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20-letter words containing ra

  • capillary attraction — a force that is the resultant of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension in liquids which are in contact with solids, as in a capillary tube: when the cohesive force is greater, the surface of the liquid tends to rise in the tube, as with mercury; when the adhesive force is greater, the surface tends to be depressed, as with water
  • capital transactions — the flow of money and assets
  • capital transfer tax — (in Britain) a tax payable from 1974 to 1986 at progressive rates on the cumulative total of gifts of money or property made during the donor's lifetime or after his death. It was replaced by inheritance tax
  • carbohydrate loading — the practice of eating high amounts of carbohydrates, sometimes after a period of low carbohydrate intake, for several days immediately before competing in an athletic event, especially a marathon, in order to store glycogen in the body, thereby providing greater reserves of energy.
  • carbon sequestration — the prevention of greenhouse gas build-up in the earth's atmosphere by methods such as planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide or pumping carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs
  • carbon tetrachloride — a colourless volatile nonflammable sparingly soluble liquid made from chlorine and carbon disulphide; tetrachloromethane. It is used as a solvent, cleaning fluid, and insecticide. Formula: CCl4
  • cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
  • central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
  • central india agency — a former group of 89 states in India, under the supervision of a British political agent until 1947: most important were Indore, Bhopal, and Rewa
  • cerebral haemorrhage — bleeding from an artery in the brain, which in severe cases causes a stroke
  • character repertoire — (character)   The set of all characters onto which a coded character set maps integers (code positions). For example, consider these two simple coded character sets: Coded Character Set One: integer 0 -> the character "A" integer 1 -> the character "B" Coded Character Set Two: integer 0 -> the character "B" integer 1 -> the character "A" Both of these coded character sets map to the characters "A" and "B", so they have the same character repertoire. But since the mapping is different (and obviously incompatible), these are different coded character sets.
  • characteristic curve — a graph of the density of a particular photographic material plotted against the logarithm of the exposure producing this density
  • characteristic x-ray — an x-ray that is emitted from an atom when an electron is displaced from an inner shell.
  • chemotherapeutically — By means of chemotherapy.
  • chevalier-montrachet — a white wine from Burgundy.
  • cholestyramine resin — a powdery synthetic resin that binds with and prevents the reabsorption of bile acids, used to reduce cholesterol levels, relieve itching associated with jaundice, etc.
  • christopher strachey — (person)   Professor of Computation at Oxford, England, born 1916, died May 1975. He invented the term "currying". See also: General Purpose Macro-generator.
  • chromatic aberration — a defect in a lens system in which different wavelengths of light are focused at different distances because they are refracted through different angles. It produces a blurred image with coloured fringes
  • chromaticity diagram — a diagram in which values of two chromaticity coordinates are marked on a pair of rectangular axes, a point in the plane of these axes representing the chromaticity of any colour
  • co-operative society — In Britain, a co-operative society is a commercial organization with several shops in a particular district. Customers can join this organization and get a share of its profits.
  • colorado blue spruce — blue spruce.
  • comparative judgment — any judgment about whether there is a difference between two or more stimuli
  • comparative religion — a field of study seeking to derive general principles from a comparison and classification of the growth and influence of various religions.
  • compare and contrast — note similarities, differences
  • complementary strand — either of the two chains that make up a double helix of DNA, with corresponding positions on the two chains being composed of a pair of complementary bases.
  • complex carbohydrate — a carbohydrate, as sucrose or starch, that consists of two or more monosaccharide units.
  • composite photograph — a photograph formed by superimposing two or more separate photographs
  • computer programming — the activity or profession of writing computer programs
  • connector conspiracy — (business, standard)   The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, other designers) to come up with products that don't fit with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The term probably came into prominence with the appearance of the DEC KL-10, none of whose connectors matched anything else. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually *patented* by DEC, who reputedly refused to licence the design, thus effectively locking out competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy was a source of frustration for the owners of dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives. A related phenomenon is the invention of new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialised case-cracking tool to open the box. With the advent of more open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse. Compare backward combatability.
  • context-free grammar — (grammar)   (CFG) A grammar where the syntax of each constituent (syntactic category or terminal symbol) is independent of the symbols occuring before and after it in a sentence. A context-free grammar describes a context-free language. Context-free grammars can be expressed by a set of "production rules" or syntactic rules. For example, a language with symbols "a" and "b" that must occur in unequal numbers can be represented by the CFG: S → U | V U → TaU | TaT | UaT V → TbV | TbT | VbT T → aTbT | bTaT | ε meaning the top-level category "S" consists of either a "U" or a "V" and so on. The special category "ε" represents the empty string. This grammar is context-free because each rule has a single symbol on its left-hand side.
  • contradistinguishing — Present participle of contradistinguish.
  • corporate governance — the balance of control between the stakeholders, managers, and directors of an organization
  • counterdemonstration — a demonstration that is held in reaction to another demonstration
  • counterproliferation — Action intended to prevent an increase or spread in the possession of nuclear weapons.
  • covenant of warranty — warranty (def 2b).
  • covenant-of-warranty — warranty (def 2b).
  • craft apprenticeship — a period of training for a skilled trade in industry, such as for a plumber or electrician
  • craniosacral therapy — a form of therapy for various disorders in which the therapist manipulates the bones of the skull
  • critical temperature — the temperature of a substance in its critical state. A gas can only be liquefied by pressure alone at temperatures below its critical temperature
  • cytosine arabinoside — cytarabine.
  • database transaction — (database)   A set of related changes applied to a database. The term typically implies that either all of the changes should be applied or, in the event of an error, none of them, i.e. the transaction should be atomic. Atomicity is one of the ACID properties a transaction can have, another is isolation - preventing interference between processes trying to access the database cocurrently. This is usually achieved by some form of locking - where one process takes exclusive control of a database table or row for the duration of the transaction, preventing other processes from accessing the locked data. The canonical example of a transaction is transferring money between two bank accounts by subtracting it from one and adding it to the other. Some relational database management systems require the user to explicitly start a transaction and then either commit it (if all the individual steps are successful) or roll it back (if there are any errors).
  • debt-to-equity ratio — A company's debt-to-equity ratio is a measure of leverage that is calculated by dividing total liabilities by shareholders' equity.
  • declarative language — (language)   Any relational language or functional language. These kinds of programming language describe relationships between variables in terms of functions or inference rules, and the language executor (interpreter or compiler) applies some fixed algorithm to these relations to produce a result. Declarative languages contrast with imperative languages which specify explicit manipulation of the computer's internal state; or procedural languages which specify an explicit sequence of steps to follow. The most common examples of declarative languages are logic programming languages such as Prolog and functional languages like Haskell. See also production system.
  • declaratory judgment — a judgment that merely decides the rights of parties in a given transaction, situation, or dispute but does not order any action or award damages.
  • democracy in america — French Démocracie en Amérique. a study (1835) by Alexis de Tocqueville of American political institutions.
  • democratic socialism — socialism, or a modified form of socialism, achieved by a gradual transition by and under democratic political processes.
  • demographic timebomb — a predicted shortage of school-leavers and consequently of available workers, caused by an earlier drop in the birth rate, resulting in an older workforce
  • diamondback terrapin — 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
  • dimethylanthranilate — a colorless or pale-yellow liquid, C 9 H 11 NO 2 , having a grape odor: used chiefly in perfumes, flavorings, and drugs.
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