18-letter words containing a, c, o, u, p, l
- on automatic pilot — If you are on automatic pilot or on autopilot, you are acting without thinking about what you are doing, usually because you have done it many times before.
- optical soundtrack — the final soundtrack on a motion picture, which appears as a band of black and white serrations along a strip of film to the left of the composite print. Light is shined through the serrations and is converted to audible sound.
- 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.
- parallel computing — 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.
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- 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.
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
- play cat and mouse — Also called cat and rat. a children's game in which players in a circle keep a player from moving into or out of the circle and permit a second player to move into or out of the circle to escape the pursuing first player.
- political question — a question regarded by the courts as being a matter to be determined by another department of government rather than of law and therefore one with which they will not deal, as the recognition of a foreign state.
- population balance — A population balance is a model showing particle sizes during a grinding process, which is used when designing a process.
- population control — a policy of attempting to limit the growth in numbers of a population, esp in poor or densely populated parts of the world, by programmes of contraception or sterilization
- portal circulation — blood flow in a portal system.
- potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- pour cold water on — If someone pours cold water on a plan or idea, they criticize it so much that people lose their enthusiasm for it.
- protocol data unit — (PDU) A packet of data passed across a network. The term implies a specific layer of the OSI seven layer model and a specific protocol.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- provascular tissue — procambium.
- provincial council — (formerly) a council administering any of the New Zealand provinces
- pseudo-socialistic — of or relating to socialists or socialism.
- pseudointellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- public corporation — a corporation, owned and operated by a government, established for the administration of certain public programs.
- public examination — an examination, such as a GCSE exam, that is set by a central examining board
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- put the clock back — to regress
- pyromucic aldehyde — furfural.
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- real-time computer — a computer that can process data or information almost immediately
- resurrection plant — a desert plant, Selaginella lepidophylla, occurring from Texas to South America, having stems that curl inward when dry.
- self-preoccupation — the state of being preoccupied.
- spackling compound — spackle
- special prosecutor — (formerly) an independent counsel.
- subatomic particle — physics:
- super royal octavo — a book size, 63⁄4 by 101⁄4 inches
- thiosulphuric acid — an unstable acid known only in solutions and in the form of its salts. Formula: H2S2O3
- to hold your peace — If you hold or keep your peace, you do not speak, even though there is something you want or ought to say.
- unit magnetic pole — the unit of magnetic pole strength equal to the strength of a magnetic pole that repels a similar pole with a force of one dyne, the two poles being placed in a vacuum and separated by a distance of one centimeter.
- universal coupling — a coupling between rotating shafts set at an angle to one another, allowing for rotation in three planes.
- upper palaeolithic — the latest of the three periods of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 40 000 bc and ending, in Europe, about 12 000 bc: characterized by the emergence of modern man, Homo sapiens