20-letter words containing c, h, i, t, e, r
- orthopaedic mattress — a specially firm mattress designed to help correct or ameliorate the discomfort of disorders of the spine and joints
- overenthusiastically — With excessive enthusiasm.
- perpendicular gothic — the style of Gothic architecture in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by tracery having vertical lines, a four-centred arch, and fan vaulting
- photoelectric effect — the phenomenon in which the absorption of electromagnetic radiation, as light, of sufficiently high frequency by a surface, usually metallic, induces the emission of electrons from the surface.
- photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
- phthalocyanine green — a pigment used in painting, derived from chlorinated copper phthalocyanine and characterized chiefly by its intense green color and permanence.
- physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
- pipeline burst cache — (hardware, storage) (PB Cache) A synchronous cache built from pipelined SRAM. A cache in which reading or writing a new location takes multiple cycles but subsequent locations can be accessed in a single cycle. On Pentium systems in 1996, pipeline burst caches are frequently used as secondary caches. The first 8 bytes of data are transferred in 3 CPU cycles, and the next 3 8-byte pieces of data are transferred in one cycle each.
- potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
- potassium dichromate — an orange-red crystalline soluble solid substance that is a good oxidizing agent and is used in making chrome pigments and as a bleaching agent. Formula: K2Cr2O7
- priority inheritance — (parallel) A technique for avoiding priority inversion by temporarily raising the prioriry of all processes that want to access a shared resource to the highest priority level of any of them. Priority inversion occurs where a low priority process, L is holding a resource required by a high priority process, H, but L is not running because a medium priority process, M is running. Under priority inheritance, L temporarily inherits H's priority, allowing L to run and release the resource H is waiting for. For example, an ambulance (H) is stuck behind a lorry (L) waiting at a junction (the shared resource) for a gap in a line of cars (M) using the junction. Applying priority inheritance, the cars give way to the lorry as they would to the ambulance, thus allowing the lorry and then the ambulance to use the junction.
- proactive inhibition — the tendency for earlier memories to interfere with the retrieval of material learned later
- prohibited substance — a substance, such as a drug, etc, that is banned or forbidden by law or other authority
- prosthetic dentistry — prosthodontics.
- psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
- psychomotor epilepsy — temporal-lobe epilepsy.
- public lending right — (in Britain) an act of Parliament that directs compensation to an author for the library loan of his or her book.
- quarantine anchorage — an anchorage for ships awaiting a pratique.
- quick on the trigger — quick to fire a gun
- read the riot act to — to command to stop doing something regarded as wrong, under threat of punishment
- recreational therapy — therapy by means of recreational activities engaged in by the patient
- recreational vehicle — a van or utility vehicle used for recreational purposes, as camping, and often equipped with living facilities. Abbreviation: RV.
- ring-necked pheasant — a gallinaceous Asian bird, Phasianus colchicus, having a white band around its neck, introduced into Great Britain, North America, and the Hawaiian Islands.
- rise to the occasion — to have the courage, wit, etc, to meet the special demands of a situation
- rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
- sarcastic fringehead — any fish of the genus Neoclinus, characterized by a row of fleshy processes on the head, as N. blanchardi (sarcastic fringehead) of California coastal waters.
- satellite chromosome — a type of densely staining chromosome of uncertain biological function, found in many plant and animal species.
- scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- schizoid personality — sb with identity disorder
- schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
- season ticket holder — a person who has a season ticket
- semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
- serpentine stretcher — an X -stretcher having curved lines.
- sex change operation — a surgical operation designed to change a person's physical sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
- short back and sides — If a man has a short back and sides, his hair is cut very short at the back and sides with slightly thicker, longer hair on the top of the head.
- silicon tetrahydride — silane (def 1).
- south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
- southern oscillation — a low-latitude fluctuation of atmospheric pressure closely linked with El Niño events, specifically the periods of El Niño warming and La Niña cooling.
- spanish west african — of or relating to the former Spanish overseas territory of Spanish West Africa (now the overseas provinces of Ifni and Spanish Sahara) or its inhabitants
- special relationship — the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom
- spectrophotoelectric — pertaining to the relationship between the wavelength of the incident radiation and the number of electrons released by a photoelectric substance.
- spherical aberration — variation in focal length of a lens or mirror from center to edge, due to its spherical shape.
- spherical coordinate — Usually, spherical coordinates. any of three coordinates used to locate a point in space by the length of its radius vector and the angles this vector makes with two perpendicular polar planes.
- splice the mainbrace — to issue and partake of an extra allocation of alcoholic spirits
- split the difference — the state or relation of being different; dissimilarity: There is a great difference between the two.
- stare sb in the face — If a situation or the answer to a problem is staring you in the face, it is very obvious, although you may not be immediately aware of it.
- step into the breach — If you step into the breach, you do a job or task which someone else was supposed to do or has done in the past, because they are suddenly unable to do it.
- stochastic terrorism — the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted: The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.
- stockholders' equity — the net assets of a corporation as owned by stockholders in capital stock, capital surplus, and undistributed earnings.