19-letter words containing c, o, p, e
- police headquarters — building where police are stationed
- police intervention — the physical involvement of police officers in an incident, esp where officers use force to control public disorder, such as a riot
- political geography — the branch of human geography that deals with the relationship between political processes and spatial structures (regions, territories, etc)
- political scientist — A political scientist is someone who studies, writes, or lectures about political science.
- political-scientist — a social science dealing with political institutions and with the principles and conduct of government.
- politically correct — marked by or adhering to a typically progressive orthodoxy on issues involving especially ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or ecology: The actor’s comment about unattractive women was not politically correct. The CEO feels that people who care about being politically correct are overly sensitive. Abbreviations: PC, P.C.
- polyethylene glycol — any of a series of polymers of ethylene glycol, having a molecular weight of from about 200 to 6000, obtained by condensation of ethylene glycol or of ethylene oxide and water, used as an emulsifying agent and lubricant in ointments, creams, etc.
- polyphonic ringtone — (in mobile phones) a ringtone in which more than one musical note is played at the same time
- polytene chromosome — a giant, cross-banded chromosome that results from multiple replication of its genetic material with the duplicated chromatin strands remaining closely associated.
- population genetics — the branch of genetics concerned with the hereditary makeup of populations.
- post office problem — (algorithm) Given a set of points (in N dimensions), find another point which minimises the sum of the distances from that point to each of the others.
- post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
- postage and packing — the cost of packing and mailing an item bought by post
- potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
- preach to the choir — to express an opinion to someone who is already in agreement with it
- predicate objective — objective complement.
- preproduction model — a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- preproduction trial — a trial to test a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
- presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
- pretty good privacy — (tool, cryptography) (PGP) A high security RSA public-key encryption application for MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and other computers. It was written by Philip R. Zimmermann <[email protected]> of Phil's Pretty Good(tm) Software and later augmented by a cast of thousands, especially including Hal Finney, Branko Lankester, and Peter Gutmann. PGP was distributed as "guerrilla freeware". The authors don't mind if it is distributed widely, just don't ask Philip Zimmermann to send you a copy. PGP uses a public-key encryption algorithm claimed by US patent #4,405,829. The exclusive rights to this patent are held by a California company called Public Key Partners, and you may be infringing this patent if you use PGP in the USA. This is explained in the PGP User's Guide, Volume II. PGP allows people to exchange files or messages with privacy and authentication. Privacy and authentication are provided without managing the keys associated with conventional cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed to exchange keys between users, which makes PGP much easier to use. This is because PGP is based on public-key cryptography. PGP encrypts data using the International Data Encryption Algorithm with a random session key, and uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the session key. In December 1994 Philip Zimmermann faced prosecution for "exporting" PGP out of the United States but in January 1996 the US Goverment dropped the case. A US law prohibits the export of encryption software out of the country. Zimmermann did not do this, but the US government hoped to establish the proposition that posting an encryption program on a BBS or on the Internet constitutes exporting it - in effect, stretching export control into domestic censorship. If the government had won it would have had a chilling effect on the free flow of information on the global network, as well as on everyone's privacy from government snooping.
- prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
- pride-of-california — a shrubby plant, Lathyrus splendens, of the legume family, native to southern California, having showy clusters of pale rose-pink, violet, or magenta flowers and large, smooth, beaked pods.
- primary containment — Primary containment is the main means of preventing leaks and spills using equipment in direct content with the oil or gas being stored or transported.
- priority scheduling — (operating system) Processes scheduling in which the scheduler selects tasks to run based on their priority as opposed to, say, a simple round-robin. Priorities may be static or dynamic. Static priorities are assigned at the time of creation, while dynamic priorities are based on the processes' behaviour while in the system. For example, the scheduler may favour I/O-intensive tasks so that expensive requests can be issued as early as possible. A danger of priority scheduling is starvation, in which processes with lower priorities are not given the opportunity to run. In order to avoid starvation, in preemptive scheduling, the priority of a process is gradually reduced while it is running. Eventually, the priority of the running process will no longer be the highest, and the next process will start running. This method is called aging.
- prismatic telescope — a telescope having an eyepiece at the side or top equipped with a reflecting prism, used for taking sights at steep angles.
- 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 engineering — the branch of engineering concerned with industrial processes, esp continuous ones, such as the production of petrochemicals
- process performance — Process performance is a measure of how efficient or effective a process is.
- proctosigmoidoscope — sigmoidoscope.
- 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.
- projection printing — the act or process of making projection prints.
- projective geometry — the geometric study of projective properties.
- projective property — a geometric property that is unaltered by projection; a property of relative position, as coincidence or length, but not of magnitude.
- promotion prospects — the chances or prospects an employee has for promotion or for gaining a better position, often in the same company
- promotions director — someone in charge of encouraging the sale of (a product) by advertising or securing financial support
- 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-hieroglyphic — noting or pertaining to a script dating from the second millennium b.c. that appears to be syllabic and to represent the Phoenician language and that is inscribed on objects found at Byblos.
- pseudo-intellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- pseudopsychological — of or relating to psychology.
- psychoendocrinology — the study of the relationship between the endocrine system and various symptoms or types of mental illness.
- 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.