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20-letter words containing a, c, r, o, p

  • prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
  • priority inheritance — (parallel)   A technique for avoiding priority inversion by temporarily raising the prioriry of all processes that want to access a shared resource to the highest priority level of any of them. Priority inversion occurs where a low priority process, L is holding a resource required by a high priority process, H, but L is not running because a medium priority process, M is running. Under priority inheritance, L temporarily inherits H's priority, allowing L to run and release the resource H is waiting for. For example, an ambulance (H) is stuck behind a lorry (L) waiting at a junction (the shared resource) for a gap in a line of cars (M) using the junction. Applying priority inheritance, the cars give way to the lorry as they would to the ambulance, thus allowing the lorry and then the ambulance to use the junction.
  • proactive inhibition — the tendency for earlier memories to interfere with the retrieval of material learned later
  • probability function — the function the values of which are probabilities of the distinct outcomes of a discrete random variable
  • procedural agreement — regulations agreed between the parties to collective bargaining, defining the bargaining units, bargaining scope, procedures for collective bargaining, and the facilities to be provided to trade union representatives
  • production agreement — a contract concerning the production or manufacture of something
  • prohibited substance — a substance, such as a drug, etc, that is banned or forbidden by law or other authority
  • property speculation — the buying or selling of property in the hope of deriving capital gains
  • proportional counter — a radiation counter in which the strength of each electric pulse generated per count is proportional to the energy of the particle or photon producing the pulse, alpha particles producing a different electric pulse from beta rays.
  • proportional spacing — a feature of some typewriters and other output devices whereby the space allotted to each character is determined by the width of the character
  • proprietary medicine — a drug or agent manufactured and distributed under a trade name
  • propylphenyl acetate — phenylpropyl acetate.
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
  • psychiatric hospital — institution treating mental disorders
  • public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
  • quantum cryptography — a method of coding information based on quantum mechanics, which is said to be unbreakable
  • rapid reaction force — a force that can be deployed swiftly to a site of conflict or potential conflict
  • real-time processing — data-processing by a computer which receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
  • reciprocal insurance — insurance in which members of a reciprocal exchange, acting through an attorney-in-fact, insure themselves and each other.
  • reciprocating engine — an engine in which one or more pistons move backwards and forwards inside a cylinder or cylinders
  • recreational therapy — therapy by means of recreational activities engaged in by the patient
  • redheaded woodpecker — a North American woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), with a bright-red head and neck, black back, and white underparts
  • refracting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
  • rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
  • santa cruz operation — (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. SCO maintains its world headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, USA; a European headquarters in Watford, England; a Government Systems Group in Reston, Virginia; and offices in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, and throughout Europe and the United States. In February 1993, SCO acquired IXI Limited of Cambridge, England, the leading supplier of Unix System windowing software.
  • schizoid personality — sb with identity disorder
  • semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
  • separation allowance — an allowance paid to a member of the military when they are forced to be apart from their family due to their military duties
  • service access point — (networking)   (SAP) The OSI term for the component of a network address which identifies the individual application on a host which is sending or receiving a packet. Different SAPs distinguish between different services or applications on a host, e.g. electronic mail, FTP, HTTP.
  • sex change operation — a surgical operation designed to change a person's physical sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
  • south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
  • special boat service — a unit of the Royal Marines specializing in reconnaissance and sabotage
  • special patrol group — a former police unit tasked with counter terrorism in the Royal Ulster Constabulary
  • special relationship — the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom
  • specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
  • spectroscopic binary — a binary star having components that are not sufficiently separated to be resolved by a telescope, known to be a binary only bythe variations in wavelength of emitted light that are detected by a spectroscope.
  • spherical aberration — variation in focal length of a lens or mirror from center to edge, due to its spherical shape.
  • spherical coordinate — Usually, spherical coordinates. any of three coordinates used to locate a point in space by the length of its radius vector and the angles this vector makes with two perpendicular polar planes.
  • spiral of archimedes — a curve that is the locus of a point that moves outward with uniform speed along a vector, beginning at the origin, while the vector rotates about the origin with uniform angular velocity. Equation (in polar coordinates): r = aθ.
  • spontaneous recovery — the reappearance of a response after its extinction has been followed by a period of rest
  • spotted crane's-bill — the American wild geranium, Geranium maculatum.
  • step into the breach — If you step into the breach, you do a job or task which someone else was supposed to do or has done in the past, because they are suddenly unable to do it.
  • subscription library — a commercial lending library
  • supersonic transport — a commercial jet airplane that can fly faster than the speed of sound. Abbreviation: SST.
  • switchboard operator — a person who operates an installation in a telephone exchange, office, hotel, etc, at which the interconnection of telephone lines is manually controlled
  • teletype corporation — (company)   The company which made Teletype teletypewriters. Address: Skokie, Illinois, USA.
  • therapeutic abortion — abortion performed when a woman's pregnancy endangers her health.
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