18-letter words containing w, c, t

in that/which case — You say in that case or in which case to indicate that what you are going to say is true if the possible situation that has just been mentioned actually exists.
iridescent seaweed — a red alga, Irideae cordata, found on the Pacific coast of North America, having broad, leathery, iridescent blades.
jewel in the crown — the most valuable, esteemed, or successful person or thing of a number
keyword in context — (algorithm, information science) (KWIC) A document search method that creates indexes of document text or titles. Each keyword is stored in the resulting index along with some surrounding text, usually the word or phrase that precedes or follows the keyword in the text or title.
law of mass action — the statement that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the concentrations of the reacting substances.
local area network — a system for linking private telecommunications equipment, as in a building or cluster of buildings.
lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
may flower compact — an agreement to establish a government, entered into by the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620.
microsloth windows — (abuse, operating system) /mi:'kroh-sloth" win"dohz/ (Or "Windoze", /win'dohz/) A derogatory term for Microsoft Windows which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonisingly slow on anything less than a fast 486. Also called just "Windoze", with the implication that you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term is extremely common on Usenet. Compare X, sun-stools.
microwave detector — a device for recording the speed of a motorist
microwave spectrum — a spectrum of electromagnetic radiations whose wavelengths fall in the microwave range.
mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
moscow art theater — a Russian theatrical company founded in 1898 principally by Konstantin Stanislavski and famous for its naturalistic acting.
multiflow computer — (company) A now-defunct computer company, best known for its work in Very Long Instruction Word processors. Address: New Haven, Conn. USA.
negative cash flow — the situation when income is less than payments
neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
network redirector — (networking) An operating system driver that sends data to and receives data from a remote device. A network redirector often provides mechanisms to locate, open, read, write, and delete files and submit print jobs. It also makes available application services such as named pipes and mailslots. When an application needs to send or receive data from a remote device, it sends a call to the redirector. The redirector provides the functionality of the Application layer and Presentation layer of the OSI model. In Microsoft Networking, the network redirectors are implemented as installable file systems (IFS).
north saskatchewan — a river in S central Canada, flowing E from the Rocky Mountains and joining the South Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 760 miles (1223 km) long.
on a sticky wicket — in an awkward situation
oriental scops owl — any of a group of small owls having ear tufts and a whistling call, especially Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl)
out of whole cloth — comprising the full quantity, amount, extent, number, etc., without diminution or exception; entire, full, or total: He ate the whole pie. They ran the whole distance.
packet switch node — (PSN) A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet-switched network.
peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
piecewise function — a function whose definition changes depending on the value of the independent variable
pour cold water on — If someone pours cold water on a plan or idea, they criticize it so much that people lose their enthusiasm for it.
precipitable water — the total water vapor contained in a unit vertical column of the atmosphere.
prison rustic work — rustication having a deeply pitted surface.
provincetown print — a print made from a woodblock incised with grooves that serve to separate the colors being used and to leave white lines highlighting the design.
resistance welding — welding utilizing pressure and heat that is generated in the pieces to be welded by resistance to an electric current.
salem witch trials — 17th-century witchcraft case
saskatchewan party — (in Canada) a Saskatchewan political party formed by former members of the provincial Progressive Conservative and Liberal Parties
schleswig-holstein — two contiguous duchies of Denmark that were a center of international tension in the 19th century: Prussia annexed Schleswig 1864 and Holstein 1866.
schwarz inequality — Also called Cauchy's inequality. the theorem that the inner product of two vectors is less than or equal to the product of the magnitudes of the vectors.
self-tapping screw — a screw designed to tap its corresponding female thread as it is driven.
software backplane — (programming, tool) A CASE framework from Atherton.
south saskatchewan — a river in W Canada, flowing E from S Alberta and joining the North Saskatchewan River to form the Saskatchewan River. 865 miles (1392 km) long.
st. andrew's cross — a low evergreen shrub, Ascyrum hypericoides, native to temperate and subtropical America, having flowers in clusters of three: often cultivated.
st. lawrence river — a river in SE Canada, flowing NE from Lake Ontario, forming part of the boundary between New York and Ontario, and emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 760 miles (1225 km) long.
stomach sweetbread — sweetbread (def 1).
swarm intelligence — the collective behaviour of a group of animals, esp social insects such as ants, bees, and termites, that are each following very basic rules
swedish gymnastics — a system of passive and active exercising of muscles and joints
sweptwing aircraft — an aircraft which has wings that are swept (usually) backwards
tale of two cities — a historical novel (1859) by Dickens.
the cat's whiskers — a person or thing that is excellent or superior
to watch your step — If someone tells you to watch your step, they are warning you to be careful about how you behave or what you say so that you do not get into trouble.
townsend avalanche — avalanche (def 3).
two-chamber system — the system of having two parliamentary chambers, as the House of Lords and the House of Commons in the United Kingdom
two-colour process — (in early colour photography) a method of printing which uses superimposed red and green images
two-tier financing — a form of lending in which the debt is divided into two separate parts, as in a first and second mortgage held by an individual on a single property

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