18-letter words containing d, a, c
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- phenylacetaldehyde — a colorless, oily, water-insoluble liquid, C 3 H 1 4 O, having a hyacinthlike odor: used chiefly in perfumery.
- phthalic anhydride — a white, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 8 H 4 O 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes, alkyd resins, and plasticizers.
- physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
- pig-tailed macaque — a forest-dwelling southeast Asian macaque, Macaca nemestrina, having a short, curled tail, colonized for animal behavior studies.
- pitch-and-run shot — chip shot.
- 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
- play the race card — to introduce the subject of race into a public discussion, esp to gain a strategic advantage
- plenary indulgence — a remission of the total temporal punishment that is still due to sin after absolution. Compare indulgence (def 6).
- 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)
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- 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.
- predicate calculus — predicate logic
- price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
- prince of darkness — Satan.
- principal diagonal — a diagonal line or plane.
- principal meridian — a meridian line accurately laid out to serve as the reference meridian in land survey
- 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 manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
- propaganda machine — the group of people, publications, etc, such as of a government, country etc, responsible for the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc, to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc
- 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.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
- pseudo-socialistic — of or relating to socialists or socialism.
- pseudo-symptomatic — pertaining to a symptom or symptoms.
- pseudoappendicitis — inflammation of the vermiform appendix.
- pseudointellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- puvis de chavannes — Puvis de [py-vee duh] /püˈvi də/ (Show IPA), Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre.
- pyromucic aldehyde — furfural.
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- quadratic equation — an equation containing a single variable of degree 2. Its general form is ax 2 + bx + c = 0, where x is the variable and a, b, and c are constants (a ≠ 0).
- quinacrine mustard — a nitrogen mustard derived from mepacrine and used as a stain for chromosomes
- racially motivated — motivated by (the hate or prejudice of) someone's race
- radiant efficiency — the ratio of the power emitted by a source of radiation to the power consumed by it
- radiation sickness — sickness caused by irradiation with x-rays or other nuclear radiation as a result of therapeutic treatment, accidental exposure, or a nuclear bomb explosion and characterized by nausea, vomiting, headache, cramps, diarrhea, loss of hair and teeth, destruction of white blood cells, and prolonged hemorrhage.
- radical empiricism — (in the philosophy of William James) the doctrine that the only proper subject matter of philosophy is that which can be defined in terms of experience, and that relations are a part of experience.
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- radio range beacon — a radio transmitter that utilizes two or more directional antennas and transmits signals differing with direction, permitting a flier receiving a signal to determine his or her approximate bearing from the transmitter without a radio compass.
- radioactive dating — any method of determining the age of earth materials or objects of organic origin based on measurement of either short-lived radioactive elements or the amount of a long-lived radioactive element plus its decay product.
- radioactive series — a succession of elements initiated in the radioactive decay of a parent, as thorium or uranium, each of which decays into the next until a stable element, usually lead, is produced.
- radiocarbon dating — the determination of the age of objects of organic origin by measurement of the radioactivity of their carbon content.
- radiocommunication — communication by means of radio waves
- radiometric dating — any method of determining the age of earth materials or objects of organic origin based on measurement of either short-lived radioactive elements or the amount of a long-lived radioactive element plus its decay product.