19-letter words containing c, s, r
- presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
- pretty as a picture — girl: sweetly attractive
- prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
- printing discussion — [XEROX PARC] A protracted, low-level, time-consuming, generally pointless discussion of something only peripherally interesting to all.
- 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 first class — a soldier ranking above a private and below a corporal or specialist fourth class in the U.S. Army, and above a private and below a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps.
- private prosecution — a prosecution started by a private individual rather than by the police
- 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.
- proctosigmoidoscopy — sigmoidoscopy.
- 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.
- 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
- propositional logic — (logic) (or "propositional calculus") A system of symbolic logic using symbols to stand for whole propositions and logical connectives. Propositional logic only considers whether a proposition is true or false. In contrast to predicate logic, it does not consider the internal structure of propositions.
- 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.
- psychic determinism — the theory that all aspects of a person's psychological makeup arise from specific causes or forces, as previous experiences or instinctual drives, which may be conscious or unconscious.
- psychoendocrinology — the study of the relationship between the endocrine system and various symptoms or types of mental illness.
- psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
- 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)
- pyrophosphoric acid — a crystalline, water-soluble powder, H 4 P 2 O 7 , formed by the union of one molecule of phosphorus pentoxide with two molecules of water.
- 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-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
- 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.
- rebus sic stantibus — (of the duration of the binding force treaty) for as long as the relevant facts and circumstances remain basically the same.
- recessional moraine — a moraine marking a temporary halt in the general retreat of a glacier.
- recording secretary — an officer charged with keeping the minutes of meetings and responsible for the records.
- redbrick university — any new or little-known university, especially one built since World War II to educate students in industrial regions, emphasizing technical subjects rather than the classics, and often partially supported by government funds.
- redress the balance — to make a fair adjustment; see that justice is done
- 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.
- releasing mechanism — a hypothetical control complex in the central nervous system of animals that triggers the appropriate behavioral response to a releaser.
- religious education — religion as school subject