18-letter words containing a, b, c, o, u
- dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
- double achievement — a representation of the arms of a husband beside those of his wife such that a difference of rank between them is shown.
- executable content — (operating system) Executable programs sent by one computer to another via a network. For example a Java applet is executable content. Usage: rare.
- fibonacci sequence — (mathematics) The infinite sequence of numbers beginning 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... in which each term is the sum of the two terms preceding it. The ratio of successive Fibonacci terms tends to the golden ratio, namely (1 + sqrt 5)/2.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- hebdomadal council — the governing council or senate of Oxford University
- hydrofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrofluorocarbon.
- incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
- indecent behaviour — the offence of committing indecent acts
- indolebutyric acid — a white or yellowish, crystalline, water-insoluble powder, C 12 H 13 O 2 N, a plant hormone similar to indoleacetic acid and used for the same purposes.
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- mordovian republic — a constituent republic of W central Russia, in the middle Volga basin. Capital: Saransk. Pop: 888 700 (2002). Area: 26 200 sq km (10 110 sq miles)
- mountain cranberry — cowberry
- mozambique channel — a channel in SE Africa, between Mozambique and Madagascar. 950 miles (1530 km) long; 250–550 miles (400–885 km) wide.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- non-accountability — the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.
- objective modula-2 — (language) (Or "ObjM2") An extension to Modula-2 for Cocoa and GNUstep software development. Objective Modula-2 follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax used in Objective-C. Classes written in ObjM2 can be used within ObjC and vice versa. ObjM2 also retains Modula-2's data encapsulation features, namely nested modules with explicit import and export lists. Due to the strict type checking in Modula-2, ObjM2 can be considered a much safer programming language than is ObjC, yet losing none of the capabilities of ObjC.
- on the back burner — low priority
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- population balance — A population balance is a model showing particle sizes during a grinding process, which is used when designing a process.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- public corporation — a corporation, owned and operated by a government, established for the administration of certain public programs.
- public examination — an examination, such as a GCSE exam, that is set by a central examining board
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- put the clock back — to regress
- sodium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble solid, in powder or granules, NaHCO 3 , usually prepared by the reaction of soda ash with carbon dioxide or obtained from the intermediate product of the Solvay process by purification: used chiefly in the manufacture of sodium salts, baking powder, and beverages, as a laboratory reagent, as a fire extinguisher, and in medicine as an antacid.
- sub-classification — to arrange in subclasses.
- subatomic particle — physics:
- subordinate clause — a clause that modifies the principal clause or some part of it or that serves a noun function in the principal clause, as when she arrived in the sentence I was there when she arrived or that she has arrived in the sentence I doubt that she has arrived.
- subsidiary company — a company whose controlling interest is owned by another company.
- the black mountain — a mountain range in S Wales, in E Carmarthenshire and W Powys. Highest peak: Carmarthen Van, 802 m (2632 ft)
- thermonuclear bomb — hydrogen bomb.
- to be caught short — If you are caught short or are taken short, you feel a sudden strong need to urinate, especially when you cannot easily find a toilet.
- turn one's back on — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- under the jackboot — If a country or group of people is under the jackboot, they are suffering because the government is cruel and undemocratic.
- urban contemporary — popular dance music incorporating elements of rap, rhythm-and-blues, funk, and soul.
- widemouth blindcat — any of several catfishes, as Satan eurystomus (widemouth blindcat) of Texas, that inhabit underground streams and have undeveloped eyes and unpigmented skin.