21-letter words containing a, r, i, s
- primary sex character — any of the body structures directly concerned in reproduction, as the testes, ovaries, and external genitalia.
- prince rupert's metal — a brass composed of from about 60 to 85 percent copper and about 15 to 40 percent zinc, used to imitate gold.
- private member's bill — In Britain, a Private Member's Bill is a law that is proposed by a Member of Parliament acting as an individual rather than as a member of his or her political party.
- pro-industrialization — the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity into an area, society, country, etc.
- probable maximum loss — Probable maximum loss is the maximum amount of loss that can be expected under normal circumstances.
- professional services — (job) A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products.
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
- progressive education — any of various reformist educational philosophies and methodologies since the late 1800s, applied especially to elementary schools, that reject the rote recitation and strict discipline of traditional, single-classroom teaching, favoring instead more stimulation of the individual pupil as well as group discussion, more informality in the classroom, a broader curriculum, and use of laboratories, gymnasiums, kitchens, etc., in the school.
- protest demonstration — a manifestation of protest by public rally, parade, etc
- protestant work ethic — work ethic.
- pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- psychological primary — one of a set of perceived colours (red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white) that can be used to characterize all other perceived colours
- psychological warfare — the use of propaganda, threats, and other psychological techniques to mislead, intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise influence the thinking or behavior of an opponent.
- psychomotor agitation — agitation (def 3).
- psychomotor-agitation — the act or process of agitating; state of being agitated: She left in great agitation.
- psychopathic disorder — (in England, according to the Mental Health Act 1983) a persistent disorder or disability of mind which results in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct on the part of the person concerned
- public address system — loudspeaker
- public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- public transportation — means of fare-paying travel
- public-address system — a combination of electronic devices that makes sound audible via loudspeakers to many people, as in an auditorium or out of doors.
- pulse height analyser — a multichannel analyser that sorts pulses into selected amplitude ranges
- pulse height analyzer — an instrument that records or counts an electrical pulse if its amplitude falls within specified limits: used in nuclear physics research for the determination of energy spectra of nuclear radiations
- purchasing department — the group of staff within an organization that is responsible for buying goods or products
- put in the hard yards — to make a great effort to achieve an end
- put sb in their place — If you put someone in their place, you show them that they are less important or clever than they think they are.
- racial discrimination — prejudice based on race
- radius of convergence — a positive number so related to a given power series that the power series converges for every number whose absolute value is less than this particular number.
- ralph roister doister — a play (1553?) by Nicholas Udall: the earliest known English comedy.
- range of significance — the set of subjects for which a given predicate is intelligible
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- reading comprehension — a text that students use to help them improve their reading skills, by reading it and answering questions relating to the text. Sometimes used as a test or examination of reading skills. A reading comprehension can be in the student's own or another language
- real estate insurance — Real estate insurance is insurance of property, land, and buildings.
- real estate liability — Real estate liability is liability for risks that come from owning real estate.
- real operating system — (operating system, abuse) The sort the speaker is used to. People from the BSDophilic academic community are likely to issue comments like "System V? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?", people from the commercial/industrial Unix sector are known to complain "BSD? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?", and people from IBM object "Unix? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?" See holy wars, religious issues, proprietary, Get a real computer!.
- recompression chamber — hyperbaric chamber.
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reconnaissance patrol — a patrol made by soldiers in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reduced circumstances — If you say that someone is living in reduced circumstances, you mean that they do not have as much money as they used to have.
- registration document — a document giving identification details of a motor vehicle, including its manufacturer, date of registration, engine and chassis numbers, and owner's name
- relaxation oscillator — a nonsinusoidal oscillator, the timing of which is controlled by the charge and discharge time constants of resistance and capacitance components
- repatriation expenses — Repatriation expenses are the costs involved in transporting a claimant or their body back to their own country after they have been injured or killed in a foreign country.
- requirements analysis — (project) The process of reviewing a business's processes to determine the business needs and functional requirements that a system must meet.
- residual unemployment — the unemployment that remains in periods of full employment, as a result of those mentally, physically, or emotionally unfit to work
- reverse polish syntax — postfix notation
- reverse transcriptase — a retrovirus enzyme that synthesizes DNA from viral RNA, the reverse of the usual DNA-to-RNA replication: used in genetic engineering to clone genes from RNA strands.
- revillagigedo islands — an uninhabited island group belonging to Mexico, in the Pacific Ocean, SSW of the Baja California peninsula: Socorro is the largest island. 320 sq. mi. (830 sq. km).
- ring-around-the-rosey — a children's game in which the players sing while going around in a circle and squat when the lyrics “all fall down” are sung.
- rocky mountain locust — a migratory locust, Melanoplus spretus, that occurs in North America, especially the Great Plains, where swarms cause great damage to crops and other vegetation.
- rocky mountain oyster — mountain oyster.