20-letter words containing u, s, t, a
- blast-furnace cement — a type of cement made from a blend of ordinary Portland cement and crushed slag from a blast furnace. It has lower setting properties than ordinary Portland cement
- blue ridge mountains — a mountain range in the eastern US, extending from West Virginia into Georgia: part of the Appalachian mountains. Highest peak: Mount Mitchell, 2038 m (6684 ft)
- blue screen of death — (humour) (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
- british thermal unit — a unit of heat in the fps system equal to the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1°F. 1 British thermal unit is equivalent to 1055.06 joules or 251.997 calories
- broadcast journalism — journalism as practiced in radio and television.
- buck's horn plantain — a Eurasian plant, Plantago coronopus, having leaves resembling a buck's horn: family Plantaginaceae
- buoyancy compensator — an inflatable vest used to control one's buoyancy underwater or to rest at the surface, usually having a connecting hose for inflation or deflation by mouth and a CO 2 cartridge for rapid, emergency inflation.
- bureau of the census — the division of the Department of Commerce that gathers, tabulates, and correlates census statistics.
- butterfly-shell clam — coquina.
- by/from all accounts — If you say that something is true by all accounts or from all accounts, you believe it is true because other people say so.
- calcium metasilicate — a white powder, CaSiO 3 , insoluble in water, used as an antacid and as a filler for paper.
- call-by-value-result — An argument passing convention where the actual argument is a variable V whose value is copied to a local variable L inside the called function or procedure. If the procedure modifies L, these changes will not affect V, which may also be in scope inside the procedure, until the procedure returns when the final value of L is copied to V. Under call-by-reference changes to L would affect V immediately. Used, for example, by BBC BASIC V on the Acorn Archimedes.
- 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)
- carbon sequestration — the prevention of greenhouse gas build-up in the earth's atmosphere by methods such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide or pumping carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs
- carpathian mountains — a mountain system of central and E Europe, extending from Slovakia to central Romania: mainly forested, with rich iron ore resources. Highest peak: Gerlachovka, 2663 m (8788 ft)
- catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
- cavalleria rusticana — an opera (1890) by Pietro Mascagni.
- cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
- cellulose triacetate — a triacetic ester of cellulose characterized by its resistance to most solvents, used chiefly in the manufacture of textile fibers.
- centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
- channel service unit — (communications) (CSU) A type of interface used to connect a terminal or computer to a digital medium in the same way that a modem is used for connection to an analogue medium. A CSU is provided by the communication carrier to customers who wish to use their own equipment to retime and regenerate the incoming signals. The customer must supply all of the transmit logic, receive logic and timing recovery in order to use the CSU, whereas a digital service unit DSU performs these functions.
- characteristic curve — a graph of the density of a particular photographic material plotted against the logarithm of the exposure producing this density
- chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
- chikamatsu monzaemon — (born Sugimori Nobumori) 1653-1724; Jpn. dramatist: called the Shakespeare of Japan
- child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
- child-abuse register — (in Britain) a list of children deemed to be at risk of abuse or injury from their parents or guardians, compiled and held by a local authority, area health authority, or NSPCC Special Unit
- clothes manufacturer — a business concern that manufactures clothes
- collegiate institute — (in certain provinces) a large secondary school with an academic, rather than vocational, emphasis
- come out in the wash — If you say that something will come out in the wash, you mean that people will eventually find out the truth about it.
- communication skills — the ability to convey information and ideas effectively
- communication system — (communications) A system or facility for transfering data between persons and equipment. The system usually consists of a collection of individual communication networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations and terminal equipment capable of interconnection and interoperation so as to form an integrated whole. These individual components must serve a common purpose, be technically compatible, employ common procedures, respond to some form of control and generally operate in unison.
- compensation culture — a culture in which people are very ready to go to law over even relatively minor incidents in the hope of gaining compensation
- complaints procedure — a prescribed method of lodging a complaint to an institution
- condensation nucleus — nucleus (def 5).
- confectioners' sugar — Confectioners' sugar is very fine white sugar that is used for making icing and candy.
- conservative judaism — a movement reacting against the radicalism of Reform Judaism, rejecting extreme change and advocating moderate relaxations of traditional Jewish law, by an extension of the process by which its adherents claim traditional Orthodox Judaism evolved
- constant de rebecque — Henri Benjamin [ahn-ree ban-zha-man] /ɑ̃ˈri bɛ̃ ʒaˈmɛ̃/ (Show IPA), (Benjamin Constant) 1767–1830, French statesman and author, born in Switzerland.
- constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
- construction company — a business enterprise concerned with the construction of buildings, bridges, etc
- consultant physician — a physician who has attained the rank of consultant in a particular speciality
- context of situation — the totality of extralinguistic features having relevance to a communicative act.
- continuous variation — variation in phenotypic traits such as body weight or height in which a series of types are distributed on a continuum rather than grouped into discrete categories. Compare discontinuous variation.
- contradistinguishing — Present participle of contradistinguish.
- controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
- copulative asyndeton — a staccato effect produced by omitting copulative connectives between two or more items in a group, as in “Friends, Romans, countrymen.”.
- counterdemonstration — a demonstration that is held in reaction to another demonstration
- court of last resort — (in the US) a supreme court
- court of st. james's — the British royal court: so called from St. James's Palace, London, the former scene of royal receptions.
- cream of tomato soup — a creamy soup made from tomatoes
- crime against nature — Law. sodomy.