18-letter words containing a, c, e, l
- on delicate ground — in a situation requiring tact
- once in a lifetime — extremely rarely
- open-collar worker — (job) Someone who works at home or telecommutes.
- optical brightener — an additive that dyes and brightens fabric or paper
- optical carrier 12 — (networking) (OC-12) A SONET rate of 12 * 51.84 = 622.08 megabits per second.
- optical carrier 48 — (networking) (OC-48) A SONET rate of 48 * 51.84 = 2488.32 megabits per second.
- optical disc drive — optical disk drive
- optical disk drive — (hardware) (Or "optical disc drive", "optical storage") A generic term for any device that reads and/or writes optical media, i.e. compact discs, DVDs and/or Blu-ray discs or future media that uses light (from a small laser) to read data off a removable, rotating disk. At least one such drive is commonly installed in most personal computers to allow them to play and/or record audio and video media and load and store data such as program installers. The floppy disk has been replaced by optical media due to its vastly greater capacity, e.g. 50,000 megabytes for a dual-layer blu-ray disc compared with 1.5 megabytes for a floppy (over 30,000 times as much).
- optical microscope — traditional magnifying instrument
- oracle corporation — (company) The world's leading supplier of information management software. The company, worth $2 billion, offers its products, along with related consulting, education and support services in more than 90 countries around the world. Oracle is best known for its database management systems vendor and relational DBMS products. Oracle develops and markets Oracle Media Server and the Oracle7 family of software products for database management; Co-operative Development Environment and Oracle Co-operative Applications Oracle software runs on personal digital assistants, set-top boxs, IBM PCs, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes and massively parallel computers. Oracle bought Sun Microsystems on 2009-04-20. See also Adaptable User Interface, Bookviewer, CASE*Method, Component Integration Laboratories, DDE Manager, Online Media, Oracle Card, Oracle*CASE, siod. Address: Redwood Shores, CA, USA.
- oral contraceptive — birth-control pill.
- oriental cat's-eye — a chatoyant variety of chrysoberyl, used as a gem.
- oriental cockroach — a dark-brown cockroach, Blatta orientalis, thought to have originated in Asia but now nearly cosmopolitan in distribution.
- oriental scops owl — any of a group of small owls having ear tufts and a whistling call, especially Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl)
- oscillating engine — a steam engine having piston rods connected directly to the crankshaft and cylinders oscillating on trunnions.
- overcapitalization — The state of being overcapitalized.
- overdraft facility — a facility (of a bank or building-society cheque account) that allows a withdrawal of money in excess of the account's credit balance
- overspecialization — excessive specialization, as in a field of study.
- pacinian corpuscle — (sometimes lowercase) a microscopic, onionlike body consisting of layers of connective tissue wrapped around a nerve ending, located in the deep layers of skin, tendons, etc., and functioning as a sensory receptor of pressure and vibration.
- pair of spectacles — a score of 0 in each innings of a match
- paleoclimatologist — the branch of paleogeography dealing with the study of paleoclimates.
- palm beach gardens — a city in SE Florida, near North Palm Beach.
- palmer archipelago — a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the NW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- parallel processor — (parallel) A computer with more than one central processing unit, used for parallel processing.
- parallel reduction — A form of applicative order reduction in which all redexes in an expression are reduced simultaneously. Variants include parallel outermost reduction and lenient reduction. See normal order reduction.
- parallel resonance — the resonance that results when circuit elements are connected with their inductance and capacitance in parallel, so that the impedance of the combination rises to a maximum at the resonant frequency
- particular average — a loss at sea, as through accident or negligence, that is borne solely by the owner of the lost property. Abbreviation: P.A.
- particulate filter — A particulate filter is a filter to remove particles that are present the air, for example in the exhaust of a diesel engine.
- particulate matter — Particulate matter is solid or liquid particles in the air, which are measured in PM-10 units and are particles with a diameter of ten micrometers or less.
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- payload specialist — an astronaut trained to handle highly complex or classified equipment carried aboard a space shuttle and to conduct experiments in space.
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- pennsylvania dutch — the descendants of 17th- and 18th-century settlers in Pennsylvania from southwest Germany and Switzerland.
- people trafficking — the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally
- people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
- percentile ranking — the percentage of scores that a particular score is greater than
- perceptual defence — the process by which it is thought that certain stimuli are either not perceived or are distorted due to their offensive, unpleasant, or threatening nature
- perceptual mapping — the use of a graph or map in the development of a new product, in which the proximity of consumers' images of the new product to those of an ideal product provide an indication of the new product's likely success
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- perfect participle — past participle.
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- perpetual calendar — a calendar devised to be used for many years, as in determining the day of the week on which a given date falls.
- personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phenylacetaldehyde — a colorless, oily, water-insoluble liquid, C 3 H 1 4 O, having a hyacinthlike odor: used chiefly in perfumery.
- photochemical smog — air pollution containing ozone and other reactive chemical compounds formed by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, especially those in automobile exhaust.
- phthalic anhydride — a white, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 8 H 4 O 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes, alkyd resins, and plasticizers.