16-letter words containing a, u, t, o
- counter-strategy — Also, strategics. the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.
- counterarguments — Plural form of counterargument.
- counterattacking — Present participle of counterattack.
- counterbalancing — Present participle of counterbalance.
- counterchallenge — A challenge made in response to another challenge.
- counterespionage — Counterespionage is the same as counterintelligence.
- counterfactually — a conditional statement the first clause of which expresses something contrary to fact, as “If I had known.”.
- counterguerrilla — (of operations, conflicts, etc) conducted against guerrillas
- counterirritants — Plural form of counterirritant.
- countermigration — a migration in the opposite direction.
- counternarcotics — Measures or activities designed to prevent the use or distrubution of iillegal narcotic drugs.
- counterproposals — Plural form of counterproposal.
- countersignature — second signature
- counterstatement — a statement made to deny or refute another statement.
- course of action — a way of proceeding
- court appearance — the appearance of an accused person before a court
- court of appeals — A Court of Appeals is a court which deals with appeals against legal judgments.
- cracked up to be — alleged or believed to be
- cream of coconut — coconut cream (def 1).
- cream-of-coconut — Also called cream of coconut. a creamy white liquid skimmed from the top of coconut milk that has been made by soaking grated coconut meat in water, used in East Indian cookery, mixed drinks, etc.
- creature comfort — anything providing bodily comfort, as food, clothing, or shelter
- customary tenant — a tenant occupying a property under the customs of the manor, often a low-status tenant with little security of tenure
- cut and blow-dry — a hairdressing procedure in which the customer's hair is cut and blow-dried
- cut one's throat — to bring about one's own ruin
- cut to the chase — If someone cuts to the chase, they start talking about or dealing with what is important, instead of less important things.
- cut-throat razor — a razor with a long blade that usually folds into the handle
- cute as a button — very sweet, adorable
- cytoarchitecture — (biology) The arrangement of cells in an organism or organ.
- dakin's solution — a dilute solution containing sodium hypochlorite and boric acid, used as an antiseptic in the treatment of wounds
- data acquisition — data logging
- data warehousing — the use of large amounts of data taken from multiple sources to create reports and for data analysis
- davidson current — a winter countercurrent that flows N along the W coast of the U.S.
- deboursification — (jargon) Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: sneck.
- decontextualized — removed from the usual context
- dehumidification — Dehumidification is the removal of vapor from a gas-vapor mixture.
- demolition squad — a group of demolishers
- demutualizations — Plural form of demutualization.
- denaturalization — The act or process of denaturalizing, of changing or destroying the quality (nature) of a thing.
- denuclearization — The act or process of denuclearizing.
- departure lounge — In an airport, the departure lounge is the place where passengers wait before they get onto their plane.
- depressurization — to remove the air pressure from (a pressurized compartment of an aircraft or spacecraft).
- deuterocanonical — of or constituting a second or subsequent canon; specif., designating certain Biblical books accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, but held by Protestants to be apocryphal
- diethyltoluamide — a liquid, C 12 H 17 NO, used as an insect repellent and resin solvent.
- digital computer — a computer that processes information in digital form.
- dinosaurs mating — (humour) The activity said to occur when yet another big iron merger or buy-out occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the mainframe industry. Also described as "elephants mating": lots of noise and action at a high level, with an eventual outcome in the somewhat distant future. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was "IBM and the Seven Dwarves": Burroughs, Control Data, General Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. Early on, RCA sold out to Univac and GE also sold out, and it was "IBM and the BUNCH" (an acronym for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out by Bull. Univac in turn merged with Sperry to form Sperry/Univac, which was later merged (although the employees of Sperry called it a hostile takeover) with Burroughs to form Unisys in 1986 (this was when the phrase "dinosaurs mating" was coined). In 1991 AT&T absorbed NCR, only to spit it out again in 1996. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988 and later others. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.
- diplomatic pouch — a sealed mailbag containing diplomatic correspondence that is sent free of inspection between a foreign office and its diplomatic or consular post abroad or from one such post to another.
- discombobulating — Present participle of discombobulate.
- discombobulation — to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate: The speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.
- discountenancing — Present participle of discountenance.
- disequilibration — to put out of equilibrium; unbalance: A period of high inflation could disequilibrate the monetary system.