17-letter words containing a, p, r, e, t
- cryptocrystalline — (of rocks) composed of crystals that can be distinguished individually only by the use of a polarizing microscope
- curie-temperature — the temperature beyond that at which a ferromagnetic substance exhibits paramagnetism.
- cut a person dead — to ignore a person completely
- cut a poor figure — to appear or behave badly
- cylinder capacity — the cylinder volume that is swept by the pistons of an internal-combustion engine
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- debrett's peerage — a list of the British aristocracy
- deepwater horizon — an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, 40 miles (64km) south-east off the coast of Louisiana, that suffered a massive oil spill following an explosion in April 2010
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- depersonalisation — Alternative spelling of depersonalization.
- depersonalization — the act or an instance of depersonalizing
- dephosphorylation — the removal of a phosphate group from an organic compound, as in the changing of ATP to ADP.
- deportation order — a notification that a foreign national is legally required to leave the country
- despotic monarchy — absolute monarchy.
- development grant — a grant awarded, esp by a government, to a person or company in order to fund the development of a new product
- dextroamphetamine — a dextrorotatory amphetamine, used to suppress appetite
- dialect geography — linguistic geography
- diaphragm shutter — a camera shutter having a group of overlapping blades that open and close at the center when exposing film.
- diethyltryptamine — a synthetic derivative of tryptamine with hallucinogenic and psychotogenic effects. Abbreviation: DET.
- dipterocarpaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae, a family of trees chiefly native to tropical SE Asia, having two-winged fruits. Many species yield useful timber and resins
- disaster planning — disaster recovery
- disproportionates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of disproportionate.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- disruptive action — action performed by protestors, workers, etc that causes the disruption of a service
- dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- dramatis personae — (used with a plural verb) the characters in a play.
- dressed up as sth — portrayed as
- drive up the wall — to cause to become crazy or furious
- duality principle — the principle that a mathematical duality exists under certain conditions.
- east grand rapids — a town in W central Michigan, near Grand Rapids.
- east pacific rise — a long north-south elevation of the sea floor in the E Pacific Ocean extending southward from SW Mexico to the Antarctic Ocean.
- eastern townships — an area of central Canada, in S Quebec: consists of 11 townships south of the St Lawrence
- ectoparasiticides — Plural form of ectoparasiticide.
- ectopic pregnancy — the development of a fertilized ovum outside the uterus, as in a Fallopian tube.
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- ehelp corporation — (company) A vendor of Microsoft Windows application development tools such as RoboHELP and RoboDemo. EHelp were formerly (around 1997) Blue Sky Software. Address: 7777 Fay Avenue, Suite 201, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Telephone: +1-800-793-0364, +1 (619) 459 6365. Fax: +1 (619) 459 6366.
- electromyographic — Using electromyography.
- elevator operator — a person who operates a platform raised or lowered in a vertical shaft to transport people from floor to floor in a building
- elliptical spring — An elliptical spring is a spring that is made from two springs in the shape of elongated ovals laid cut in half and back-to-back.
- emotional cripple — someone who is unable to feel or show true emotion and so cannot form relationships with other people
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- entrepreneurially — In an entrepreneurial manner.
- equal opportunity — policies that bar discrimination
- esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
- ethnopharmacology — The scientific study correlating ethnic groups, their health, and how it relates to their physical habits and methodology in creating and using medicines.
- european standard — a specification to be used as a consistent rule or guideline in the manufacture or selling of a certain product or service traded within Europe
- examination paper — a paper with examination questions printed on it set to test the knowledge of examination candidates
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.