19-letter words containing a, d, i
- piece de resistance — the principal dish of a meal.
- pileated woodpecker — a large, black-and-white American woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, having a prominent red crest.
- pistol-handle knife — a table knife, especially of the 18th century, having a slightly curved handle resembling the grip of a flintlock pistol.
- plastic deformation — In plastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it and does not go back to its original state when the stress is removed.
- play the devil with — Theology. (sometimes initial capital letter) the supreme spirit of evil; Satan. a subordinate evil spirit at enmity with God, and having power to afflict humans both with bodily disease and with spiritual corruption.
- pocket-handkerchief — handkerchief (def 1).
- police headquarters — building where police are stationed
- polycarboxylic acid — a type of carboxylic acid containing two or more carboxyl groups
- polyclonal antibody — a mixture of antibodies of different specificities, as in the serum of a person immunized to various antigens.
- polyphosphoric acid — any one of a series of oxyacids of phosphorus with the general formula Hn+2PnO3n+1. The first member is pyrophosphoric acid (n = 2) and the series includes the highly polymeric metaphosphoric acid. The higher acids exist in an equilibrium mixture
- post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
- postage and packing — the cost of packing and mailing an item bought by post
- potassium hydroxide — a white, deliquescent, water-soluble solid, KOH, usually in the form of lumps, sticks, or pellets, that upon solution in water generates heat: used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, as a laboratory reagent, and as a caustic.
- predicate adjective — an adjective used in the predicate, especially with a copulative verb and attributive to the subject, as in He is dead, or attributive to the direct object, as in It made him sick.
- predicate objective — objective complement.
- preproduction trial — a trial to test a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- pretty good privacy — (tool, cryptography) (PGP) A high security RSA public-key encryption application for MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and other computers. It was written by Philip R. Zimmermann <[email protected]> of Phil's Pretty Good(tm) Software and later augmented by a cast of thousands, especially including Hal Finney, Branko Lankester, and Peter Gutmann. PGP was distributed as "guerrilla freeware". The authors don't mind if it is distributed widely, just don't ask Philip Zimmermann to send you a copy. PGP uses a public-key encryption algorithm claimed by US patent #4,405,829. The exclusive rights to this patent are held by a California company called Public Key Partners, and you may be infringing this patent if you use PGP in the USA. This is explained in the PGP User's Guide, Volume II. PGP allows people to exchange files or messages with privacy and authentication. Privacy and authentication are provided without managing the keys associated with conventional cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed to exchange keys between users, which makes PGP much easier to use. This is because PGP is based on public-key cryptography. PGP encrypts data using the International Data Encryption Algorithm with a random session key, and uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the session key. In December 1994 Philip Zimmermann faced prosecution for "exporting" PGP out of the United States but in January 1996 the US Goverment dropped the case. A US law prohibits the export of encryption software out of the country. Zimmermann did not do this, but the US government hoped to establish the proposition that posting an encryption program on a BBS or on the Internet constitutes exporting it - in effect, stretching export control into domestic censorship. If the government had won it would have had a chilling effect on the free flow of information on the global network, as well as on everyone's privacy from government snooping.
- pride and prejudice — a novel (1813) by Jane Austen (written 1796–97).
- pride-of-california — a shrubby plant, Lathyrus splendens, of the legume family, native to southern California, having showy clusters of pale rose-pink, violet, or magenta flowers and large, smooth, beaked pods.
- production platform — offshore power station
- professional advice — advice given by someone trained in a particular and relevant profession or job
- profitability study — a study of how much profit a company, organization, etc, makes or how profitable it is
- programmed learning — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
- progressive judaism — Reform Judaism.
- proto-indo-european — the unattested prehistoric parent language of the Indo-European languages; Indo-European.
- pseudo-aristocratic — of or relating to government by an aristocracy.
- pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- pseudo-conservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
- pseudo-experimental — pertaining to, derived from, or founded on experiment: an experimental science.
- pseudo-intellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- pseudo-intransitive — denoting an occurrence of a normally transitive verb in which a direct object is not explicitly stated or forms the subject of the sentence, as in Margaret is cooking or these apples cook well
- pseudo-professional — following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.
- pseudohermaphrodite — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- pseudopsychological — of or relating to psychology.
- pyrophosphoric acid — a crystalline, water-soluble powder, H 4 P 2 O 7 , formed by the union of one molecule of phosphorus pentoxide with two molecules of water.
- queensland lungfish — a lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, reaching a length of six feet: occurs in Queensland rivers but introduced elsewhere
- radiation potential — the potential in volts that must be applied to an atom or molecule to cause it to emit radiation at one of its characteristic frequencies.
- radiational cooling — the cooling of the earth's surface and adjacent air, primarily at night, caused by a loss of heat due to surface emission of infrared radiation.
- radioactive fallout — the settling to the ground of airborne particles ejected into the atmosphere from the earth by explosions, eruptions, forest fires, etc., especially such settling from nuclear explosions (radioactive fallout) Compare rainout.
- radiochromatography — chromatography in which radiolabeled substances on the chromatogram are determined quantitatively or qualitatively by measuring their radioactivity.
- radiopharmaceutical — any of a number of radioactive drugs used diagnostically or therapeutically.
- radius of curvature — the absolute value of the reciprocal of the curvature at a point on a curve.
- rag-tag and bobtail — the riffraff; rabble: The ragtag and bobtail of every nation poured into the frontier in search of gold.
- 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.
- reduction potential — (in a galvanic cell) the potential of the electrode at which reduction occurs.
- refreshable display — braille display
- registered disabled — on a local authority register under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970
- regular icosahedron — an icosahedron in which each of the faces is an equilateral triangle
- reindustrialization — the revitalization of an industry or industrial society through government aid and tax incentives, modernization of factories and machinery, etc.