of the magnetizing field is continuously altered.
- battle-ax culture — a late Neolithic to Copper Age culture of northern Europe marked especially by the production of pottery bearing the imprint of cord and by the use of battle-axes as burial accouterments.
- bermuda buttercup — a bulbous plant, Oxalis pescaprae, native to southern Africa, having nodding, yellow flowers.
- biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
- blackcurrant bush — a bush of the blackcurrant plant
- blackout curtains — thick, lined curtains designed to shut out all daylight and keep a room in complete darkness
- blue dog democrat — a fiscally conservative member of the Democratic Party
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- british columbian — of or relating to British Columbia or its inhabitants
- brokerage account — A brokerage account is an account with a broker where an investor can buy and sell and hold securities.
- budgetary control — a system of managing a business by applying a financial value to each forecast activity. Actual performance is subsequently compared with the estimates
- budgetary deficit — the amount by which government expenditure exceeds income from taxation, customs duties, etc, in any one fiscal year
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.
- bureau of customs — former name of the United States Customs Service.
- bureaucratization — to divide an administrative agency or office into bureaus.
- cabbage butterfly — a common white butterfly (Pieris rapae) whose green larvae feed upon cabbage and related plants
- calcium carbonate — a white crystalline salt occurring in limestone, chalk, marble, calcite, coral, and pearl: used in the production of lime and cement. Formula: CaCO3
- california nutmeg — a tall, pungently aromatic California evergreen tree, Torreya californica, of the yew family, having a fissured, gray-brown bark and small, purple-streaked, green fruit.
- camberwell beauty — a nymphalid butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa, of temperate regions, having dark purple wings with cream-yellow borders
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
- capital structure — the way that a company finances its assets through a combination of equity, debt etc
- caribbean current — an ocean current flowing westward through the Caribbean Sea.
- cariboo mountains — a mountain range in SW Canada, in SE British Columbia. Highest peak: Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 3520 m (11 549 ft)
- carlos de austria — Don [dawn] /dɔn/ (Show IPA), 1545–68, eldest son of Philip II of Spain: died during imprisonment for conspiracy against his father.
- cartesian product — the set of all ordered pairs of members of two given sets. The product A × B is the set of all pairs <a, b> where a is a member of A and b is a member of B
- cast/run your eye — If you cast your eye or run your eye over something, you look at it or read it quickly.
- casting the runes — (jargon) What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program because it never works for anyone else; especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
- castor and pollux — the twin sons of Leda: Pollux was fathered by Zeus, Castor by the mortal Tyndareus. After Castor's death, Pollux spent half his days with his half-brother in Hades and half with the gods in Olympus
- causality paradox — the hypothetical cause-and-effect of time travel and making changes in the past that would affect current actions.
- celestial equator — the great circle lying on the celestial sphere, the plane of which is perpendicular to the line joining the north and south celestial poles
- cellular automata — cellular automaton
- cellulose nitrate — a compound made by treating cellulose with nitric and sulphuric acids, used in plastics, lacquers, and explosives: a nitrogen-containing ester of cellulose
- centrifugal brake — a safety mechanism on a hoist, crane, etc, that consists of revolving brake shoes that are driven outwards by centrifugal force into contact with a fixed brake drum when the rope drum revolves at excessive speed
- centrifugal force — In physics, centrifugal force is the force that makes objects move outwards when they are spinning around something or travelling in a curve.
- chart of accounts — A chart of accounts is a list of all the accounts used in a business to classify transactions or report balances.
- chateau cardboard — wine sold in a winebox
- chemotherapeutics — chemotherapy.
- chest measurement — the circumference of the trunk, measured around the middle of the chest
- chinese turkestan — the E part of the central Asian region of Turkestan: corresponds generally to the present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China
- christmas pudding — Christmas pudding is a special pudding that is eaten at Christmas.
- church triumphant — those Christians in heaven who have triumphed over evil and the enemies of Christ.
- churchyard beetle — a blackish nocturnal ground beetle, Blaps mucronata, found in cellars and similar places
- circassian walnut — the hard, heavy, brown or purplish wood of the English walnut
- circular function — trigonometric function (def 1).
- circular triangle — a triangle in which each side is the arc of a circle
- circular velocity — the velocity at which a body must move in order to maintain an orbit at the outer edge of the earth's atmosphere.
- circumlocutionary — a roundabout or indirect way of speaking; the use of more words than necessary to express an idea.
- circumstantiality — the quality of being circumstantial
- circumstantiating — Present participle of circumstantiate.