15-letter words containing a, r, p, o, b
- d. c. power lab — The former site of SAIL. This name was very funny because the obvious connection to electrical engineering was nonexistent - the lab was named after a Donald C. Power. Compare Marginal Hacks.
- davenport table — a table with drawers, having drop leaves at both ends, often placed in front of or behind a sofa.
- departure board — a board in an airport, bus terminal, etc displaying the times and destinations of future departures
- distributor cap — the cap of an engine's distributor that holds in place the wires from the distributor to the sparking plugs
- double jeopardy — the subjecting of a person to a second trial or punishment for the same offense for which the person has already been tried or punished.
- doublet pattern — a pattern, as on a fabric, in which a figure or group is duplicated in reverse order on the opposite side of a centerline.
- drop handlebars — aerodynamic handlebars that drop down and curve towards the rider at the ends rather than turning upwards as on conventional bicycles
- dysmorphophobia — an obsessive fear that one's body, or any part of it, is repulsive or may become so
- eleutherophobia — the fear of freedom
- football player — sportsperson: plays football
- grabber pointer — (operating system) A mouse pointer sprite in the shape of a small hand that closes when a mouse button is clicked, indicating that the object on the screen under the pointer has been selected.
- grafenberg spot — a patch of tissue in the front wall of the vagina, claimed to be erectile and highly erogenous.
- halting problem — The problem of determining in advance whether a particular program or algorithm will terminate or run forever. The halting problem is the canonical example of a provably unsolvable problem. Obviously any attempt to answer the question by actually executing the algorithm or simulating each step of its execution will only give an answer if the algorithm under consideration does terminate, otherwise the algorithm attempting to answer the question will itself run forever. Some special cases of the halting problem are partially solvable given sufficient resources. For example, if it is possible to record the complete state of the execution of the algorithm at each step and the current state is ever identical to some previous state then the algorithm is in a loop. This might require an arbitrary amount of storage however. Alternatively, if there are at most N possible different states then the algorithm can run for at most N steps without looping. A program analysis called termination analysis attempts to answer this question for limited kinds of input algorithm.
- homoerotophobia — Homophobia; antipathy towards homosexuals.
- humphrey bogart — Humphrey (DeForest) ("Bogie"or"Bogey") 1899–57, U.S. motion-picture actor.
- hype-carbonated — (of a product or service) overvalued as a result of relentless marketing and PR or intensive media exposure
- hypercatabolism — an abnormally high metabolic breakdown of a substance or tissue which leads to weight loss and physical deterioration
- hypercoagulable — related to excessive coagulation of the blood or blood clots
- hypermetabolism — Biology, Physiology. the sum of the physical and chemical processes in an organism by which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made available. Compare anabolism, catabolism.
- imponderability — The state or characteristic of being imponderable.
- incomparability — beyond comparison; matchless or unequaled: incomparable beauty.
- keyboard plaque — (jargon) The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards. "Are there any other terminals I can use? This one has a bad case of keyboard plaque."
- livery cupboard — a cupboard with pierced doors, formerly used as a storage place for food.
- lobar pneumonia — pneumonia (def 2).
- lombardy poplar — a poplar, Populus nigra italica, having a columnar manner of growth, with branches erect and parallel.
- mass-producible — to produce or manufacture (goods) in large quantities, especially by machinery.
- non-depreciable — capable of depreciating or being depreciated in value.
- non-replaceable — to assume the former role, position, or function of; substitute for (a person or thing): Electricity has replaced gas in lighting.
- nonbiographical — not biographical, not relating to biography or events in a person's life
- notour bankrupt — a bankrupt who has failed to discharge his or her debts within the days of grace allowed by the court
- nullarbor plain — a treeless, semiarid area of S Australia, contiguous to the Great Australian Bight.
- olbers' paradox — the paradox that if the universe consisted of an infinite number of stars equally distributed through space, then every line of sight would come from a star and the night sky would glow uniformly, which is observationally not true.
- operating table — table on which surgery is performed
- orthopaedic bed — a specially firm bed designed to help correct or ameliorate the discomfort of disorders of the spine and joints
- parti québécois — (in Canada) a political party in Quebec, formed in 1968 and originally advocating the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country
- pattern bombing — aerial bombing in which bombs are dropped on a target in a predetermined pattern.
- paurometabolous — designating or of a group of insect orders, as orthopterans or hemipterans, in which metamorphosis to the adult state from the juvenile state is gradual and without any sudden, radical change of body form
- perfluorocarbon — a fluorocarbon consisting only of fluorine and carbon atoms
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- photodegradable — (of a substance) capable of being broken down by light.
- polycarboxylate — a salt or ester of a polycarboxylic acid. Polycarboxylate esters are used in certain detergents
- portable pixmap — (file format) (PPM) A colour image file format. A PPM file contains the following: a two character "{magic number}" - "P3", the width in pixels, the height in pixels, the maximum colour component value, HEIGHT rows of WIDTH {pixels}. The rows are ordered from top to bottom with the pixels in each row ordered from left to right. Each pixel is represented as three values for red, green, and blue. All parts are separated by whitespace and numbers are in decimal ASCIII representation. A zero pixel component means that colour is absent. Characters from a "#" to the next end-of-line are ignored and no line should be longer than 70 characters. Here is an example of a small pixmap in this format: P3 # feep.ppm 4 4 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 0 15 0 0 0 0 15 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 7 0 0 0 15 0 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A "RAWBITS" variant has magic number "P6", pixel values are stored as plain binary bytes, instead of ASCII decimal and no whitespace is allowed after a single whitespace character after the maximum colour component value which must be less than or equal to 255.
- post-liberation — the act of liberating or the state of being liberated.
- power breakfast — If business people have a power breakfast, they go to a restaurant early in the morning so that they can have a meeting while they eat breakfast.
- pre-celebration — an act of celebrating.
- primary rainbow — the most commonly seen rainbow, formed by light rays that undergo a single internal reflection in a drop of water.
- prism binocular — Usually, prism binoculars. Optics. binocular (def 1).
- prisoner's base — any of various children's games in which each of two teams has a home base where members of the opposing team are kept prisoner after being tagged or caught and from which they can be freed only in specified ways.
- pro-abortionist — pro-choice.
- probation order — an order imposed by a magistrate or judge under which an offender is sentenced to probation rather than imprisonment