Glossary
Terms starting with C
678 definitions · page 2 of 12.
- CAPTIVE CUSTOMER
- A customer who does not have realistic alternatives to buying power from the local utility, even if that customer had the legal right to buy from competitors.
- CAPTIVES
- Insurers that are created and wholly-owned by one or more non-insurers, to provide owners with coverage. A form of self-insurance.
- CAR YEAR
- Equal to 365 days of insured coverage for a single vehicle. It is the standard measurement for automobile insurance.
- Caramelise
- The process of either heating sugar to a point when it melts and resets as a hard glaze, as on the top of a crème brûlée, or cooking small or cut fruit or vegetables in water and sugar until they become brown and glazed. You can invest in a cook's blow torch…
- Carat
- Carat is a unit of weight for gemstones. 100 points equal one Carat. One Carat equals one-fifth of a gram. This term is often confused with karat, which is a measure of the purity of gold.
- CARBON DIOXIDE
- A colorless, odorless, non-poisonous gas that is a normal part of the air. Carbon dioxide, also called CO2, is exhaled by humans and animals and is absorbed by green growing things and by the sea.
- CARBON MONOXIDE (CO)
- A colorless, odorless, highly poisonous gas made up of carbon and oxygen molecules formed by the incomplete combustion of carbon or carbonaceous material, including gasoline. It is a major air pollutant on the basis of weight.
- carbon source
- A nutrient (such as sugar) that provides carbon skeletons needed for synthesis of new organic molecules (anabolism).
- carbon star
- a red giant star with much more carbon than oxygen in its surface layers
- carbonaceous chondrites
- a class of stony meteorites and asteroids which contain organic (carbon) compounds and may be the most primitive samples of the early solar system
- carcinogen
- An agent (chemical or radiation) that causes cancer.
- CARCINOGENS
- Potential cancer-causing agents in the environment. They include among others: industrial chemical compounds found in food additives, pesticides and fertilizers, drugs, toy, household cleaners, toiletries and paints. Naturally occurring ultraviolet solar…
- carcinoma
- tumour arising from epithelial tissue (eg glands; breast; skin; linings of the urogenital, intestinal and respiratory systems).
- Cardamom
- An aromatic spice indigenous to south India and Sri Lanka, cardamom seeds come from a plant belonging to the ginger family. They're contained in small pods about the size of a cranberry. Cardamom pods are usually green in colour, but they're sometimes…
- cardigan jacket
- A usually collarless sweater or jacket that opens the full length of the center front.
- Cardoon
- A large stalky vegetable related to the artichoke, the cardoon is popular in France, Italy and Spain but less known or used in the UK. Cardoons can be found in markets from midwinter to early spring. Look for stalks that are firm and have a silvery…
- Career Branding
- Career brands are important to a job seeker's reputation. This is what tells potential employers who the job seeker is, what he does and why the company should employ him. By building a solid reputation within a chosen industry, employers will immediately…
- Career Change
- Experts predict that each individual will change careers between 3 - 5 times during their working life. These changes can occur for a number of reasons, including: Wrong choice of career when young Career not as enjoyable as believed Technology development…
- Career Coach
- These are professional people who help the job seeker develop and understand his/her career potential though mentoring and advising on all areas of job and career searching. Career coaches are also known as: Career Trainer Career Consultant Career Advisor…
- Career Exploration
- What one does when looking to expand on a chosen career or choose a new career path to follow.
- Career Fair
- Also know as job fairs and employment fairs, these are generally held during the Spring Break to allow college students as well as established professionals to attend. The idea is to allow companies to meet potential employees and vice versa.
- Career Objective
- This is the part of a resume that tells the employer what the job seeker's goals are within his or her chosen career path. Although it doesn't have to be included in a resume, it's strongly recommended that job seekers outline career objectives whenever…
- Career Planning
- The process of deciding a career path. Job seekers should ask themselves: In which industry would I like to work? What is my ideal salary? Do I need more education in order to meet my goals?
- Career Portfolio
- This is an important tool used when seeking certain types of employment. The job seeker puts together a 'picture' of his/her work in order to help the employer evaluate their abilities. This is especially used by writers, artists, photographers and similar…
- cargo
- Characterized by sporting a large pocket usually with a flap and a pleat.
- Carob
- The fruits of this evergreen tree, native to the Middle East, grow in large pods that look similar to broad beans until they ripen from green to brown. They contain a very sweet pulp and hard, brown seeds. In the Middle East, the sweet pods are chewed raw…
- Carpaccio
- A classic Italian dish, served as a starter, of very thin shavings of raw beef fillet, served cold with olive oil and lemon juice or with a mayonnaise or mustard sauce. The dish is often topped with capers and sometimes onions. Although true carpaccio is…
- carpenter pants shorts
- Five-pocket pants characterized by a "hammer holder," a stretch of material connecting the outside seam to the back pocket.
- carrier
- An individual who possesses a mutant allele but does not express it in the phenotype because of a dominant allelic partner; thus, an individual of genotype Aa is a carrier of a, if there is complete dominance of A over a.
- Cascading style sheets (CSS)
- a data format used to separate style from structure on Web pages.
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- A style-sheet determines how the HTML document is displayed by the browser. The current version of CSS is version 2 (CSS2).
- CASE MANAGEMENT
- A system of coordinating medical services to treat a patient, improve care, and reduce cost. A case manager coordinates health care delivery for patients.
- Case Number
- The National Visa Center (NVC) gives each immigrant petition a case number. This number has three letters followed by ten digits (numbers). The three letters are an abbreviation for the overseas embassy or consulate that will process the immigrant visa case…
- CASH FLOW
- The net spendable income from an investment, determined by deducting all operating and fixed expenses from the gross income. When expenses exceed income, a negative cash flow results .
- Cash Lotto
- A lotto game awarded as a lump-sum cash payment. Cash lotto games typically have a smaller top prize than large jackpot games, more favorable odds of winning the top prize, and require players to select fewer numbers out of a smaller field. Examples include…
- Cash Option
- A large jackpot that the winner elects to receive as a lump sum cash payment rather than an 'Annuity' (see above) over several years.
- Cash Payoff
- A lottery prize that will be paid out all at one time, rather than over several years.
- CASH RENT
- In an agricultural lease, the amount of money given as rent to the landowner at the outset of the lease, as opposed to sharecropping.
- CASH-IN SHEET
- A cash-in is a counting procedure used to account for all money during an employee's shift.
- Cashew
- The cashew nut has a very unusual growth habit. It grows on a small tree, dangling beneath a fleshy stalk known as the cashew apple, or cashew pear. The 'pear' can be used for juices, syrups and liqueurs but the cashew nut is much more widely used. Cashews…
- Cassegrain telescope
- a reflecting telescope in which a secondary mirror reflects light back through a hole in the center of the primary mirror
- cassette mechanism
- The mechanism by which homothallic yeast cells alternate mating types, involves two silent transposons (cassettes) and a region where these cassettes can be expressed (cassette player).
- cassette model
- A model to explain mating-type switching in yeast. Information for both a and alpha mating types is assumed to be present as silent cassettes ; a copy of either type of cassette may be transposed to the mating-type locus, where it is played (transcribed).
- castrato
- A male singer castrated during boyhood to preserve his soprano or alto vocal register. Castratos played a prominent role in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century opera.
- CASUAL DINING
- A restaurant providing table service, relaxing environment, and a meal costing from $6.00 to $15.00.
- catabolite activator protein (CAP)
- A protein that when bound with cyclic AMP can attach to sites on sugar-metabolizing operons to enhance transcription of these operons
- catabolite repression
- Repression (inactivation) of certain sugar-metabolizing operons (eg lac) in favour of glucose utilization when glucose is the predominant carbon source in the environment of the cell.
- cataclysmic variable
- a close binary system which includes a white dwarf accreting matter from a less massive companion
- catadioptric telescope
- a telescope that combines the primary mirror of a reflector with a lens placed in front of the mirror that corrects for aberrations; most catadioptric telescopes for amateurs are Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes
- Catalog or Brochure
- A publication advertising and describing the property(ies) available for sale at public auction, often including photographs, property descriptions, and the terms and conditions of the sale.
- catalyst
- A substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself being permanently changed.
- CATALYTIC CRACKING
- A refinery process that converts a high-boiling range fraction of petroleum (gas oil) to gasoline, olefin feed for alkylation, distillate, fuel oil and fuel gas by use of a catalyst and heat.
- CATASTROPHE
- Term used for statistical recording purposes to refer to a single incident or a series of closely related incidents causing severe insured property losses totaling more than a given amount, currently $25 million.
- CATASTROPHE BONDS
- Risk-based securities that pay high interest rates and provide insurance companies with a form of reinsurance to pay losses from a catastrophe such as those caused by a major hurricane. They allow insurance risk to be sold to institutional investors in the…
- CATASTROPHE DEDUCTIBLE
- A percentage or dollar amount that a homeowner must pay before the insurance policy kicks in when a major natural disaster occurs. These large deductibles limit an insurer’s potential losses in such cases, allowing it to insure more property. A property…
- CATASTROPHE FACTOR
- Probability of catastrophic loss, based on the total number of catastrophes in a state over a 40-year period.
- CATASTROPHE MODEL
- Using computers, a method to mesh long-term disaster information with current demographic, building and other data to determine the potential cost of natural disasters and other catastrophic losses for a given geographic area.
- CATASTROPHE REINSURANCE
- Reinsurance (insurance for insurers) for catastrophic losses. The insurance industry is able to absorb the multibillion dollar losses caused by natural and man-made disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist attacks because losses are spread…
- cathedral train
- (Also known as a monarch train); a cascading train extending six to eight feet behind the gown, for the most formal weddings.
- cation
- A positively charged ion (such as K^+, Na^+, NH4^+).