19-letter words containing c, e, a
- private prosecution — a prosecution started by a private individual rather than by the police
- procedural language — (language) Any programming language in which the programmer specifies an explicit sequences of steps to follow to produce a result (an algorithm). The term should not be confused with "imperative language" - a language that specifies explicit manipulation of state. An example (non-imperative) procedural language is LOGO, which specifies sequences of steps to perform but does not have an internal state. Other procedural languages include Basic, Pascal, C, and Modula-2. Both procedural and imperative languages are in contrast to declarative languages, in which the programmer specifies neither explicit steps nor explicit state manipulation.
- process performance — Process performance is a measure of how efficient or effective a process is.
- professional advice — advice given by someone trained in a particular and relevant profession or job
- professional school — a postgraduate school or college which trains students for a particular profession
- programmer's switch — (hardware) A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
- property speculator — a person who takes part in property speculation
- pseudo-aristocratic — of or relating to government by an aristocracy.
- pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- pseudo-conservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
- pseudo-intellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- pseudopsychological — of or relating to psychology.
- psychological novel — a novel that focuses on the complex mental and emotional lives of its characters and explores the various levels of mental activity.
- psychotechnological — of or relating to psychotechnology
- psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
- public intellectual — an intellectual, often a noted specialist in a particular field, who has become well-known to the general public for a willingness to comment on current affairs
- public-interest law — a branch of law that often utilizes class-action suits to protect the interest of a large group or of the public at large, as in matters relating to racial discrimination, air pollution, etc.
- puerperal psychosis — a mental disorder sometimes occurring in women after childbirth, characterized by deep depression, delusions of the child's death, and homicidal feelings towards the child
- pugwash conferences — international peace conferences of scientists held regularly to discuss world problems: Nobel peace prize 1995 awarded to Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) , one of the founders of the conferences, secretary-general (1957–73), and president (1988–97)
- puncture repair kit — set of tools for patching a bicycle tyre
- put one's back into — to devote all one's strength to (a task)
- quantum electronics — the application of quantum mechanics and quantum optics to the study and design of electronic devices
- quartermaster corps — the branch of the U.S. Army responsible for supplying food, clothing, fuel, and equipment and for the operation of commissaries, laundries, etc.
- quick on the uptake — You say that someone is quick on the uptake when they understand things quickly. You say that someone is slow on the uptake when they have difficulty understanding simple or obvious things.
- quick-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
- radioactive fallout — the settling to the ground of airborne particles ejected into the atmosphere from the earth by explosions, eruptions, forest fires, etc., especially such settling from nuclear explosions (radioactive fallout) Compare rainout.
- radiopharmaceutical — any of a number of radioactive drugs used diagnostically or therapeutically.
- radius of curvature — the absolute value of the reciprocal of the curvature at a point on a curve.
- raise one's hackles — one of the long, slender feathers on the neck or saddle of certain birds, as the domestic rooster, much used in making artificial flies for anglers.
- rake over the coals — a black or dark-brown combustible mineral substance consisting of carbonized vegetable matter, used as a fuel. Compare anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite.
- rancho palos verdes — a town in SW California.
- rap on the knuckles — a mild reprimand or light sentence
- rayleigh scattering — the scattering of light by particles that are very small in relation to the wavelength of the light, and in which the intensity of the scattered light varies inversely with the fourth power of the wavelength.
- reactive depression — depression occurring in response to some situational stress, as loss of one's job.
- reactor temperature — The reactor temperature is the temperature at various stages in a reactor in an FCC unit.
- rebus sic stantibus — (of the duration of the binding force treaty) for as long as the relevant facts and circumstances remain basically the same.
- rec room (or hall) — recreation room (or hall)
- recessional moraine — a moraine marking a temporary halt in the general retreat of a glacier.
- reciprocal exchange — an unincorporated association formed so that its members can participate in reciprocal insurance.
- reciprocal leveling — leveling between two widely separated points in which observations are made in both directions to eliminate the effects of atmospheric refraction and the curvature of the earth.
- reciprocity failure — a failure of the two exposure variables, light intensity and exposure time, to behave in a reciprocal fashion at very high or very low values
- reconceptualization — to form into a concept; make a concept of.
- recording secretary — an officer charged with keeping the minutes of meetings and responsible for the records.
- recurrence relation — (mathematics) An equation that defines each element of a sequence in terms of one or more earlier elements. E.g. The Fibonacci sequence, X[1] = 1 X[2] = 1 X[n] = X[n-1] + X[n-2] Some recurrence relations can be converted to "closed form" where X[n] is defined purely in terms of n, without reference to earlier elements.
- redress the balance — to make a fair adjustment; see that justice is done
- reduction potential — (in a galvanic cell) the potential of the electrode at which reduction occurs.
- register allocation — (compiler, algorithm) The phase of a compiler that determines which values will be placed in registers. Register allocation may be combined with register assignment. This problem can be shown to be isomorphic to graph colouring by relating values to nodes in the graph and registers to colours. Values (nodes) which must be valid simultaneously are linked by edges and cannot be stored in the same register (coloured the same). See also register dancing and register spilling.
- regular icosahedron — an icosahedron in which each of the faces is an equilateral triangle
- relational calculus — (database) An operational methodolgy, founded on predicate calculus, dealing with descripitive expressions that are equivalent to the operations of relational algebra. Codd's reduction algorithm can convert from relational calculus to relational algebra. Two forms of the relational calculus exist: the tuple calculus and the domain calculus.
- relative complement — the set of elements contained in a given set that are not elements of another specified set.