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17-letter words containing a, c, o, r, d, t

  • de facto standard — A widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The archetypal example of a de facto standard is the IBM PC which, despite is many glaring technical deficiencies, has gained such a large share of the personal computer market that it is now popular simply because it is popular and therefore enjoys fierce competition in pricing and software development.
  • decellularization — (biology, medicine) The loss of cells from tissue.
  • decriminalisation — (chiefly, British) Alternative form of decriminalization.
  • decriminalization — to eliminate criminal penalties for or remove legal restrictions against: to decriminalize marijuana.
  • dehistoricization — The process or result of dehistoricizing.
  • dehydrochlorinate — to remove hydrogen chloride or chlorine and hydrogen from (a substance).
  • delay instruction — delayed control-transfer
  • denatured alcohol — ethanol rendered unfit for human consumption by the addition of a noxious substance, as in methylated spirits
  • dendroclimatology — The science that uses dendrochronology to reconstruct historical climate conditions.
  • despotic monarchy — absolute monarchy.
  • dessert chocolate — cooking chocolate
  • desynchronisation — (British spelling) Alternative form of desynchronization.
  • desynchronization — to cause to indicate the same time, as one timepiece with another: Synchronize your watches.
  • dialect geography — linguistic geography
  • 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
  • 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.
  • dipterocarpaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae, a family of trees chiefly native to tropical SE Asia, having two-winged fruits. Many species yield useful timber and resins
  • disaster recovery — (business)   (DR) Planning and implementation of procedures and facilities for use when essential systems are not available for a period long enough to have a significant impact on the business, e.g. when the head office is blown up. Disasters include natural: fire, flood, lightning, hurricane; hardware: power failure, component failure, head crash; software failure: bugs, resources; vandalism: arson, bombing, cracking, theft; data corruption or loss: human error, media failure; communications: computer network equipment, network storm, telephones; security: passwords compromised, computer virus; legal: change in legislation; personnel: unavailability of essential staff, industrial action. Companies need to plan for disaster: before: risk analysis, preventive measures, training; during: how should staff and systems respond; after: recovery measures, post mortem analysis. Hardware can usually be replaced and is usually insured. Software and data needs to be backed up off site. Alternative communication systems should be arranged in case of network failure or inaccessible premises, e.g. emergency telephone number, home working, alternative data center.
  • disruptive action — action performed by protestors, workers, etc that causes the disruption of a service
  • dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
  • district attorney — an officer who acts as attorney for the people or government within a specified district.
  • document examiner — (hypertext, tool)   A high-performance hypertext system by Symbolics that provides on-line access to their user documentation.
  • dollars-and-cents — considered strictly in terms of money: from a dollars-and-cents viewpoint.
  • double refraction — the separation of a ray of light into two unequally refracted, plane-polarized rays of orthogonal polarizations, occurring in crystals in which the velocity of light rays is not the same in all directions.
  • double track line — a railway line with double track
  • douglas macarthur — Douglas, 1880–1964, U.S. general: supreme commander of allied forces in SW Pacific during World War II and of UN forces in Korea 1950–51.
  • ductus arteriosis — a fetal blood vessel that connects the left pulmonary artery directly to the descending aorta, normally closing after birth.
  • ectoparasiticides — Plural form of ectoparasiticide.
  • electricity board — a company which supplies electricity
  • electrocardiogram — A record or display of a person’s heartbeat produced by electrocardiography.
  • exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
  • fairness doctrine — a policy mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, requiring radio and television stations to grant equal time to a political candidate, group, etc., to present an opposing viewpoint to one already aired.
  • fendalton tractor — a four-wheel drive recreational vehicle
  • first commandment — “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”: first of the Ten Commandments.
  • flagrante delicto — Law. in the very act of committing the offense.
  • floating dry dock — a dock that floats and can be lowered in the water for the entrance of a ship, and then raised for use as a dry dock
  • fluid lubrication — lubrication in which bearing surfaces are separated by an oil film sustained by the motion of the parts
  • forward contracts — Forward contracts are agreements to buy something in the future for a price that has been agreed today.
  • foundation course — A foundation course is a course that you do at some colleges and universities in order to prepare yourself for a longer or more advanced course.
  • fractal dimension — (mathematics)   A common type of fractal dimension is the Hausdorff-Besicovich Dimension, but there are several different ways of computing fractal dimension. Fractal dimension can be calculated by taking the limit of the quotient of the log change in object size and the log change in measurement scale, as the measurement scale approaches zero. The differences come in what is exactly meant by "object size" and what is meant by "measurement scale" and how to get an average number out of many different parts of a geometrical object. Fractal dimensions quantify the static *geometry* of an object. For example, consider a straight line. Now blow up the line by a factor of two. The line is now twice as long as before. Log 2 / Log 2 = 1, corresponding to dimension 1. Consider a square. Now blow up the square by a factor of two. The square is now 4 times as large as before (i.e. 4 original squares can be placed on the original square). Log 4 / log 2 = 2, corresponding to dimension 2 for the square. Consider a snowflake curve formed by repeatedly replacing ___ with _/\_, where each of the 4 new lines is 1/3 the length of the old line. Blowing up the snowflake curve by a factor of 3 results in a snowflake curve 4 times as large (one of the old snowflake curves can be placed on each of the 4 segments _/\_). Log 4 / log 3 = 1.261... Since the dimension 1.261 is larger than the dimension 1 of the lines making up the curve, the snowflake curve is a fractal. [sci.fractals FAQ].
  • full load current — A full load current is the largest current that a motor or other device is designed to carry under particular conditions.
  • further education — adult education.
  • good-time charlie — an affable, sociable, pleasure-loving man.
  • grand touring car — GT (def 2).
  • grandfather clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
  • grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
  • grignard reaction — the reaction of a Grignard reagent with any of the numerous types of compounds with which it can combine, as alcohols, acids, aldehydes, ketones, or esters: used chiefly in organic synthesis.
  • grooved fricative — a fricative, as (s), in which air is channeled through a groove along the center of the tongue.
  • haemorrhoidectomy — surgical removal of haemorrhoids
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