18-letter words containing a, r, u
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- pernicious anaemia — Pernicious anaemia is a very severe blood disease.
- perpetual calendar — a calendar devised to be used for many years, as in determining the day of the week on which a given date falls.
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- phoenician juniper — a type of juniper that is found in the Mediterranean region
- pitch-and-run shot — chip shot.
- play silly buggers — to fool around and waste time
- pleasure principle — an automatic mental drive or instinct seeking to avoid pain and to obtain pleasure.
- plenary indulgence — a remission of the total temporal punishment that is still due to sin after absolution. Compare indulgence (def 6).
- plumber's merchant — a shop or business that sells things needed for the job of installing and repairing pipes, fixtures, etc, for water, drainage, and gas
- pneumatic conveyor — a tube through which powdered or granular material, such as cement, grain, etc is transported by a flow of air
- point of departure — Nautical. the precise location of a vessel, established in order to set a course, especially in beginning a voyage in open water.
- population control — a policy of attempting to limit the growth in numbers of a population, esp in poor or densely populated parts of the world, by programmes of contraception or sterilization
- population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
- population pyramid — a graph showing the distribution of a population by sex, age, etc.
- porcupine anteater — an echidna or spiny anteater.
- portable equipment — Portable equipment is electrical equipment that can easily be moved from one place to another while in operation or while connected to the supply.
- portal circulation — blood flow in a portal system.
- porter-house steak — Also called porterhouse steak. a choice cut of beef from between the prime ribs and the sirloin.
- portuguese guinean — of or relating to Portuguese Guinea, a former name for Guinea-Bissau, or its inhabitants
- post-revolutionary — of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
- potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- potassium fluoride — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, toxic powder, KF, used chiefly as an insecticide, a disinfectant, and in etching glass.
- potassium myronate — sinigrin.
- pour cold water on — If someone pours cold water on a plan or idea, they criticize it so much that people lose their enthusiasm for it.
- preantepenultimate — third from the end.
- predation pressure — the effect of predation upon a population, resulting in the decrease in size of that population.
- predicate calculus — predicate logic
- prepare the ground — make conditions ready
- presidential suite — a suite of rooms, as in a hotel, suitable for a president or other head of state.
- pressure altimeter — an aneroid barometer adapted for measuring altitude by converting the indicated atmospheric pressure to altitude according to a standard relationship.
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- primus inter pares — (of males) first among equals.
- principal argument — the radian measure of the argument between −π and π of a complex number. Compare argument (def 8c).
- prison authorities — the people in charge of running a prison
- procrustean string — (programming) A fixed-length string. If a string value is too long for the allocated space, it is truncated to fit; and if it is shorter, the empty space is padded, usually with space characters. This is an allusion to Procrustes, a legendary robber of ancient Attica. He bound his victims to a bed, and if they were shorter than the bed, he stretched their limbs until they would fit; if their limbs were longer, he lopped them off.
- product acceptance — the verification or acceptance that a manufactured item meets required specifications or standards and is usable for its purpose
- production company — an organization which produces, films, plays, television or radio programmes
- production manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
- programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
- property insurance — insurance coverage for land and housing
- protocol data unit — (PDU) A packet of data passed across a network. The term implies a specific layer of the OSI seven layer model and a specific protocol.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- provascular tissue — procambium.
- provincial council — (formerly) a council administering any of the New Zealand provinces
- pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
- psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
- public corporation — a corporation, owned and operated by a government, established for the administration of certain public programs.