16-letter words containing u, a, m
- communion sunday — any Sunday on which communion is administered.
- communitarianism — A theory or system of social organization based on small self-governing communities.
- community action — campaigns undertaken by the people living in a particular place
- community charge — (formerly in Britain) a flat-rate charge paid by each adult in a community to his or her local authority in place of rates
- community leader — a leading figure in a community
- commutation-test — the act of substituting one thing for another; substitution; exchange.
- commutator group — the subgroup of a given group, which consists of all the commutators in the group.
- companion volume — a book that complements another on a related subject, usually by the same author
- company of jesus — former name of the Society of Jesus.
- compute parallel — (language) (Compel) The first single-assignment language.
- computer program — a set of instructions for a computer to perform some task
- configurationism — Gestalt psychology
- conical pendulum — a clock pendulum oscillating in a circle rather than in a straight line.
- consequentialism — the doctrine that an action is right or wrong according as its consequences are good or bad
- consumer durable — Consumer durables are goods which are expected to last a long time, and are bought infrequently.
- contagious magic — magic that attempts to affect a person through something once connected with him or her, as a shirt once worn by the person or a footprint left in the sand; a branch of sympathetic magic based on the belief that things once in contact are in some way permanently so, however separated physically they may subsequently become.
- contumaciousness — The property of being contumacious.
- coram non judice — before a court lacking the authority to hear and decide the case in question.
- counter-argument — A counter-argument is an argument that makes an opposing point to another argument.
- counterarguments — Plural form of counterargument.
- countermigration — a migration in the opposite direction.
- counterstatement — a statement made to deny or refute another statement.
- couvade syndrome — a psychosomatic condition in which the spouse or partner of a pregnant woman experiences symptoms of childbirth or pregnancy
- crash test dummy — a dummy used in crash tests
- cream of coconut — coconut cream (def 1).
- cream puff paste — paste made with eggs, water or milk, butter, and flour, used in making éclairs, profiteroles, and other kinds of puffs.
- cream-of-coconut — Also called cream of coconut. a creamy white liquid skimmed from the top of coconut milk that has been made by soaking grated coconut meat in water, used in East Indian cookery, mixed drinks, etc.
- creature comfort — anything providing bodily comfort, as food, clothing, or shelter
- criminal assault — a punishable offence of attempting to harm another person through physical contact
- criminal justice — the system of law enforcement, involving police, lawyers, courts, and corrections, used for all stages of criminal proceedings and punishment.
- cuban royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea regia, of tropical America, having a trunk that is swollen in the middle, drooping leaves from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) long, and small, round fruit.
- cumberland sauce — a cold sauce made from orange and lemon juice, port, and redcurrant jelly, served with ham, game, or other meat
- curriculum vitae — A curriculum vitae is the same as a CV.
- customary tenant — a tenant occupying a property under the customs of the manor, often a low-status tenant with little security of tenure
- dandruff shampoo — a preparation of soap or detergent used to wash the hair and which helps to control and reduce dandruff
- decimal currency — a system of currency in which the monetary units are parts or powers of ten
- dehumidification — Dehumidification is the removal of vapor from a gas-vapor mixture.
- demerara (sugar) — a coarse, light-brown sugar
- demolition squad — a group of demolishers
- demutualizations — Plural form of demutualization.
- depleted uranium — Depleted uranium is a type of uranium that is used in some bombs.
- diazoamino group — the divalent group –N=NNH–.
- diethyltoluamide — a liquid, C 12 H 17 NO, used as an insect repellent and resin solvent.
- digital computer — a computer that processes information in digital form.
- dimethyl sulfate — a colorless or yellow, slightly water-soluble, poisonous liquid, (CH 3) 2 SO 2 , used chiefly in organic synthesis.
- dinosaurs mating — (humour) The activity said to occur when yet another big iron merger or buy-out occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the mainframe industry. Also described as "elephants mating": lots of noise and action at a high level, with an eventual outcome in the somewhat distant future. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was "IBM and the Seven Dwarves": Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. Early on, RCA sold out to Univac and GE also sold out, and it was "IBM and the BUNCH" (an acronym for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out by Bull. Univac in turn merged with Sperry to form Sperry/Univac, which was later merged (although the employees of Sperry called it a hostile takeover) with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1986 (this was when the phrase "dinosaurs mating" was coined). In 1991 AT&T absorbed NCR, only to spit it out again in 1996. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988 and later others. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.
- diplomatic pouch — a sealed mailbag containing diplomatic correspondence that is sent free of inspection between a foreign office and its diplomatic or consular post abroad or from one such post to another.
- discombobulating — Present participle of discombobulate.
- discombobulation — to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate: The speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.
- distance modulus — a measure of the distance, r, of a celestial object too far away to show measurable parallax. It is given by m–M = 5 log(r/10), where m is its apparent magnitude (corrected for interstellar absorption) and M is its absolute magnitude