18-letter words containing a, d, r, s
- osteoradionecrosis — bone tissue death induced by radiation.
- overdraft interest — interest charged on money withdrawn in excess of the credit balance of a bank or building society account
- paediatric nursing — the branch of nursing concerned with the care of children
- palm beach gardens — a city in SE Florida, near North Palm Beach.
- parathyroid glands — any of several small oval glands usually lying near or embedded in the thyroid gland.
- pass the hat round — to collect money, as for a cause
- passing-out parade — a ceremonial parade of cadets who have completed their training
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- pedal steel guitar — an oblong, floor-mounted electrified guitar, usually having ten strings, fretted with a steel bar and producing a wailing sound that is modulated by use of a foot pedal.
- pedestrian traffic — the people coming and going on foot in a street, town, etc
- people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
- per ardua ad astra — through difficulties to the stars: the motto of the RAF
- permanent hardness — hardness of water that cannot be removed by boiling as it results mainly from the presence of calcium and magnesium chlorides and sulphates
- permanent resident — an immigrant who has been given official residential status, often prior to being granted citizenship
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- phosphatidylserine — any of a class of phospholipids occurring in biological membranes and fats
- pitch-and-run shot — chip shot.
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
- 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.
- potassium fluoride — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, toxic powder, KF, used chiefly as an insecticide, a disinfectant, and in etching glass.
- precedence lossage — /pre's*-dens los'*j/ A misunderstanding of operator precedence resulting in unintended grouping of arithmetic or logical operators when coding an expression. Used especially of mistakes in C code due to the nonintuitively low precedence of "&", "|", "^", "<<" and ">>". For example, the following C expression, intended to test the least significant bit of x, x & 1 == 0 is parsed as x & (1 == 0) which is always zero (false). Some lazy programmers ignore precedence and parenthesise everything. Lisp fans enjoy pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favourite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
- predation pressure — the effect of predation upon a population, resulting in the decrease in size of that population.
- predicate calculus — predicate logic
- presenile dementia — a form of dementia, of unknown cause, starting before a person is old
- preservation order — In Britain, a preservation order is an official order that makes it illegal for anyone to alter or destroy something such as an old building or an area of countryside.
- presidential suite — a suite of rooms, as in a hotel, suitable for a president or other head of state.
- prestidigitization — /pres`t*-di"j*-ti:-zay"sh*n/ 1. A term coined by Daniel Klein <[email protected]> for the act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand. 2. Data entry through legerdemain.
- price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
- prince of darkness — Satan.
- prisoner's dilemma — (in game theory) a scenario in which the outcome of one person's decision is determined by the simultaneous decisions of the other participants, resulting in a bad outcome for all of them if all act in their own self-interest.
- programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
- pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
- put heads together — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- pyramus and thisbe — (in Greek legend) two lovers of Babylon: Pyramus, wrongly supposing Thisbe to be dead, killed himself and she, encountering him in his death throes, did the same
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- qattara depression — a desert basin in the Libyan Desert, in NW Egypt: lowest point is 435 feet (133 meters) below sea level. 6950 sq. mi. (18,000 sq. km).
- quinacrine mustard — a nitrogen mustard derived from mepacrine and used as a stain for chromosomes
- radiation exposure — exposure to radiant energy or to the particles emitted in the transfer of radiant energy, esp the particles and gamma rays emitted in nuclear decay; exposure to radioactive substances
- radiation pressure — the pressure exerted on a surface by electromagnetic radiation or by sound waves.
- radiation sickness — sickness caused by irradiation with x-rays or other nuclear radiation as a result of therapeutic treatment, accidental exposure, or a nuclear bomb explosion and characterized by nausea, vomiting, headache, cramps, diarrhea, loss of hair and teeth, destruction of white blood cells, and prolonged hemorrhage.
- radical empiricism — (in the philosophy of William James) the doctrine that the only proper subject matter of philosophy is that which can be defined in terms of experience, and that relations are a part of experience.
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- radioactive series — a succession of elements initiated in the radioactive decay of a parent, as thorium or uranium, each of which decays into the next until a stable element, usually lead, is produced.
- radius of gyration — the distance from an axis at which the mass of a body may be assumed to be concentrated and at which the moment of inertia will be equal to the moment of inertia of the actual mass about the axis, equal to the square root of the quotient of the moment of inertia and the mass.
- rail rapid transit — a system of rail transit within an urban area that has exclusive right of way either below, above, or on the ground and so is capable of relatively high operating speed. Abbreviation: RRT.
- rain cats and dogs — water that is condensed from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth in drops more than 1/50 inch (0.5 mm) in diameter. Compare drizzle (def 6).
- rear its ugly head — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- reduction strategy — (theory) An algorithm for deciding which redex(es) to reduce next. Different strategies have different termination properties in the presence of recursive functions or values. See string reduction, normal order reduction, applicative order reduction, parallel reduction