19-letter words containing a, c, o, s, t, e
- postage and packing — the cost of packing and mailing an item bought by post
- potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
- prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
- presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
- prismatic telescope — a telescope having an eyepiece at the side or top equipped with a reflecting prism, used for taking sights at steep angles.
- private prosecution — a prosecution started by a private individual rather than by the police
- programmer's switch — (hardware) A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
- property speculator — a person who takes part in property speculation
- pseudo-aristocratic — of or relating to government by an aristocracy.
- pseudo-conservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
- pseudo-intellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- psychotechnological — of or relating to psychotechnology
- psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
- put one's back into — to devote all one's strength to (a task)
- quantum electronics — the application of quantum mechanics and quantum optics to the study and design of electronic devices
- quartermaster corps — the branch of the U.S. Army responsible for supplying food, clothing, fuel, and equipment and for the operation of commissaries, laundries, etc.
- radius of curvature — the absolute value of the reciprocal of the curvature at a point on a curve.
- rake over the coals — a black or dark-brown combustible mineral substance consisting of carbonized vegetable matter, used as a fuel. Compare anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite.
- rap on the knuckles — a mild reprimand or light sentence
- reactive depression — depression occurring in response to some situational stress, as loss of one's job.
- recording secretary — an officer charged with keeping the minutes of meetings and responsible for the records.
- register allocation — (compiler, algorithm) The phase of a compiler that determines which values will be placed in registers. Register allocation may be combined with register assignment. This problem can be shown to be isomorphic to graph colouring by relating values to nodes in the graph and registers to colours. Values (nodes) which must be valid simultaneously are linked by edges and cannot be stored in the same register (coloured the same). See also register dancing and register spilling.
- relational calculus — (database) An operational methodolgy, founded on predicate calculus, dealing with descripitive expressions that are equivalent to the operations of relational algebra. Codd's reduction algorithm can convert from relational calculus to relational algebra. Two forms of the relational calculus exist: the tuple calculus and the domain calculus.
- religious education — religion as school subject
- relocation expenses — Relocation expenses are a sum of money that a company pays to someone who moves to a new area in order to work for the company. The money is to help them pay for moving house.
- repeat prescription — A repeat prescription is a prescription for a medicine that you have taken before or that you use regularly.
- research laboratory — place for scientific experimentation
- reserved occupation — in time of war, an occupation from which one will not be called up for military service
- resistance movement — a movement fighting (for freedom, etc), often secretly or illegally, against an invader in an occupied country or against the country's government, etc
- resonance radiation — radiation emitted by an atom or molecule, having the same frequency as that of an incident particle, as a photon, and usually involving a transition to the lowest energy level of the atom or molecule.
- resorcinolphthalein — fluorescein.
- restorative justice — a theory and method in criminal justice in which it is arranged that the victim and the community receive restitution from the offender.
- reversible reaction — a reaction that, depending on ambient conditions, can proceed in either of two directions: the production of the reaction products from the reactants, or the production of the original reactants from the formed reaction products. Compare equilibrium (def 4).
- rhetorical question — a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply, as “What is so rare as a day in June?”.
- roosevelt corollary — a corollary (1904) to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting that the U.S. might intervene in the affairs of an American republic threatened with seizure or intervention by a European country.
- royal correspondent — a journalist who reports on matters relating to royalty
- sackcloth and ashes — a public display of extreme grief, remorse, or repentance
- sacramento sturgeon — white sturgeon.
- sacrifice operative — a euphemistic term for a suicide bomber
- sandwich generation — the generation of people still raising their children while having to care for their aging parents.
- sanitary protection — Sanitary protection is sanitary towels or tampons.
- santa rosa de copan — a town in W Honduras: site of extensive Mayan ruins.
- saturation coverage — news coverage (of an event, etc) that is very thorough in order not to miss any details
- scare the pants off — to scare extremely
- scattersite housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- school of the squad — an institution where instruction is given, especially to persons under college age: The children are at school.
- scientific notation — a method for expressing a given quantity as a number having significant digits necessary for a specified degree of accuracy, multiplied by 10 to the appropriate power, as 1385.62 written as 1.386 × 10 3 .
- screen actors guild — a labor union for motion-picture performers, founded in 1933. Abbreviation: SAG.
- secondary dentition — the permanent dentition
- secondary education — education at high-school level