20-letter words containing a, p, r, i
- feather in one's cap — one of the horny structures forming the principal covering of birds, consisting typically of a hard, tubular portion attached to the body and tapering into a thinner, stemlike portion bearing a series of slender, barbed processes that interlock to form a flat structure on each side.
- file descriptor leak — (programming) (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
- first point of aries — the vernal equinox.
- fixed action pattern — a highly stereotyped pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a particular species.
- fixed-price contract — a contract in which the price is preset and invariable, regardless of the actual costs of production.
- flame-fusion process — Verneuil process.
- fore-and-aft topsail — gaff topsail (def 1).
- forty-ninth parallel — an informal name for the Canadian border with the USA, which is in part delineated by the parallel line of latitude at 49°N
- free-range parenting — Informal. a style of child rearing in which parents allow their children to move about without constant adult supervision, aimed at instilling independence and self-reliance.
- freefall parachuting — a variety of parachuting in which the jumper manoeuvres in free fall before opening the parachute
- freight pass-through — a special allowance or discounted price given a bookseller or bookstore by a publishing house for paying the freight charge on a shipment of books ordered: so called because the shipping charge is passed on to the consumer by an increase in the suggested retail price for each book. Abbreviation: FPT.
- friar minor capuchin — capuchin (def 4).
- fundamental particle — elementary particle.
- general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
- general practitioner — a medical practitioner whose practice is not limited to any specific branch of medicine or class of diseases. Abbreviation: G.P.
- general public virus — (software, legal) A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
- generative phonology — a theory of phonology that uses a set of rules to derive phonetic representations from abstract underlying forms.
- gingival hyperplasia — Gingival hyperplasia is abnormal enlargement of the gums.
- go like the clappers — to move extremely fast
- gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)
- graphics accelerator — (graphics, hardware) Hardware (often an extra circuit board) to perform tasks such as plotting lines and surfaces in two or three dimensions, filling, shading and hidden line removal.
- group life insurance — a form of life insurance available to members of a group, typically employees of a company, under a master policy.
- group representation — representation in a governing body on the basis of interests rather than by geographical location.
- happy hunting ground — the North American Indian heaven, conceived of as a paradise of hunting and feasting for warriors and hunters.
- hard gelatin capsule — A hard gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of dry powder or very small pellets.
- harmonic progression — a series of numbers the reciprocals of which are in arithmetic progression.
- hazard warning lamps — Hazard warning lamps are flashing lamps on each corner of a vehicle that are used to show the position of the vehicle if there has been a breakdown or an accident.
- heat of vaporization — the heat absorbed per unit mass of a given material at its boiling point that completely converts the material to a gas at the same temperature: equal to the heat of condensation.
- helicopter parenting — a style of child rearing in which an overprotective mother or father discourages a child's independence by being too involved in the child's life: In typical helicopter parenting, a mother or father swoops in at any sign of challenge or discomfort.
- heteropolysaccharide — (carbohydrate) any polysaccharide formed from two or more different kinds of monosaccharide.
- high-energy particle — Physics
- hipparchus satellite — an astronometric satellite launched in 1989 by the European Space Agency that measured the position, proper motion, and brightness of 118 218 stars down to 12th magnitude and the magnitude and colour of a million stars down to 10th magnitude
- hire-purchase system — a system of payment for a commodity in regular installments while using it.
- holy water sprinkler — morning star (def 2).
- horizontally opposed — A horizontally opposed engine has the cylinders set horizontally at either side of the crankshaft.
- hospitality industry — the hotel and accommodation industry
- houses of parliament — In Britain, the Houses of Parliament are the British parliament, which consists of two parts, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The buildings where the British parliament does its work are also called the Houses of Parliament.
- how are you keeping? — how are you?
- human papillomavirus — any of a group of papillomaviruses causing cutaneous warts and lesions of the oral, anal, and genital mucous membranes in human beings
- human parvovirus b19 — Pathology. a mild infection, most often seen in children or young adults, caused by a small virus ((the human parvovirus B19)) and marked by a blotchy rash on the cheeks, arms, and legs.
- hydraulic suspension — a system of motor-vehicle suspension using hydraulic members, often with hydraulic compensation between front and rear systems (hydroelastic suspension)
- hydrostatic pressure — Hydrostatic pressure is the pressure exerted by a liquid that depends on how deep it is.
- hyperadrenocorticism — Cushing's syndrome.
- hyperbolic cotangent — a hyperbolic function that is the ratio of cosh to sinh, being the reciprocal of tanh; coth
- hypercholesterolemia — the presence of an excessive amount of cholesterol in the blood.
- hyperhomocysteinemia — (medicine) The presence of an excessive amount of homocysteine in the blood.
- hyperlipoproteinemia — Pathology. any of various disorders of lipoprotein metabolism, usually characterized by abnormally high levels of cholesterol and certain lipoproteins in the blood.
- hypophosphorous acid — a colorless or yellowish, water-soluble, liquid, monobasic acid, H 3 PO 2 , having a sour odor, and used as a reducing agent.
- ideal of pure reason — God, seen as an idea of pure reason unifying the personal soul with the cosmos.
- implicit parallelism — (parallel) A feature of a programming language for a parallel processing system which decides automatically which parts to run in parallel. The best way of providing implicit parallelism is still (1995) an active research topic. The problem is to generate the right number of parallel tasks of the right size (or "granularity"). Too many tasks and the system gets bogged down in house-keeping, or memory for waiting tasks runs out, too few tasks and processors are left idle. The best performance is usually achieved with explicit parallelism where the programmer can annotate his program to indicate which parts should be executed as independent parallel tasks.