18-letter words containing f, e, l, p, o
- pick of the litter — objects strewn or scattered about; scattered rubbish.
- pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
- 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.
- play second fiddle — be considered less important
- play someone false — to deceive, cheat, hoodwink, or betray someone
- pontifical college — the chief body of priests in ancient Rome.
- population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
- potassium fluoride — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, toxic powder, KF, used chiefly as an insecticide, a disinfectant, and in etching glass.
- power-on self-test — (hardware, testing) (POST) A sequence of diagnostic tests that are run automatically by a device when the power is turned on. In a personal computer a typical POST sequence does the following: - checks that the system board is working - checks that the memory is working - compares the current system configuration with that recorded by the PC's configuration program to see if anything has been added or removed or broken - starts the video operation - checks that the diskette drive, hard disk drive, CD-ROM drive, and any other drives that may be installed are working. When POST is finished, typically it will beep, and then let your operating system start to boot. If POST finds an error, it may beep more than once (or possibly not at all if it is your PC speaker that is broken) and display a POST error message. These messages are often nothing more than a single ominous number. Some common numbers and their meanings are: 161 Dead battery (get a new battery for the system board) 162 Configuration changed (you added some memory or a new card to the PC) 301 Keyboard error (take the book off the corner of the keyboard) Because a successful POST indicates that the system is restored to known state, turning the power off and on is a standard way to reset a system whose software has hung. Compare 120 reset, Big Red Switch, power cycle.
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
- product life cycle — the four stages (introduction, growth, maturity, and decline) into one of which the sales of a product fall during its market life
- purple loosestrife — an Old World plant, Lythrum salicaria, of the loosestrife family, widely naturalized in North America, growing in wet places and having spikes of reddish-purple flowers.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- seafloor spreading — a process in which new ocean floor is created as molten material from the earth's mantle rises in margins between plates or ridges and spreads out.
- self-comprehending — to understand the nature or meaning of; grasp with the mind; perceive: He did not comprehend the significance of the ambassador's remark.
- self-contemplation — the act or process of thinking about oneself or one's values, beliefs, behavior, etc.
- self-preoccupation — the state of being preoccupied.
- shatterproof glass — glass designed to resist shattering
- slip of the tongue — If you describe something you said as a slip of the tongue, you mean that you said it by mistake.
- soda-lime feldspar — plagioclase.
- sodium hyposulfite — sodium thiosulfate.
- sodium polysulfide — a yellow-brown, water-soluble, granular powder, Na 2 S n , used chiefly in the manufacture of sulfur dyes, insecticides, and synthetic rubber.
- software backplane — (programming, tool) A CASE framework from Atherton.
- speak for yourself — If you say 'Speak for yourself' when someone has said something, you mean that what they have said is only their opinion or applies only to them.
- spectrofluorimeter — an instrument in which the spectrum of secondarily emitted fluorescent light is used to identify chemical compounds.
- spectrofluorometer — an instrument in which the spectrum of secondarily emitted fluorescent light is used to identify chemical compounds.
- spotted flycatcher — a European woodland songbird, Muscicapa striata, with a greyish-brown streaked plumage: family Muscicapidae (Old World flycatchers)
- stepping-off place — jumping-off place (def 2).
- the family compact — the ruling oligarchy in Upper Canada in the early 19th century
- to fall into place — If things fall into place, events happen naturally to produce a situation you want.
- to play favourites — to display favouritism
- to pull a fast one — If you say that someone has pulled a fast one on you, you mean that they have cheated or tricked you.
- wild passionflower — the maypop, Passiflora incarnata.
- wildlife programme — (esp on television) a documentary whose subject is wild animals in their natural habitat or undomesticated fauna and flora generally