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19-letter words containing a, e, r, o, s, i

  • planning permission — In Britain, planning permission is official permission that you must get from the local authority before building something new or adding something to an existing building.
  • 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.
  • pneumogastric nerve — the vagus nerve.
  • pointe-aux-trembles — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, N of Montreal, on the St. Lawrence.
  • police headquarters — building where police are stationed
  • popular sovereignty — the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people and that those chosen to govern, as trustees of such power, must exercise it in conformity with the general will.
  • population pressure — the force exerted by a growing population upon its environment, resulting in dispersal or reduction of the population.
  • portuguese-speaking — being a speaker of Portuguese; having Portuguese as the national language
  • post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
  • posterior pituitary — a small, somewhat cherry-shaped double structure attached by a stalk to the base of the brain and constituting the master endocrine gland affecting all hormonal functions in the body, consisting of an anterior region ((anterior pituitary) or (adenohypophysis)) that develops embryonically from the roof of the mouth and that secretes growth hormone, LH, FSH, ACTH, TSH, and MSH, a posterior region ((posterior pituitary) or (neurohypophysis)) that develops from the back of the forebrain and that secretes the hormones vasopressin and oxytocin, and an intermediate part (pars intermedia) derived from the anterior region but joined to the posterior region, that secretes the hormone MSH in lower vertebrates.
  • potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
  • 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.
  • prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
  • presentation skills — the set of techniques and skills required successfully to present oral information to others
  • presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
  • prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
  • prismatic telescope — a telescope having an eyepiece at the side or top equipped with a reflecting prism, used for taking sights at steep angles.
  • private prosecution — a prosecution started by a private individual rather than by the police
  • privatization issue — an issue of shares available for purchase by members of the public when a publicly owned organization is transferred to the private sector
  • professional advice — advice given by someone trained in a particular and relevant profession or job
  • professional school — a postgraduate school or college which trains students for a particular profession
  • professionalization — to give a professional character or status to; make into or establish as a profession.
  • programmer's switch — (hardware)   A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
  • progressive judaism — Reform Judaism.
  • protease inhibitors — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.
  • 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-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).
  • psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
  • puerperal psychosis — a mental disorder sometimes occurring in women after childbirth, characterized by deep depression, delusions of the child's death, and homicidal feelings towards the child
  • put a figure on sth — When you put a figure on an amount, you say exactly how much it is.
  • pyorrhea alveolaris — a chronic periodontitis of the gums and tooth sockets, characterized by the formation of pus and, usually, by loosening of the teeth
  • pyorrhea-alveolaris — Pathology. a discharge of pus.
  • pyrenees-orientales — a department in S France. 1600 sq. mi. (4145 sq. km). Capital: Perpignan.
  • quantum electronics — the application of quantum mechanics and quantum optics to the study and design of electronic devices
  • queen's regulations — (in Britain and certain other Commonwealth countries when the sovereign is female) the code of conduct for members of the armed forces
  • radius of curvature — the absolute value of the reciprocal of the curvature at a point on a curve.
  • raise one's hackles — one of the long, slender feathers on the neck or saddle of certain birds, as the domestic rooster, much used in making artificial flies for anglers.
  • reactive depression — depression occurring in response to some situational stress, as loss of one's job.
  • recessional moraine — a moraine marking a temporary halt in the general retreat of a glacier.
  • recording secretary — an officer charged with keeping the minutes of meetings and responsible for the records.
  • reflux oesophagitis — inflammation of the gullet caused by regurgitation of stomach acids, producing heartburn: may be associated with a hiatus hernia
  • register allocation — (compiler, algorithm)   The phase of a compiler that determines which values will be placed in registers. Register allocation may be combined with register assignment. This problem can be shown to be isomorphic to graph colouring by relating values to nodes in the graph and registers to colours. Values (nodes) which must be valid simultaneously are linked by edges and cannot be stored in the same register (coloured the same). See also register dancing and register spilling.
  • registration number — number on vehicle licence plate
  • regression analysis — Statistics. a procedure for determining a relationship between a dependent variable, as predicted success in college, and an independent variable, as a score on a scholastic aptitude test, for a given population. The relationship is expressed as an equation for a line (regres·sion·line) or curve (regres·sion·curve) in which any coefficient (regression coefficient) of the independent variable in the equation has been determined from a sample population.
  • regular icosahedron — an icosahedron in which each of the faces is an equilateral triangle
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