18-letter words containing c, o, n, t
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- peters' projection — a form of modified world map projection that attempts to reflect accurately the relative surface areas of landmasses, an approach which gives greater prominence (than do standard representations) to equatorial countries
- 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.
- photodecomposition — the breaking down of molecules by radiant energy.
- 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.
- piecewise function — a function whose definition changes depending on the value of the independent variable
- pitch-and-run shot — chip shot.
- 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.
- pneumatic conveyor — a tube through which powdered or granular material, such as cement, grain, etc is transported by a flow of air
- point of reference — A point of reference is something which you use to help you understand a situation or communicate with someone.
- 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
- 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
- porcupine anteater — an echidna or spiny anteater.
- 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.
- pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
- precious moonstone — moonstone (def 1).
- present continuous — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the present tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that a present action or event is in progress, being repeated, or of a temporary nature or to express the future.
- prison rustic work — rustication having a deeply pitted surface.
- process identifier — (operating system) (PID) An integer used by the Unix kernel to uniquely identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process.
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- 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 control — the planning and supervision of manufacturing activities to ensure that goods will be produced on time at the lowest possible cost.
- production manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
- productivity bonus — an extra payment made to workers for being more productive or yielding more favourable results than normal
- project management — leadership of a task or programme
- projection machine — an apparatus that projects motion pictures; projector.
- projection printer — enlarger.
- promotion campaign — a campaign designed to encourage the sale of (a product) by advertising or securing financial support
- property insurance — insurance coverage for land and housing
- 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.
- protein deficiency — a lack or insuffiency of protein
- protocol converter — (networking) A device or program to translate between different protocols which serve similar functions (e.g. TCP and TP4). Some call this a "gateway", though others use that term for other kinds of internetworking device.
- 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.
- proton synchrotron — a synchrotron used for accelerating protons.