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19-letter words containing a, p, o, r

  • autotransplantation — autograft.
  • awareness programme — a programme designed to increase awareness of something
  • backward compatible — backward compatibility
  • bacteriochlorophyll — a pale blue-gray form of chlorophyll that is unique to the photosynthetic but anaerobic purple bacteria.
  • ballistocardiograph — an instrument that records the slight recoil of the body, while on a special bed, caused by the contractions of the heart: used to measure cardiac pumping power and the elasticity of the aorta
  • banff national park — a national reserve, 2585 sq. mi. (6695 sq. km), in the Rocky Mountains, in SW Alberta, Canada.
  • bankruptcy petition — an official request for protection under bankruptcy laws, which initiates bankruptcy proceedings
  • bargaining position — the position of a person, group, or organization in a negotiation, with respect to their ability to achieve a deal which is favourable to themselves
  • barometric pressure — atmospheric pressure as indicated by a barometer
  • be burnt to a crisp — If something is burnt to a crisp, it is completely burnt.
  • beauty preparations — the cosmetics, creams etc used to improve someone's beauty
  • below par/under par — If you feel below par or under par, you feel tired and unable to perform as well as you normally do.
  • benefit performance — a theatrical or musical performance in aid of charity
  • beta-naphthyl group — See under naphthyl.
  • bill of particulars — an itemized statement of claims or counterclaims provided to the opposing party of a lawsuit
  • binocular disparity — the small differences in the positions of the parts of the images falling on each eye that results when each eye views the scene from a slightly different position; these differences make stereoscopic vision possible
  • binomial experiment — an experiment consisting of a fixed number of independent trials each with two possible outcomes, success and failure, and the same probability of success. The probability of a given number of successes is described by a binominal distribution
  • bit-paired keyboard — (hardware)   (Obsolete, or "bit-shift keyboard") A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early computer equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see EOU), so the only way to generate the character codes from keystrokes was by some physical linkage. The design of the ASR-33 assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed. In order to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than it already was, the design had to group characters that shared the same basic bit pattern on one key. Looking at the ASCII chart, we find: high low bits bits 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001 010 ! " # $ % & ' ( ) 011 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space). This was *not* the weirdest variant of the QWERTY layout widely seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several (differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card punches. When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be laid out. Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard, while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make their product look like an office typewriter. These alternatives became known as "bit-paired" and "typewriter-paired" keyboards. To a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical - and because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type, there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt keyboards to the typewriter standard. The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use the equipment. The "typewriter-paired" standard became universal, "bit-paired" hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty corners, and both terms passed into disuse.
  • blackstrap molasses — the molasses remaining after the maximum quantity of sugar has been extracted from the raw material
  • blast from the past — You can use a blast from the past as a light-hearted way of referring to something such as an old song or fashion that you hear or notice again, and which reminds you of an earlier time.
  • blind carbon (copy) — a carbon copy of a letter sent to someone other than the addressee, with no indication on the original letter that such a copy has been sent
  • breach of the peace — A breach of the peace is noisy or violent behaviour in a public place which is illegal because it disturbs other people.
  • brown paper bag bug — (programming)   A programming bug that is so stupid that it makes the programmer want to put a brown paper bag over his head.
  • brush-tailed possum — any of several widely-distributed Australian possums of the genus Trichosurus
  • by one's bootstraps — by one's own efforts; unaided
  • california fan palm — a tall fan palm, Washingtonia filifera, of California, having a shaggy skirt of withered leaves near the top of the trunk.
  • camouflage passport — a passport from a non-existent country intended to conceal the bearer's true nationality (from hijackers, kidnappers, etc)
  • campernelle jonquil — a narcissus, Narcissus odorus, of the amaryllis family, having clusters of two to four fragrant yellow flowers.
  • cape york peninsula — large peninsula in NE Australia, part of Queensland, between the Gulf of Carpentaria & the Coral Sea
  • captain abstraction — The champion of the principles of abstraction and modularity, who protects unwary students on MIT's course 6.001 from the nefarious designs of Sergeant Spaghetticode and his vile concrete programming practices. See also spaghetti code.
  • captain of industry — You can refer to the owners or senior managers of industrial companies as captains of industry.
  • captains courageous — a novel (1897) by Rudyard Kipling.
  • carbon steel piping — Carbon steel piping is pipes made of steel with carbon as the main alloying component, used for transporting fluids.
  • caterpillar tractor — a tractor powered by a Caterpillar track
  • cathodic protection — a technique for protecting metal structures, such as steel ships and pipelines, from electrolytic corrosion by making the structure the cathode in a cell, either by applying an electromotive force directly or by putting it into contact with a more electropositive metal
  • cerebrospinal fluid — the clear colourless fluid in the spaces inside and around the spinal cord and brain
  • chamber of deputies — the lower house of the legislature of certain countries, as Italy.
  • champagne corks pop — If you say that champagne corks are popping, you mean that people are celebrating something.
  • chemical processing — Chemical processing is a way of making changes to chemical compounds.
  • chemolithoautotroph — (biology) A chemoautotroph or lithoautotroph.
  • chlorobromide paper — a relatively fast printing paper coated with an emulsion of silver chloride and silver bromide.
  • chloroplatinic acid — a red-brown, crystalline, water-soluble solid, H 2 PtCl 6 ⋅6H 2 O, used chiefly in platinizing glass, metals, and ceramic ware.
  • christmas pantomime — pantomime (def 5).
  • chromatographically — With regard to, or by by using chromatography.
  • cinematographically — a motion-picture projector.
  • clinical depression — depression in a patient that meets defined criteria and that is deemed to merit treatment
  • coherent parallel c — (language)   A data parallel version of C.
  • college-preparatory — preparing a student for academic work at the college level.
  • colonial experience — experience of farming, etc, gained by a young Englishman in colonial Australia
  • columnar epithelium — epithelium consisting of one or more layers of elongated cells of cylindrical or prismatic shape.
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