18-letter words containing n, a, b, t
- debt consolidation — the process of taking out a new loan (often secured on one's property) in order to pay off a number of existing debts
- demand liabilities — the assets of a financial institution that are demandable by depositors
- dependent variable — a variable in a mathematical equation or statement whose value depends on that taken on by the independent variable
- 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
- diabetes insipidus — a disorder of the pituitary gland causing excessive thirst and excretion of large quantities of dilute urine
- diamondback turtle — any edible North American terrapin of the genus Malaclemys, esp M. terrapin, occurring in brackish and tidal waters and having diamond-shaped markings on the shell: family Emydidae
- disability pension — a pension paid to people who are unable to continue to work because of a disability
- distinguishability — to mark off as different (often followed by from or by): He was distinguished from the other boys by his height.
- distribution class — form class
- distribution ratio — the ratio of concentrations of a solute distributed between two immiscible solvents in contact with each other, as iodine in water and chloroform
- 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.
- dressing table set — a set including a hairbrush, mirror and comb, often with silver backs
- electronic banking — the transfer of money between financial institutions through an exchange of electronic signals over a network
- electronic mailbox — a device used to store electronic mail
- 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
- elizabethan sonnet — Shakespearean sonnet
- engelbart, douglas — Douglas Engelbart
- 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
- escape sb's notice — If something escapes your notice, you fail to recognize it or realize it.
- establishmentarian — Adhering to, advocating, or relating to the principle of an established church.
- 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.
- fabric conditioner — a product used when washing clothes to make them feel softer
- fall-back position — an alternative plan
- fantasy basketball — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- fibrocartilaginous — a type of cartilage having a large number of fibers.
- fire and brimstone — When people talk about fire and brimstone, they are referring to hell and how they think people are punished there after death.
- fire-and-brimstone — threatening punishment in the hereafter: a fire-and-brimstone sermon.
- flash butt welding — a method of welding metal edge-to-edge with a powerful electric flash followed by the application of pressure.
- flat on one's back — lying supine
- fragmentation bomb — a bomb designed to break into many small, high-velocity fragments when detonated.
- gamma distribution — a continuous two-parameter distribution from which the chi-square and exponential distributions are derived, written Gamma (α. β), where α and β are greater than zero, and defined in terms of the gamma function
- garbage collection — (programming) (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the run-time system), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like Lisp represent expressions as graphs built from cells which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic dynamic storage allocation to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on virtual memory size. The three main methods are mark-sweep garbage collection, reference counting and copying garbage collection. See also the AI koan about garbage collection.
- get one's own back — of, relating to, or belonging to oneself or itself (usually used after a possessive to emphasize the idea of ownership, interest, or relation conveyed by the possessive): He spent only his own money.
- gilbert and george — a team of artists, Gilbert Proesch, Italian, born 1942, and George Passmore, British, born 1943: noted esp for their photomontages and performance works
- gladden sb's heart — If you say that something gladdens someone's heart, you mean that it makes them feel pleased and hopeful.
- golden bantam corn — a horticultural variety of sweet corn having yellow kernels.
- golden gate bridge — a bridge connecting N California with San Francisco peninsula. 4200-foot (1280-meter) center span.
- good/not bad going — If you say that something that has been achieved is good going or not bad going, you mean that it is better than usual or than expected.
- grand traverse bay — an inlet of Lake Michigan on the NW of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.
- great pastern bone — the part of the foot of a horse, cow, etc., between the fetlock and the hoof.
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- handkerchief table — corner table.
- handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
- have a thing about — If you have a thing about someone or something, you have very strong feelings about them.
- have money to burn — to have more money than one needs, so that some can be spent foolishly
- heat of combustion — the heat evolved when one mole of a substance is burnt in oxygen at constant volume
- honourable mention — If something that you do in a competition is given an honourable mention, it receives special praise from the judges although it does not actually win a prize.
- ifs, ands, or buts — a supposition; uncertain possibility: The future is full of ifs.
- in all probability — the quality or fact of being probable.