18-letter words containing u, t, r, n

counterproposition — a proposition made in place of or in opposition to a preceding one.
counterreformation — a reform movement to oppose a previous one
counterrevolutions — Plural form of counterrevolution.
countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
countryside agency — (in England) a government agency that promotes the conservation and enjoyment of the countryside and aims to stimulate employment in rural areas
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.
crude oil fraction — A crude oil fraction is a component of crude oil, which has its own particular molecular composition, weight, and boiling point.
cry one's eyes out — to weep bitterly
cultural awareness — Someone's cultural awareness is their understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values.
cultural diffusion — act of diffusing; state of being diffused.
cultural universal — a cultural pattern extant in every known society.
cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
cumbrian mountains — a mountain range in NW England, in Cumbria. Highest peak: Scafell Pike, 977 m (3206 ft)
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.
current efficiency — the ratio of the actual mass of a substance liberated from an electrolyte by the passage of current to the theoretical mass liberated according to Faraday's law
customer relations — Customer relations are the relationships that a business has with its customers and the way in which it treats them.
cutthroat contract — a form of contract bridge for four persons in which partners are decided by the bidding.
de bruijn notation — (language) A variation of lambda notation for specifying functions using numbers instead of names to refer to formal parameters. A reference to a formal parameter is a number which gives the number of lambdas (written as \ here) between the reference and the lambda which binds the parameter. E.g. the function \ f . \ x . f x would be written \ . \ . 1 0. The 0 refers to the innermost lambda, the 1 to the next etc. The chief advantage of this notation is that it avoids the possibility of name capture and removes the need for alpha conversion.
debt restructuring — Debt restructuring is a method of organizing a company's debts in a different way in order to make the company more likely to be able to pay them.
defense calculator — IBM 701
destruct mechanism — a mechanism that causes the destruction of a rocket or missile when activated
developing country — a nonindustrialized poor country that is seeking to develop its resources by industrialization
devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
digital signatures — digital signature
disorderly conduct — any of various petty misdemeanors, generally including nuisances, breaches of the peace, offensive or immoral conduct in public, etc.
distress frequency — a radio frequency band reserved for emergency signals from aircraft or ships in distress.
distribution class — form class
distribution curve — the curve or line of a graph in which cumulative frequencies are plotted as ordinates and values of the variate as abscissas.
distribution ratio — the ratio of concentrations of a solute distributed between two immiscible solvents in contact with each other, as iodine in water and chloroform
down to the ground — thoroughly; completely
drainpipe trousers — trousers with very narrow legs
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.
driver's education — high-school driving classes
driving instructor — sb who teaches people to drive
drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
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.
drug-eluting stent — A drug-eluting stent is a tube placed into a blocked artery that slowly releases a drug to prevent another blockage in the artery.
duchenne dystrophy — the most common form of muscular dystrophy, usually affecting only boys
duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
dwarf storage unit — (humour) (DSU) An IBM term for a cupboard.
eastern algonquian — a subgroup of the Algonquian language family, comprising the languages spoken aboriginally from Nova Scotia to northeastern North Carolina.
eighty-twenty rule — (programming) The program-design version of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule says that roughly 80% of the problem can be solved with 20% of the effort that it would take to solve the whole problem. For example, parsing e-mail addresses in "From:" lines in e-mail messages is notoriously difficult if you follow the RFC 2822 specification. However, about 60% of actual "From:" lines are in the format "From: Their Name <[email protected]>", with a far more constrained idea of what can be in "user" or "host" than in RFC 2822. Another 25% just add double-quotes around "Their Name". Matching just those two patterns would thus cover 85% of "From:" lines, with a tiny portion of the code required to fully implement RFC2822. (Adding support for "From: [email protected]" and "From: [email protected] (Their Name) " brings coverage to almost 100%, leaving only really baroque things that RFC-2822 permits, like "From: Pete(A wonderful \) chap)
electroacupuncture — the insertion into the body of one or more needles through which an electric current is passed
electroluminescent — Having the quality of electroluminescence.
electrostatic unit — any unit that belongs to a system of electrical cgs units in which the electric constant is given the value of unity and is taken as a pure number
elementary student — primary school pupil
emergent evolution — the doctrine that, in the course of evolution, some entirely new properties, such as life and consciousness, appear at certain critical points, usually because of an unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities

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