18-letter words containing u, n, g, a, r
- coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
- creeping featurism — (jargon) /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
- cumulative scoring — a method of scoring in which the score of a partnership is taken as the sum of their scores on all hands played.
- cunninghame graham — R(obert) B(ontine). 1852–1936, Scottish traveller, writer, and politician, noted for his essays and short stories: first president (1928) of the Scottish Nationalist Party
- dangerous offender — an offender who is deemed by a court of law to be likely to engage in further violent conduct, and who thus becomes eligible for an indefinite prison sentence
- digital signatures — digital signature
- dramatic monologue — a poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals himself or herself and the dramatic situation.
- 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.
- dwarf storage unit — (humour) (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
- earned run average — a measure of the effectiveness of a pitcher, obtained by dividing the number of earned runs scored against the pitcher by the number of innings pitched and multiplying the result by nine. A pitcher yielding three earned runs in nine innings has an earned run average of 3.00. Abbreviation: ERA, era.
- eastern algonquian — a subgroup of the Algonquian language family, comprising the languages spoken aboriginally from Nova Scotia to northeastern North Carolina.
- engelbart, douglas — Douglas Engelbart
- equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
- evolution strategy — (ES) A kind of evolutionary algorithm where individuals (potential solutions) are encoded by a set of real-valued "object variables" (the individual's "genome"). For each object variable an individual also has a "strategy variable" which determines the degree of mutation to be applied to the corresponding object variable. The strategy variables also mutate, allowing the rate of mutation of the object variables to vary. An ES is characterised by the population size, the number of offspring produced in each generation and whether the new population is selected from parents and offspring or only from the offspring. ES were invented in 1963 by Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) while searching for the optimal shapes of bodies in a flow.
- fall to the ground — (of a plan, theory, etc) to be rendered invalid, esp because of lack of necessary information
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- floating underflow — underflow
- fluegelman, andrew — Andrew Fluegelman
- foundation garment — an undergarment, as a girdle or corset, worn by women to support or give shape to the contours of the body.
- fracture toughness — The fracture toughness of a material is how likely it is to resist fracture.
- free-range poultry — poultry kept in natural nonintensive conditions
- fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
- fuming nitric acid — a colorless, yellowish, or brownish fuming corrosive liquid, usually prepared from nitric acid by the addition of excess nitrogen dioxide: used in organic synthesis for nitration, and as an oxidizer in liquid propellants for rockets.
- functional program — (language) A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
- funding operations — the conversion of government floating stock or short-term debt into holdings of long-term bonds
- furnishing fabrics — fabrics used to make and cover furniture
- gabriele dannunzio — Gabriele [Italian gah-bree-e-le] /Italian ˌgɑ briˈɛ lɛ/ (Show IPA), (Duca Minimo) 1863–1938, Italian soldier, novelist, and poet.
- gamblers anonymous — an organization that holds group meetings to help people who are addicted to gambling
- gamma distribution — a continuous two-parameter distribution from which the chi-square and exponential distributions are derived, written Gamma (α. β), where α and β are greater than zero, and defined in terms of the gamma function
- gastroduodenostomy — See under gastroenterostomy.
- get the upper hand — gain advantage
- go round and round — If you say that something is going round and round in your head, you mean that you can't stop thinking about it.
- going to jerusalem — musical chairs.
- graduated cylinder — a narrow, cylindrical container marked with horizontal lines to represent units of measurement and used to precisely measure the volume of liquids.
- grampian mountains — a mountain system of central Scotland, extending from the southwest to the northeast and separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. Highest peak: Ben Nevis, 1344 m (4408 ft)
- grand council fire — a formal gathering of camp fire members requiring a minimum attendance of three troops.
- grandfather clause — U.S. History. a clause in the constitutions of some Southern states after 1890 intended to permit whites to vote while disfranchising blacks: it exempted from new literacy and property qualifications for voting those men entitled to vote before 1867 and their lineal descendants.
- granulated surface — a roughened surface
- granulation tissue — tissue formed in ulcers and in early wound healing and repair, composed largely of newly growing capillaries and so called from its irregular surface in open wounds; proud flesh.
- grass-of-parnassus — any plant belonging to the genus Parnassia, of the saxifrage family, growing in marshy areas, having broad, smooth leaves and a single, pale flower.
- gravitational pull — force of gravity
- greater roadrunner — either of two large terrestrial cuckoos of the genus Geococcyx of arid regions of the western U.S., Mexico, and Central America, especially G. californianus (greater roadrunner)
- greenhouse warming — the increase in the mean temperature of the earth attributed to the greenhouse effect
- grumbling appendix — a condition in which the appendix causes intermittent pain but appendicitis has not developed
- guidance counselor — advisor in schools
- gulf of california — an arm of the Pacific Ocean, between Sonora and Lower California
- hash house slinger — a person who serves in a cheap cafe
- haulage contractor — a person or firm that transports goods by lorry
- heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.