18-letter words containing a, v, e
- death-valley curve — a curve on a graph showing how the capital of a new company plotted against time declines sharply as the venture capital is used up before income reaches predicted levels
- deductive database — (database) A combination of a conventional database containing facts, a knowledge base containing rules, and an inference engine which allows the derivation of information implied by the facts and rules. Commonly, the knowledge base is expressed in a subset of first-order logic and either a SLDNF or Datalog inference engine is used.
- definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
- delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
- dependent variable — a variable in a mathematical equation or statement whose value depends on that taken on by the independent variable
- descriptive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
- detective sergeant — a police officer who investigates crime and who ranks above a detective constable but below a detective inspector
- devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
- digital switchover — the process of changing the method of transmitting television from analogue to digital format
- digital television — a television broadcasting technology in which signals are transmitted as a sequence of binary numbers.
- digital video disc — Digital Versatile Disc
- diphtheria vaccine — a vaccine used to produce immunity against diphtheria
- diplomatic service — diplomatic corps
- distracted driving — driving a vehicle while engaging in an activity that has the potential to distract the driver from the task of driving: Bans on cell phone use in cars will help to reduce the dangers of distracted driving.
- divine inspiration — insight provided by higher power
- do not give a hoot — If you say that you don't give a hoot or don't care two hoots about something, you are emphasizing that you do not care at all about it.
- domain name server — (spelling) Domain Name System.
- domenico veneziano — died 1461, Italian painter, noted for the St Lucy Altarpiece
- 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.
- dragline excavator — a power shovel that operates by being dragged by cables at the end of an arm or jib: used for quarrying, opencast mining, etc
- driver's education — high-school driving classes
- each and every one — all
- earned run average — a measure of the effectiveness of a pitcher, obtained by dividing the number of earned runs scored against the pitcher by the number of innings pitched and multiplying the result by nine. A pitcher yielding three earned runs in nine innings has an earned run average of 3.00. Abbreviation: ERA, era.
- eau de vie de marc — marc (def 2).
- echeverria alvarez — Luis [lwees] /lwis/ (Show IPA), born 1922, Mexican political leader: president 1970–76.
- eclipsing variable — a variable star whose changes in brightness are caused by periodic eclipses of two stars in a binary system.
- electrovalent bond — a type of chemical bond in which one atom loses an electron to form a positive ion and the other atom gains the electron to form a negative ion. The resulting ions are held together by electrostatic attraction
- elizabeth petrovna — 1709-62; empress of Russia (1741-62): daughter of Peter I
- enantioselectivity — (chemistry) The selectivity of a reaction towards one of a pair of enantiomers.
- environment agency — an official agency providing information on environmental issues, esp rivers, flooding and pollution
- epstein-barr virus — a virus belonging to the herpes family that causes infectious mononucleosis; it is also implicated in the development of Burkitt's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease
- equivalent circuit — an arrangement of simple electrical components that is electrically equivalent to a complex circuit and is used to simplify circuit analysis
- ethical investment — an investment in a company whose activities or products are not considered by the investor to be unethical
- evapotranspiration — The process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from the soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants.
- every now and then — from time to time; occasionally
- evolution strategy — (ES) A kind of evolutionary algorithm where individuals (potential solutions) are encoded by a set of real-valued "object variables" (the individual's "genome"). For each object variable an individual also has a "strategy variable" which determines the degree of mutation to be applied to the corresponding object variable. The strategy variables also mutate, allowing the rate of mutation of the object variables to vary. An ES is characterised by the population size, the number of offspring produced in each generation and whether the new population is selected from parents and offspring or only from the offspring. ES were invented in 1963 by Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) while searching for the optimal shapes of bodies in a flow.
- executive chairman — the most senior internal position within a company, combining the duties of chairman and chief executive
- exhaustive testing — (programming) Executing a program with all possible combinations of inputs or values for program variables.
- federal government — pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states, as in federal government; federal system.
- financial services — A company or organization that provides financial services is able to help you do things such as make investments or buy a pension or mortgage.
- fischer von erlach — Johann Bernhard [yaw-hahn bern-hahrt] /ˈyɔ hɑn ˈbɛrn hɑrt/ (Show IPA), 1656–1723, Austrian architect.
- for heaven's sake! — a mild exclamation of surprise, annoyance, etc.
- forgive and forget — be reconciled
- formal equivalence — the relation that holds between two open sentences when their universal closures are materially equivalent
- fuel-saving device — a device that increases the fuel efficiency of a vehicle, so that it uses less fuel for a further distance
- general relativity — the state or fact of being relative.
- generative grammar — a linguistic theory that attempts to describe the tacit knowledge that a native speaker has of a language by establishing a set of explicit, formalized rules that specify or generate all the possible grammatical sentences of a language, while excluding all unacceptable sentences. Compare transformational grammar.
- geneva conventions — one of a series of international agreements, first made in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1864, establishing rules for the humane treatment of prisoners of war and of the sick, the wounded, and the dead in battle.
- give a person five — to greet or congratulate someone by slapping raised hands
- give one's hand on — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.