16-letter words containing a, l, o, p
- poisoned chalice — If you refer to a job or an opportunity as a poisoned chalice, you mean that it seems to be very attractive but you believe it will lead to failure.
- polar coordinate — Usually, polar coordinates. one of two coordinates used to locate a point in a plane by the length of its radius vector and the angle this vector makes with the polar axis (polar angle)
- polar opposition — the relation between a pair of antonyms that denote relatively higher and lower degrees of a quality with respect to an explicit or implicit norm rather than absolute values, as the relation between tall and short or light and dark, but not between true and false.
- polarizing angle — the law that light will receive maximum polarization from a reflecting surface when it is incident to the surface at an angle (angle of polarization or polarizing angle) having a tangent equal to the index of refraction of the surface.
- police constable — police officer
- policy statement — a declaration of the plans and intentions of an organization or government
- political asylum — asylum provided by one nation to refugees, especially political refugees, from another nation.
- political system — a coordinated set of principles, laws, ideas, and procedures relating to a particular form of government, or the form of government itself: Democracy is a political system in which citizens govern themselves.
- politicalization — to cause to be political; color with politics.
- polyacrylic acid — a polymer of acrylic acid used as a sizing agent in the manufacture of nylon and other synthetic textiles.
- polycondensation — formation of a polymer by chemical condensation with the elimination of a small molecule, such as water.
- polyhedral angle — a configuration consisting of the lateral faces of a polyhedron around one of its vertices. The portion of a pyramid including one of its points is such a configuration.
- polyvinyl acetal — any of the class of thermoplastic resins derived by the condensation of an aldehyde with polyvinyl alcohol.
- polyvinyl formal — a colorless, water-insoluble, polyvinyl acetal produced from partially hydrolyzed polyvinyl acetate and formaldehyde, used chiefly in the manufacture of lacquers.
- porcelain enamel — a glass coating, made to adhere to a metal or another enamel by fusion.
- port phillip bay — a bay in SE Australia: the harbor of Melbourne. 31 miles (50 km) long; 25 miles (40 km) wide.
- portable airtime — (communications, wireless) A wireless, digital communications system enabling user-to-user voice communication, "quicknotes", and alphanumeric messaging.
- portal-to-portal — noting or pertaining to the time a worker spends from entering the workplace to stepping outside, especially in relation to pay.
- portrait gallery — a gallery where pictures are displayed
- post-apocalyptic — of or like an apocalypse; affording a revelation or prophecy.
- post-elizabethan — of or relating to the reign of Elizabeth I, queen of England, or to her times: Elizabethan diplomacy; Elizabethan music.
- postencephalitic — inflammation of the substance of the brain.
- potemkin village — a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition.
- potential energy — the energy of a body or a system with respect to the position of the body or the arrangement of the particles of the system.
- powerpc platform — (architecture, standard) (PPCP, PReP - PowerPC Reference Platform, formerly CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform) An open system standard, designed by IBM, intended to ensure compatibility among PowerPC-based systems built by different companies. The PReP standard specifies the PCI bus, but will also support ISA, MicroChannel and PCMCIA. PReP-compliant systems will be able to run the Macintosh OS, OS/2, WorkplaceOS, AIX, Solaris, Taligent and Windows NT. IBM systems will (of course) be PReP-compliant. Apple's first PowerPC Macintoshes will not be compliant, but future ones may be.
- practical reason — (in Kantian ethics) reason applied to the problem of action and choice, especially in ethical matters.
- pre-solicitation — the act of soliciting.
- precontemplation — the act of contemplating; thoughtful observation.
- predispositional — the fact or condition of being predisposed: a predisposition to think optimistically.
- prerevolutionary — of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
- pribilof islands — a group of islands in the Bering Sea, off SW Alaska, belonging to the US: the breeding ground of the northern fur seal. Area: about 168 sq km (65 sq miles)
- primary election — primary (def 15a).
- primary electron — in thermionics, any of the electrons falling on a body, distinguished from those emitted by it
- print journalism — journalism as practiced in newspapers and magazines.
- prismatic colors — the colors of the visible spectrum produced by passing white light through a prism; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet
- pro-abolitionist — (especially prior to the Civil War) a person who advocated or supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S.
- processing plant — a factory where raw materials are treated or prepared by a special method, esp one where food is treated in order to preserve it
- proenvironmental — the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings; milieu.
- professionalisms — professional character, spirit, or methods.
- programmatically — by using a computer program: You can set the value in each field programmatically with a simple algorithm. The background shapes can be programmatically drawn and animated.
- programme seller — someone who sells written or printed lists of the events, performers, etc, in a theatre performance
- project planning — project management
- projective plane — (mathematics) The space of equivalence classes of vectors under non-zero scalar multiplication. Elements are sets of the form {kv: k != 0, k scalar, v != O, v a vector} where O is the origin. v is a representative member of this equivalence class. The projective plane of a vector space is the collection of its 1-dimensional subspaces. The properties of the vector space induce a topology and notions of smoothness on the projective plane. A projective plane is in no meaningful sense a plane and would therefore be (but isn't) better described as a "projective space".
- prolonged-action — sustained-release.
- promotional code — A promotional code is a code offered by retailers to customers who can use it to receive a discounted price when buying products online.
- prophylactically — defending or protecting from disease or infection, as a drug.
- proposal writing — Extension of Fortran for proposal writing.
- propylthiouracil — a white crystalline compound, C 7 H 1 0 N 2 OS, that interferes with the synthesis of thyroid hormone by the thyroid gland: used in the treatment of hyperthyroidism.
- proslambanomenos — the lowest note of the scale in ancient Greek music
- proto-algonquian — the unattested parent language from which the Algonquian languages are descended.