17-letter words containing a, p, e, s, m
- personal computer — a compact computer that uses a microprocessor and is designed for individual use, as by a person in an office or at home or school, for such applications as word processing, data management, financial analysis, or computer games. Abbreviation: PC.
- personnel manager — head of Human Resources department
- peterloo massacre — an incident at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, in 1819 in which a radical meeting was broken up by a cavalry charge, resulting in about 500 injuries and 11 deaths
- phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
- physical medicine — the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury by means of physical agents, as manipulation, massage, exercise, heat, or water.
- physical pendulum — any apparatus consisting of a body of possibly irregular shape allowed to rotate freely about a horizontal axis on which it is pivoted (distinguished from simple pendulum).
- picture messaging — Picture messaging is the sending of photographs or pictures from one mobile phone to another.
- plateau's problem — the problem in the calculus of variations of finding the surface with the least area bounded by a given closed curve in space.
- poor man's orange — a grapefruit
- postage due stamp — a stamp that is affixed to mail at a post office when prepayment of postage is insufficient, to indicate the amount that must be collected from the addressee.
- postmillennialism — the doctrine or belief that the second coming of Christ will follow the millennium.
- potassium acetate — a white, crystalline, deliquescent, water-soluble powder, KC 2 H 3 O 2 , used chiefly as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- potassium bromate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, KBrO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent and as an analytical reagent.
- potassium bromide — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, KBr, having a bitter saline taste: used chiefly in the manufacture of photographic papers and plates, in engraving, and in medicine as a sedative.
- potassium cyanide — a white, granular, water-soluble, poisonous powder, KCN, having a faint almondlike odor, used chiefly in metallurgy and photography.
- potassium nitrate — a crystalline compound, KNO 3 , produced by nitrification in soil, and used in gunpowders, fertilizers, and preservatives; saltpeter; niter.
- potassium oxalate — a colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 2 C 2 O 4 ⋅H 2 O, used chiefly as a bleaching agent and in medical tests as an anticoagulant.
- potassium sulfate — a crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 2 SO 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers, alums, and mineral water, and as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- poulter's measure — a metrical pattern using couplets having the first line in iambic hexameter, or 12 syllables, and the second in iambic heptameter, or 14 syllables.
- pre-manifestation — an act of manifesting.
- pre-modifications — an act or instance of modifying.
- premiere danseuse — the leading female dancer in a ballet company.
- premonstratensian — a member of a religious order founded at Prémontré in N France in 1120 by St Norbert (about 1080–1134)
- presentationalism — a style of production in which the audience is addressed directly with songs, skits, exposition, etc., and no attempt is made at realism.
- prima inter pares — (of a female) first among equals.
- primary processes — the generally unorganized mental activity characteristic of the unconscious and occurring in dreams, fantasies, and related processes.
- primary qualities — any of the qualities inherent in an object, namely quantity, extent, figure, solidity, and motion or rest.
- primary structure — Biochemistry. the basic sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide or protein.
- prime ministerial — of or relating to the head of a parliamentary government
- primitive baptist — (especially in the Southern U.S.) one belonging to a highly conservative, loosely organized Baptist group, characterized by extreme fundamentalism and by opposition to missionary work, Sunday Schools, and the use of musical instruments in church.
- professional army — an army of trained soldiers
- program statement — a single instruction in a computer program
- pseudo-democratic — pertaining to or of the nature of democracy or a democracy.
- pseudo-humanistic — a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
- pseudo-moralistic — a person who teaches or inculcates morality.
- purely and simply — You use purely and simply to emphasize that the thing you are mentioning is the only thing involved.
- quasi-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
- quasiexperimental — (medicine) Describing a trial in which the assignment to a group is based upon an experimental condition.
- recoil escapement — anchor escapement.
- request programme — a programme on the radio where listeners can request certain songs or tracks
- rhodope mountains — a mountain range in SE Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula extending along the border between Bulgaria and Greece. Highest peak: Golyam Perelik (Bulgaria), 2191 m (7188 ft)
- scarlet pimpernel — a plant belonging to the genus Anagallis, of the primrose family, especially A. arvensis (scarlet pimpernel) having scarlet or white flowers that close at the approach of bad weather.
- schematic capture — The process of entering the logical design of an electronic circuit into a CAE system by creating a schematic representation of components and interconnections.
- schwedler's maple — a variety of the Norway maple, Acer platanoides schwedleri, producing red leaves that subsequently turn green.
- seaman apprentice — a noncommissioned enlisted person ranking above seaman recruit and below seaman. Abbreviation: SA.
- self-emancipation — the act of emancipating.
- self-impregnating — to make pregnant; get with child or young.
- self-incompatible — not capable of self-pollination.
- semi-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- semi-experimental — pertaining to, derived from, or founded on experiment: an experimental science.