17-letter words containing d, p, a, r
- dissipation trail — a clear rift left behind an aircraft flying through a thin cloud layer.
- dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
- doberman pinscher — one of a German breed of medium-sized, short-haired dogs having a black, brown, or blue coat with rusty brown markings.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- double pair royal — a set of four cards of the same denomination, worth 12 points.
- dramatis personae — (used with a plural verb) the characters in a play.
- dressed up as sth — portrayed as
- drilling platform — a structure, either fixed to the sea bed or mobile, which supports the machinery and equipment (the drilling rig), together with the stores, required for digging an offshore oil well
- drive up the wall — to cause to become crazy or furious
- drool-proof paper — (jargon) Documentation that has been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written on drool-proof paper". For example, this is an actual quote from Apple Computer's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
- duality principle — the principle that a mathematical duality exists under certain conditions.
- east grand rapids — a town in W central Michigan, near Grand Rapids.
- echocardiographer — A person who performs echocardiography.
- echocardiographic — Of or pertaining to echocardiography.
- ectoparasiticides — Plural form of ectoparasiticide.
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- epicycloidal gear — a gear of an epicyclic train
- esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
- european standard — a specification to be used as a consistent rule or guideline in the manufacture or selling of a certain product or service traded within Europe
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
- exemplary damages — law: fine imposed as a deterrent
- export department — the department of a business concerned with the export of the business's goods or services
- export-orientated — (of an industry, company, etc) mainly concerned with the export of goods or services
- fancy dress party — a party at which the guests wear fancy dress
- feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- frames per second — (unit) (fps) The unit of measurement of the frame rate of a moving image.
- front-end payment — a payment required or incurred in advance of a project in order to get it under way
- garden apartments — a complex of low apartment buildings surrounded by lawn or landscaped areas
- garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
- gnu privacy guard —
- graduated pension — the money that an employee receives after retirement if they have paid into the graduated pension scheme
- grain of paradise — Usually, grains of paradise. one of the pungent, peppery seeds of an African plant, Aframomum melegueta, of the ginger family, used to strengthen cordials and in veterinary medicine.
- great-grandnephew — a grandson of one's nephew or niece.
- great-grandparent — a grandfather or grandmother of one's father or mother.
- green peach aphid — an aphid, Myzus persicae, that is a pest of many fruit trees, ornamentals, and vegetables and a vector of certain viral plant diseases.
- greensand process — a process for casting iron with sand not previously heated.
- grey-faced petrel — a dark-coloured New Zealand petrel, Pterodroma macroptera gouldi
- half-breadth plan — a diagrammatic plan of one half of the hull of a vessel divided lengthwise amidships, showing water lines, stations, diagonals, and bow and buttock lines.
- handicap register — a list of the disabled people in its area that a local authority had a duty to compile under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970
- hardware platform — a group of compatible computers that can run the same software.
- hermaphrodite rig — jackass rig.
- hoare powerdomain — powerdomain
- holding operation — a plan or procedure devised to prolong the existing situation
- hot-and-sour soup — a spicy Chinese soup made with pork, chicken, beans, vinegar, etc., served hot
- humpbacked bridge — A humpbacked bridge or humpback bridge is a short and very curved bridge with a shape similar to a semi-circle.
- hydrotherapeutics — hydrotherapy.
- hydrotherapy pool — a pool of water used for hydrotherapy
- hydroxytryptamine — (organic compound) Any hydroxy derivative of tryptamine, but especially 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin).