18-letter words containing c, o, l, n
- oriental cat's-eye — a chatoyant variety of chrysoberyl, used as a gem.
- oriental cockroach — a dark-brown cockroach, Blatta orientalis, thought to have originated in Asia but now nearly cosmopolitan in distribution.
- oriental scops owl — any of a group of small owls having ear tufts and a whistling call, especially Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl)
- oscillating engine — a steam engine having piston rods connected directly to the crankshaft and cylinders oscillating on trunnions.
- out of circulation — If someone is out of circulation, they do not appear in public or at social gatherings for a period of time. You can also say that someone is out of circulation when they are in prison.
- overcapitalization — The state of being overcapitalized.
- overspecialization — excessive specialization, as in a field of study.
- oxalosuccinic acid — an organic acid, C 6 H 6 O 7 , that is an intermediate formed by the dehydrogenation of isocitric acid in fat and carbohydrate metabolism.
- pacinian corpuscle — (sometimes lowercase) a microscopic, onionlike body consisting of layers of connective tissue wrapped around a nerve ending, located in the deep layers of skin, tendons, etc., and functioning as a sensory receptor of pressure and vibration.
- parallactic motion — the apparent motion of stars due to the earth's orbital motion.
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- parallel reduction — A form of applicative order reduction in which all redexes in an expression are reduced simultaneously. Variants include parallel outermost reduction and lenient reduction. See normal order reduction.
- parallel resonance — the resonance that results when circuit elements are connected with their inductance and capacitance in parallel, so that the impedance of the combination rises to a maximum at the resonant frequency
- pathologic anatomy — the branch of pathology dealing with the morphologic changes in tissues.
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- people trafficking — the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- percussion welding — a form of resistance welding in which the required pressure is provided by a hammerlike blow.
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- phenol coefficient — the number indicating the effectiveness of a disinfectant as a germicide relative to phenol, which is arbitrarily assigned the number 1: based on the time required to kill a given quantity of a specific type of bacteria.
- philharmonic pitch — a standard of pitch in which A above middle C is established at 440 vibrations per second.
- physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
- physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
- plane of incidence — a plane determined by a given ray, incident on a surface, and the normal at the point where the incident ray strikes the surface.
- platinocyanic acid — the hypothetical acid containing platinum and the cyano group, H 2 Pt(CN) 4 .
- play cat and mouse — Also called cat and rat. a children's game in which players in a circle keep a player from moving into or out of the circle and permit a second player to move into or out of the circle to escape the pursuing first player.
- play second fiddle — be considered less important
- policeman's helmet — a Himalayan balsaminaceous plant, Impatiens glandulifera, with large purplish-pink flowers, introduced into Britain
- political prisoner — sb imprisoned for political dissidence
- political question — a question regarded by the courts as being a matter to be determined by another department of government rather than of law and therefore one with which they will not deal, as the recognition of a foreign state.
- politically-minded — (of a person or group of people) interested in the way power is achieved and used in a country or society (through government, policy-making, etc)
- pollen mother cell — one of the mother cells that produce four microspores by meiosis.
- polystyrene cement — a purpose-made adhesive for fixing rigid polystyrene
- polyvinyl chloride — a white, water-insoluble, thermoplastic resin, derived by the polymerization of vinyl chloride: used chiefly for thin coatings, insulation, and pipings.
- pontifical college — the chief body of priests in ancient Rome.
- population balance — A population balance is a model showing particle sizes during a grinding process, which is used when designing a process.
- 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
- portal circulation — blood flow in a portal system.
- portion-controlled — being a standardized portion of food: The restaurant uses frozen, portion-controlled entrées.
- 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.
- precedence lossage — /pre's*-dens los'*j/ A misunderstanding of operator precedence resulting in unintended grouping of arithmetic or logical operators when coding an expression. Used especially of mistakes in C code due to the nonintuitively low precedence of "&", "|", "^", "<<" and ">>". For example, the following C expression, intended to test the least significant bit of x, x & 1 == 0 is parsed as x & (1 == 0) which is always zero (false). Some lazy programmers ignore precedence and parenthesise everything. Lisp fans enjoy pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favourite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
- principal diagonal — a diagonal line or plane.
- process scheduling — multitasking
- production control — the planning and supervision of manufacturing activities to ensure that goods will be produced on time at the lowest possible cost.
- proprietary colony — any of certain colonies, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, that were granted to an individual or group by the British crown and that were granted full rights of self-government.