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21-letter words containing e, p, i, t, r

  • percussion instrument — a musical instrument, as the drum, cymbal, triangle, xylophone, or piano, that is struck to produce a sound, as distinguished from string or wind instruments.
  • performance indicator — a quantitative or qualitative measurement, or any other criterion, by which the performance, efficiency, achievement, etc of a person or organization can be assessed, often by comparison with an agreed standard or target
  • persistence of memory — a painting (1931) by Salvador Dali.
  • persistence of vision — the retention of a visual image for a short period of time after the removal of the stimulus that produced it: the phenomenon that produces the illusion of movement when viewing motion pictures.
  • personality inventory — a questionnaire designed to measure personality types or characteristics.
  • photoelectric current — photocurrent.
  • picture quality scale — (graphics)   (PQS) A system for rating image quality based upon features of images that affect their perception by the human eye, rather than the traditional signal-to-noise ratio which examines differences for every single pixel.
  • piezoelectric ceramic — any ceramic that exhibits piezoelectric properties.
  • piezoelectric crystal — a crystal, such as quartz, that produces a potential difference across its opposite faces when under mechanical stress
  • pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
  • place of articulation — the location at which two speech organs approach or come together in producing a speech sound, as in the contact of the tongue and the teeth to form a dental sound. Also called point of articulation. Compare articulator (def 2).
  • plate glass insurance — Plate glass insurance is insurance coverage against damage to or breakage of large panes of glass such as shop windows.
  • play russian roulette — take a foolish risk
  • political correctness — Political correctness is the attitude or policy of being extremely careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
  • politically incorrect — not politically correct; potentially offensive to a particular group of people: politically incorrect jokes.
  • polygenic inheritance — the heredity of complex characters that are determined by a large number of genes, each one usually having a relatively small effect.
  • pomp and circumstance — ceremony
  • populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
  • portrait photographer — a photographer who specializes in portraits
  • positive prescription — the uninterrupted possession of property over a stated period of time, after which a right or title is acquired
  • posterior probability — the probability assigned to some parameter or to an event on the basis of its observed frequency in a sample, and calculated from a prior probability by Bayes' theorem
  • postpartum depression — Postpartum depression is a mental state involving feelings of anxiety and sudden mood swings which some women experience after they have given birth.
  • potassium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, slightly alkaline, salty-tasting, water-soluble powder, KHCO 3 , produced by the passage of carbon dioxide through an aqueous potassium carbonate solution: used in cookery as a leavening agent and in medicine as an antacid.
  • poweropen association — An independent body established to promote, and test conformance with, the PowerOpen Environment (POE).
  • poweropen environment — (operating system)   (POE) A definition containing API and ABI specifications based on the PowerPC architecture. It is not an operating system. The presence of the ABI specification in the POE distinguishes it from other open systems (POSIX, XPG4, etc.) since it allows platform independent binary compatibility which is otherwise typically limited to particular hardware. The POE is an open standard, derived from AIX and conforming to industry open standards including POSIX, XPG4 and Motif. The POE specification will be publicly available to anyone wishing to produce either application programs or hardware platforms. The PowerOpen Association will provide the necessary conformance testing and POE branding. The POE is hardware bus independent. System implementations can range from laptop computers to supercomputers. It requires a multi-user, multitasking operating system. It provides networking support, an X Window System extension, a Macintosh Application Services extension and Motif. It is conformance tested and certified by an independent party (the PowerOpen Association). The POE specification is targeted for availability in the first quarter of 1994. The PowerOpen Association will soon have some of the information material available on-line.
  • powersoft corporation — (company)   A leading vendor of client/server application development tools. In February 1994, Watcom became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Powersoft Corporation which merged with Sybase on 13 February 1995. In April 1995, the new company is the fastest growing top-ten software company and the seventh largest software company in the world. Headquarters: Concord, Massachusetts, USA.
  • preacquisition profit — the retained profit of a company earned before a takeover and therefore not eligible for distribution as a dividend to the shareholders of the acquiring company
  • preexisting condition — A preexisting condition is a medical condition already suffered by a proposer before the starting date of an insurance policy.
  • prefect of discipline — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
  • premature ejaculation — a male psychosexual disorder in which ejaculation occurs soon after the commencement of sexual intercourse.
  • president pro tempore — a senator, usually a senior member of the majority party, who is chosen to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president.
  • price competitiveness — pricing goods or services so that they are competitive with the prices of other companies
  • primary sex character — any of the body structures directly concerned in reproduction, as the testes, ovaries, and external genitalia.
  • primitive dicotyledon — any living relative of early angiosperms that branched off before the evolution of monocotyledons and eudicotyledons. The group comprises about 5 per cent of the world's plants
  • prince rupert's metal — a brass composed of from about 60 to 85 percent copper and about 15 to 40 percent zinc, used to imitate gold.
  • printed circuit board — a circuit in which the interconnecting conductors and some of the circuit components have been printed, etched, etc., onto a sheet or board of dielectric material (PC board, printed-circuit board)
  • private member's bill — In Britain, a Private Member's Bill is a law that is proposed by a Member of Parliament acting as an individual rather than as a member of his or her political party.
  • processor direct slot — (hardware)   (PDS) Apple Computer's name for a local bus connection. Most Macintoshes have only one PDS connector. Different Apple computers have different PDS specifications.
  • production department — the department of a business or organization responsible for manufacturing products
  • profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
  • program temporary fix — (programming)   (PTF) (Colloquially: Probably This Fixes) An IBM sanctioned patch, often implemented using ZAP or SUPERZAP.
  • progressive education — any of various reformist educational philosophies and methodologies since the late 1800s, applied especially to elementary schools, that reject the rote recitation and strict discipline of traditional, single-classroom teaching, favoring instead more stimulation of the individual pupil as well as group discussion, more informality in the classroom, a broader curriculum, and use of laboratories, gymnasiums, kitchens, etc., in the school.
  • projection television — a television picture display system consisting of a special receiver and an optical system that projects an enlarged picture on a screen.
  • promoter of the faith — devil's advocate (def 2).
  • propantheline bromide — a substance, C 2 3 H 3 0 BrNO 3 , used in the treatment of peptic ulcers.
  • protective coloration — coloration or anything likened to it that eliminates or reduces visibility or conspicuousness.
  • protest demonstration — a manifestation of protest by public rally, parade, etc
  • protestant work ethic — work ethic.
  • pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
  • psychopathic disorder — (in England, according to the Mental Health Act 1983) a persistent disorder or disability of mind which results in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct on the part of the person concerned
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