13-letter words containing a, d, p
- doppler laser — a technique for measuring the shift in frequency between the source and reflected radiation of a laser.
- doppler radar — a radar tracking system that determines the velocity of a moving object by measuring the Doppler shift of the frequency of a radar signal reflected by the object.
- double paddle — a paddle with a blade at each end, as that of the kayak.
- double spread — any pair of facing pages in a completed book, magazine, etc.
- doublespeaker — a person who uses doublespeak
- draftsmanship — a person employed in making mechanical drawings, as of machines, structures, etc.
- draftspersons — Plural form of draftsperson.
- drag and drop — A common method for manipulating files (and sometimes text) under a graphical user interface or WIMP environment. The user moves the pointer over an icon representing a file and presses a mouse button. He holds the button down while moving the pointer (dragging the file) to another place, usually a directory viewer or an icon for some application program, and then releases the button (dropping the file). The meaning of this action can often be modified by holding certain keys on the keyboard at the same time. Some systems also use this technique for objects other than files, e.g. portions of text in a word processor. The biggest problem with drag and drop is does it mean "copy" or "move"? The answer to this question is not intuitively evident, and there is no consensus for which is the right answer. The same vendor even makes it move in some cases and copy in others. Not being sure whether an operation is copy or move will cause you to check very often, perhaps every time if you need to be certain. Mistakes can be costly. People make mistakes all the time with drag and drop. Human computer interaction studies show a higher failure rate for such operations, but also a higher "forgiveness rate" (users think "silly me") than failures with commands (users think "stupid machine"). Overall, drag and drop took some 40 times longer to do than single-key commands.
- drake passage — a strait between S South America and the South Shetland Islands, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- drama therapy — a type of psychotherapy encouraging patients to use dramatic techniques to deal with emotional and psychological problems.
- drape forming — thermoforming of plastic sheeting over an open mold by a combination of gravity and a vacuum.
- drawing paper — artist's paper for drawing and sketching
- drip painting — a technique of abstract painting exemplified chiefly in the later works of Jackson Pollack and marked by the intricately executed dripping and pouring of the paint on a canvas placed on the floor.
- drop a stitch — to allow a loop of wool to fall off a knitting needle accidentally while knitting
- drop the ball — a spherical or approximately spherical body or shape; sphere: He rolled the piece of paper into a ball.
- drop-dead fee — a fee paid to an organization lending money to a company that is hoping to use it to finance a takeover bid. The fee is only paid if the bid fails and interest charges are only incurred if the money is needed
- dropped waist — the waistline of a dress, gown, or the like when it is placed at the hips rather than at the natural waist.
- drum paneling — flush paneling in a door.
- duplicability — The quality of being duplicable.
- durable press — permanent press.
- durban poison — a particularly potent variety of cannabis grown in Natal
- dynamic scope — (language) In a dynamically scoped language, e.g. most versions of Lisp, an identifier can be referred to, not only in the block where it is declared, but also in any function or procedure called from within that block, even if the called procedure is declared outside the block. This can be implemented as a simple stack of (identifier, value) pairs, accessed by searching down from the top of stack for the most recent instance of a given identifier. The opposite is lexical scope. A common implementation of dynamic scope is shallow binding.
- dyslipidaemia — Alternative spelling of dyslipidemia.
- early adopter — a person who uses a new product or technology before it becomes widely known or used.
- easter parade — a parade held on or near Easter Day, in particular a strolling procession in and around Fifth Avenue New York City (celebrated by Irving Berlin in a song, which gave rise to a film of the same name) for which people dress up in especially smart clothes; this derives from an older tradition of wearing new clothes at Easter in honour of the festival.
- eavesdroppers — Plural form of eavesdropper.
- eavesdropping — to listen secretly to a private conversation.
- elastoplasted — Covered with Elastoplast.
- electroplated — Simple past tense and past participle of electroplate.
- elephantbirds — Plural form of elephantbird.
- encyclopaedia — (chiefly, UK, Australia) alternative spelling of encyclopedia.
- encyclopaedic — Alternative spelling of encyclopedic.
- encyclopedian — including a wide circle of learning
- encyclopedias — Plural form of encyclopedia.
- endolymphatic — (anatomy) Pertaining to, or containing, endolymph.
- endoparasites — Plural form of endoparasite.
- endoparasitic — Of or pertaining to endoparasites.
- endopeptidase — An enzyme that breaks peptide bonds other than terminal ones in a peptide chain.
- epanadiplosis — a figure of speech involving the same word being used at the beginning and the end
- epidotization — the process of changing into epidote
- epitrochoidal — Being or relating to an epitrochoid.
- equiponderant — of the same weight; evenly balanced
- equiponderate — To counterbalance.
- escape device — a device with a collapsible extensible slide, used as an emergency exit, eg from a burning tall building
- european toad — a European toad, Alytes obstetricans, the male of which carries the fertilized eggs on its hind legs until they hatch: family Discoglossidae
- exasperatedly — In an exasperated manner.
- exhaustipated — Too tired to care about anything.
- expandability — (uncountable) The condition of being expandable.
- expeditionary — Of or forming an expedition, especially a military expedition.
- expendability — The state or quality of being expendable.