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18-letter words containing d, e, n, r

  • point of departure — Nautical. the precise location of a vessel, established in order to set a course, especially in beginning a voyage in open water.
  • polyvinyl chloride — a white, water-insoluble, thermoplastic resin, derived by the polymerization of vinyl chloride: used chiefly for thin coatings, insulation, and pipings.
  • portion-controlled — being a standardized portion of food: The restaurant uses frozen, portion-controlled entrées.
  • postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
  • potential gradient — the rate of change of potential with respect to distance in the direction of greatest change.
  • 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.
  • pre-filled syringe — A pre-filled syringe is a disposable syringe that is supplied already loaded with the substance to be injected.
  • 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.
  • predation pressure — the effect of predation upon a population, resulting in the decrease in size of that population.
  • preferred position — especially desirable advertising space for which, if it is specifically requested by the advertiser, a publication charges a premium rate.
  • prepare the ground — make conditions ready
  • presenile dementia — a form of dementia, of unknown cause, starting before a person is old
  • preservation order — In Britain, a preservation order is an official order that makes it illegal for anyone to alter or destroy something such as an old building or an area of countryside.
  • presidential suite — a suite of rooms, as in a hotel, suitable for a president or other head of state.
  • prestidigitization — /pres`t*-di"j*-ti:-zay"sh*n/ 1. A term coined by Daniel Klein <[email protected]> for the act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand. 2. Data entry through legerdemain.
  • 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.
  • primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
  • prince of darkness — Satan.
  • principal meridian — a meridian line accurately laid out to serve as the reference meridian in land survey
  • prisoner's dilemma — (in game theory) a scenario in which the outcome of one person's decision is determined by the simultaneous decisions of the other participants, resulting in a bad outcome for all of them if all act in their own self-interest.
  • 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.
  • process scheduling — multitasking
  • product acceptance — the verification or acceptance that a manufactured item meets required specifications or standards and is usable for its purpose
  • production manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
  • progressive coding — (graphics, file format, algorithm)   (Or "interlacing") An aspect of a graphics storage format or transmission algorithm that treats bitmap image data non-sequentially in such a way that later data adds progressively greater resolution to an already full-size image. This contrasts with sequential coding. Progressive coding is useful when an image is being sent across a slow communications channel, such as the Internet, as the low-resolution image may be sufficient to allow the user to decide not to wait for the rest of the file to be received. In an interlaced GIF89 image, the pixels in a row are stored sequentially but the rows are stored in interlaced order, e.g. 0, 8, 4, 12, 2, 6, 8, 10, 14, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15. Each vertical scan adds rows in the middle of the gaps left by the previous one. Interlacing is also supported by other formats. JPEG supports a functionally similar concept known as Progressive JPEG. [How does the algorithm differ?] See also progressive/sequential coding.
  • progressive dinner — a dinner party in which each successive course is prepared and eaten at the residence of a different participant.
  • prometheus unbound — a drama in verse (1820) by Shelley.
  • 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
  • protein deficiency — a lack or insuffiency of protein
  • pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
  • public expenditure — spending by central government, local authorities, and public corporations
  • pyramus and thisbe — (in Greek legend) two lovers of Babylon: Pyramus, wrongly supposing Thisbe to be dead, killed himself and she, encountering him in his death throes, did the same
  • qattara depression — a desert basin in the Libyan Desert, in NW Egypt: lowest point is 435 feet (133 meters) below sea level. 6950 sq. mi. (18,000 sq. km).
  • 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).
  • quartz-iodine lamp — a type of tungsten-halogen lamp containing small amounts of iodine and having a quartz envelope, operating at high temperature and producing an intense light for use in car headlamps, etc
  • quinacrine mustard — a nitrogen mustard derived from mepacrine and used as a stain for chromosomes
  • radiant efficiency — the ratio of the power emitted by a source of radiation to the power consumed by it
  • radiation exposure — exposure to radiant energy or to the particles emitted in the transfer of radiant energy, esp the particles and gamma rays emitted in nuclear decay; exposure to radioactive substances
  • radiation pressure — the pressure exerted on a surface by electromagnetic radiation or by sound waves.
  • 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 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.
  • 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.
  • random walk theory — the theory that the future movement of share prices does not reflect past movements and therefore will not follow a discernible pattern
  • rapid eye movement — rapidly shifting, continuous movements of the eyes beneath closed lids during the stage of sleep characterized by dreaming.
  • ready when you are — If you say to someone 'Ready when you are', you are telling them that you are now ready to do something and that as soon as they are ready, you will do it.
  • redevelopment area — an urban area in which all or most of the buildings are demolished and rebuilt
  • reduction division — the first division of meiosis in which the number of chromosomes is reduced to half the original number.
  • reduction strategy — (theory)   An algorithm for deciding which redex(es) to reduce next. Different strategies have different termination properties in the presence of recursive functions or values. See string reduction, normal order reduction, applicative order reduction, parallel reduction
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