17-letter words starting with c
- close corporation — a small private limited company
- close parenthesis — right parenthesis
- close punctuation — punctuation in which many commas, full stops, etc, are used
- close the book on — to bring to a definite end
- close the door on — rule out, exclude
- close to the bone — If something is too close to the bone, it makes you feel uncomfortable because it is very close to the truth or to the real nature of something.
- close to the wind — sailing as nearly as possible towards the direction from which the wind is blowing
- close-order drill — practice in formation marching and other movements, in the carrying of arms during formal marching, and in the formal handling of arms for ceremonies and guard.
- closed-captioning — (of a television program, film, or video) distributed with synchronized transcription of speech and written descriptions of other relevant audio elements, as for the hearing-impaired, that are visible only when the option to display them is selected. Abbreviation: CC.
- closing-down sale — a sale held to clear stock from a shop that is ceasing to operate
- cloud cuckoo land — an idealized, illusory domain of imagination; cloudland: the cloud-cuckoo-land of technicolor cartoon whimsy.
- cloud-cuckoo-land — If you say that someone is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, you are criticizing them because they think there are no problems and that things will happen exactly as they want them to, when this is obviously not the case.
- cloverleaf aerial — a type of aerial, having three or four similar coplanar loops arranged symmetrically around an axis, to which in-phase signals are fed
- club subscription — an amount of money that someone pays regularly in order to belong to a club
- clumber (spaniel) — a short-legged spaniel with a heavy body and a thick coat of straight, white hair marked with yellow or orange
- coal-tar creosote — impure phenol or carbolic acid, distinct from the creosote of wood tar.
- coarse-grain salt — salt with a much larger grain size than table salt
- coastguard vessel — a ship used by the coastguard
- cock of the woods — pileated woodpecker.
- cock-a-doodle-doo — an imitation or representation of a cock crowing
- cocktail waitress — a woman who serves in a bar or cocktail lounge
- code of behaviour — the generally accepted rules governing how people behave
- code of hammurabi — a Babylonian legal code of the 18th century b.c. or earlier, instituted by Hammurabi and dealing with criminal and civil matters.
- codlins-and-cream — an onagraceous plant, Epilobium hirsutum, native to Europe and Asia and introduced into North America, having purplish-red flowers and hairy stems and leaves
- coffee-table book — A coffee-table book is a large expensive book with a lot of pictures, which is designed to be looked at rather than to be read properly, and is usually placed where people can see it easily.
- cognitive meaning — the literal meaning of something
- cognitive science — the scientific study of cognition, including elements of the traditional disciplines of philosophy, psychology, semantics, and linguistics, together with artificial intelligence and computer science
- cognitive therapy — a form of psychotherapy in which the patient is encouraged to change the way he or sees the world and himself or herself: used particularly to treat depression
- cohesionless soil — any free-running type of soil, such as sand or gravel, whose strength depends on friction between particles
- coin of the realm — legal tender.
- coitus reservatus — the deliberate delaying or avoidance of orgasm during intercourse
- coldstream guards — a guard regiment of the English royal household: formed in Coldstream, Scotland, 1659–60, and instrumental in restoring the English monarchy under Charles II.
- coliform bacillus — any of several bacilli, especially Escherichia coli and members of the genus Aerobacter, found as commensals in the large intestine of humans and certain other animals, the presence of which in water indicates fecal pollution.
- coliform bacteria — a large group of bacteria inhabiting the intestinal tract of humans and animals that may cause disease and whose presence in water is an indicator of faecal pollution
- collaborativeness — Quality of being collaborative.
- collateral damage — Collateral damage is accidental injury to non-military people or damage to non-military buildings which occurs during a military operation.
- collateralization — The act or process of collateralizing.
- collected edition — a comprehensive edition of the writings of a particular author.
- collecting tubule — the part of a nephron that collects the urine from the distal convoluted tubule and discharges it into the pelvis of the kidney.
- collection agency — A collection agency is an organization that obtains payments from people who owe money to others.
- collective memory — the shared memories of a group, family, race, etc
- college professor — a lecturer or researcher who works in a college
- collegiate church — a church that has an endowed chapter of canons and prebendaries attached to it but that is not a cathedral
- collegium musicum — a group of usually amateur musicians, often connected with a university, who meet to study and perform chiefly old or little-known music.
- colleterial gland — a paired accessory reproductive gland, present in most female insects, secreting a sticky substance that forms either the egg cases or the cement that binds the eggs to a surface
- collision density — the rate at which collisions are occurring per unit volume per unit time, usually pertaining to the collisions of neutrons in a nuclear reactor.
- collodion process — wet plate process.
- colloid chemistry — the study of colloids.
- colloquialization — The process or result of making colloquial.
- color temperature — a temperature defined in terms of the temperature of a black body at which it emits light of a specified spectral distribution: used to specify the color of a light source.