17-letter words starting with d
- destination store — A destination store draws customers by selling unusual items, or having a friendly atmosphere, special pricing, and other desirable characteristics.
- desynchronisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of desynchronization.
- desynchronization — to cause to indicate the same time, as one timepiece with another: Synchronize your watches.
- deterministically — the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws.
- deucalion's flood — a flood sent by Zeus that wiped out the entire population of the earth, except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha
- development grant — a grant awarded, esp by a government, to a person or company in order to fund the development of a new product
- developmentalists — an expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.
- devil's food cake — a rich chocolate cake
- dextroamphetamine — a dextrorotatory amphetamine, used to suppress appetite
- diabetes mellitus — a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism characterized by excessive thirst and excretion of abnormally large quantities of urine containing an excess of sugar, caused by a deficiency of insulin
- diacetone alcohol — a colorless, flammable liquid with a pleasant odor, C 6 H 12 O 2 : used as a solvent for lacquers, dyes, cellulose nitrate, and resins.
- dialect geography — linguistic geography
- dialectologically — In terms of dialectology.
- diaphragm pessary — a device for inserting into the vagina to deliver a drug, such as a contraceptive
- diaphragm shutter — a camera shutter having a group of overlapping blades that open and close at the center when exposing film.
- diaphragmatically — By use of the diaphragm; in a diaphragmatic way.
- diatonic semitone — the pitch difference between certain adjacent degrees of the diatonic scale
- diaz del castillo — Bernal [ber-nahl] /bɛrˈnɑl/ (Show IPA), 1492–1581, Spanish soldier-historian of the conquest of Mexico.
- dibutyl phthalate — a colorless oily liquid, C 16 H 22 O 4 , insoluble in water, used as a solvent, insect repellent, and plasticizer.
- dicarboxylic acid — any carboxylic acid that contains two carboxyl groups per molecule
- dictating machine — a device that records spoken words, as on audiocassettes, for playing back later to prepare a transcript
- dictionary attack — an attempt to hack into a computer or network by submitting every word in a dictionary as a possible password
- dictionary-making — the work or activity of compiling dictionaries
- dideoxynucleotide — (biochemistry) Any nucleotide formed from a deoxynucleotide by loss of a second hydroxy group from the deoxyribose group.
- dielectrophoresis — Dielectrophoresis is the movement of uncharged particles (= ones with no electrical charge) when a changing electric field is applied.
- diethylene glycol — a syrupy colorless liquid, C 4 H 10 O 3 , used as a solvent for cellulose nitrate and as a fabric softener.
- diethyltryptamine — a synthetic derivative of tryptamine with hallucinogenic and psychotogenic effects. Abbreviation: DET.
- dietrich von bern — Theodoric of Verona: the name of the eastern Gothic emperor Theodoric as it appears in German legends.
- dieu et mon droit — God and my right: motto of the Royal Arms of Great Britain
- difference engine — (computer, history) Charles Babbage's design for the first automatic mechanical calculator. The Difference Engine was a special purpose device intended for the production of mathematical tables. Babbage started work on the Difference Engine in 1823 with funding from the British Government. Only one-seventh of the complete engine, about 2000 parts, was built in 1832 by Babbage's engineer, Joseph Clement. This was demonstrated successfully by Babbage and still works perfectly. The engine was never completed and most of the 12,000 parts manufactured were later melted for scrap. It was left to Georg and Edvard Schuetz to construct the first working devices to the same design which were successful in limited applications. The Difference Engine No. 2 was finally completed in 1991 at the Science Museum, London, UK and is on display there. The engine used gears to compute cumulative sums in a series of registers: r[i] := r[i] + r[i+1]. However, the addition had the side effect of zeroing r[i+1]. Babbage overcame this by simultaneously copying r[i+1] to a temporary register during the addition and then copying it back to r[i+1] at the end of each cycle (each turn of a handle).
- differentiability — The ability to be differentiated.
- differential gear — differential (def 7).
- differential line — (hardware) A kind of electrical connection using two wires, one of which carries the normal signal (V) and the other carries an inverted version the signal (-V). A differential amplifier at the receiver subtracts the inverted signal from the normal signal to yield a signal proportional to V. This subtraction is intended to cancel out any noise induced in the wires, on the assmption that the same level of noise will have been induced in both wires. Twisted pair wiring is often used to try to ensure that this is the case. The two wires might be connected at the receiver to separate analogue to digital converters and the subtraction performed digitally. The RS-422 serial line standard specifies differential drivers and receivers, whereas the earlier RS-232 standard does not. Opposite: single ended.
- differential rate — a special lower rate, as one charged by one of two or more competing businesses.
- differential tone — a musical sound sometimes heard when two loud notes are sounded together, lower in pitch than either
- diffused junction — a semiconductor junction formed by diffusing acceptor or donor impurity atoms into semiconductor material to form regions of p-type or n-type conductivity
- digestive biscuit — a round semisweet biscuit made from wholemeal flour
- digital audiodisk — a compact disk containing an audio program.
- digital audiotape — a cassette containing magnetic tape used for high-fidelity digital recording or playback of audio. Abbreviation: DAT.
- digital dashboard — (software) A personalised desktop portal that focuses on business intelligence and knowledge management.
- digital footprint — one's unique set of digital activities, actions, and communications that leave a data trace on the Internet or on a computer or other digital device and can identify the particular user or device: Our online browsing habits are part of our passive digital footprint, created without our consent or knowledge, but our active digital footprint, especially on social media, can more easily be managed. Compare footprint (def 4).
- digital immigrant — a person who has become familiar with computers, the Internet, and other digital technology as a young adult or later in life. Compare digital native.
- digital recording — a method of sound recording in which an input audio waveform is sampled at regular intervals, usually between 40,000 and 50,000 times per second, and each sample is assigned a numerical value, usually expressed in binary notation.
- digital signature — an encrypted digital code appended to an electronic document to verify that it was created by a known source and has not been altered.
- dihydroergotamine — an ergot alkaloid, C 33 H 37 N 5 O 5 , used in the treatment of various types of migraine headache.
- dihydromorphinone — a narcotic compound, C 17 H 19 O 3 N, prepared from morphine and used chiefly as an analgesic.
- dimethylformamide — a colourless liquid widely used as a solvent and sometimes as a catalyst. Formula: (CH3)2NCHO
- dimethylhydrazine — a flammable, highly toxic, and colorless liquid, C 2 H 8 N 2 , used as a component in jet and rocket fuels.
- dimethylsulfoxide — DMSO.
- dining room suite — a set of furniture used in a dining room