17-letter words containing a, v, i
- pluvius insurance — insurance against rain
- polyvinyl acetate — a colorless, odorless, nontoxic, transparent, thermoplastic, water-insoluble resin used as an adhesive in certain paints and as an intermediate in the synthesis of polyvinyl acetal and polyvinyl alcohol.
- polyvinyl alcohol — a colorless, water-soluble, thermoplastic resin, derived by the hydrolysis of polyvinyl acetate: used chiefly as an adhesive and as a sizing agent in the manufacture of textiles, paper, and plastics.
- polyvinyl butyral — a white, water-insoluble, polyvinyl acetal made with butyraldehyde, used chiefly as an interlayer in the manufacture of safety glass.
- positive feedback — Electronics. the process of returning part of the output of a circuit, system, or device to the input, either to oppose the input (negative feedback) or to aid the input (positive feedback) acoustic feedback.
- positive polarity — the grammatical characteristic of a word or phrase, such as delicious or rather, that may normally only be used in a semantically or syntactically positive or affirmative context
- potential divider — a resistor or series of resistors connected to a voltage source and used to provide voltages that are fractions of that of the source.
- prairie provinces — the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, which lie in the N Great Plains region of North America: the chief wheat and petroleum producing area of Canada
- pre-investigation — the act or process of investigating or the condition of being investigated.
- pre-revolutionary — of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
- prerogative court — a former ecclesiastical court in England and Ireland for the trial of certain testamentary cases.
- primitive baptist — (especially in the Southern U.S.) one belonging to a highly conservative, loosely organized Baptist group, characterized by extreme fundamentalism and by opposition to missionary work, Sunday Schools, and the use of musical instruments in church.
- private detective — a detective who is not a member of an official force but is employed by private parties.
- private education — education provided by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body
- private ownership — the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body
- private placement — a sale of an issue of securities by the issuing company directly to a limited number of investors, often only one or two large institutional investors, such as a bank or an insurance company (opposed to public offering): required to be cleared but not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- private secretary — a person who attends to the individual or confidential correspondence, files, etc., of a business executive, official, or the like.
- pro forma invoice — an invoice issued before an order is placed or before the goods are delivered giving all the details and the cost of the goods
- pro-environmental — the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings; milieu.
- probability curve — a curve that describes the distribution of probability over the values of a random variable.
- production values — the quality of a media production (such as a film) in regards to elements such as colours, quality, style, etc
- progressive party — a political party formed in 1912 under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, advocating popular control of government, direct primaries, the initiative, the referendum, woman suffrage, etc.
- promotional event — occasion organized to market or advertise sth
- protective tariff — a tariff levied on imports to protect the domestic economy rather than to raise revenue
- provincial police — (in Canada) the police force of a province, esp Ontario or Quebec
- provincialization — to make provincial in character.
- pseudo-aggressive — characterized by or tending toward unprovoked offensives, attacks, invasions, or the like; militantly forward or menacing: aggressive acts against a neighboring country.
- punitive taxation — a form of taxation that is very severe and that people find very difficult to pay
- putative marriage — a marriage contracted in violation of an impediment, but in good faith on the part of one or both of the contracting persons.
- quantity surveyor — A quantity surveyor is a person who calculates the cost and amount of materials and workers needed for a job such as building a house or a road.
- quasi-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
- quasi-legislative — having the function of making laws: a legislative body.
- radiative capture — the capture of a particle, as a neutron, by a nucleus, inducing the emission of electromagnetic radiation, as a gamma ray.
- radioactive decay — decay (def 8).
- radioactive waste — the radioactive by-products from the operation of a nuclear reactor or from the reprocessing of depleted nuclear fuel.
- received standard — the form of educated English spoken originally in southern England and having Received Pronunciation as a chief distinguishing feature.
- receiving blanket — a small blanket, usually of cotton, for wrapping an infant, especially following a bath.
- recursive acronym — (convention) A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also mung.
- relative aperture — the ratio of the diameter of a lens, especially a camera lens, to the focal length; the reciprocal of the f number or focal ratio of the lens.
- relative humidity — the amount of water vapor in the air, expressed as a percentage of the maximum amount that the air could hold at the given temperature; the ratio of the actual water vapor pressure to the saturation vapor pressure. Abbreviation: RH, rh.
- relative majority — the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent
- relative pathname — (file system) A path relative to the working directory. Its first character can be anything but the pathname separator.
- relativistic mass — the mass of a body in motion relative to the observer: it is equal to the rest mass multiplied by a factor that is greater than 1 and that increases as the magnitude of the velocity increases.
- remittance advice — a letter sent by a customer to a supplier, to let them know that their invoice has been paid
- revascularization — the restoration of the blood circulation of an organ or area, achieved by unblocking obstructed or disrupted blood vessels or by surgically implanting replacements.
- revealed religion — religion based chiefly on the revelations of God to humans, especially as described in Scripture.
- reverse apartheid — a perceived bias against White people following the end of Apartheid
- revolutionary war — American Revolution.
- reza shah pahlavi — Muhammad Riza (or Reza) [ri-zah] /rɪˈzɑ/ (Show IPA), 1919–80, shah of Iran 1941–79; in exile after 1979 (son of Riza Shah Pahlavi).
- rift valley fever — a highly infectious viral disease of humans and animals, transmitted by mosquitoes and other insects, occurring in Africa and characterized in humans by headache, fever, eye discomfort, and muscle aches, progressing in some cases to encephalitis, blindness, or internal bleeding.