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20-letter words containing g, r, p

  • part way through sth — in the course of something; in the middle of something
  • paternal grandfather — the father of someone's father
  • paternal grandmother — the mother of someone's father
  • pay through the nose — the part of the face or facial region in humans and certain animals that contains the nostrils and the organs of smell and functions as the usual passageway for air in respiration: in humans it is a prominence in the center of the face formed of bone and cartilage, serving also to modify or modulate the voice.
  • peak programme meter — an instrument for assessing the maximum levels of an electrical sound signal
  • pedal steel (guitar) — a steel guitar mounted on legs and equipped with pedals that serve as an additional means of changing pitch
  • peremptory challenge — a formal objection to the service of a juror by a party to a criminal prosecution or a civil action that requires no showing of cause.
  • perpendicular gothic — the style of Gothic architecture in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by tracery having vertical lines, a four-centred arch, and fan vaulting
  • personnel management — the branch of management dealing with staff recruitment and matters relating to employees
  • pessimising compiler — /pes'*-mi:z"ing k*m-pi:l"r/ (Antonym of "optimising compiler") A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimise the program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.
  • philoprogenitiveness — producing offspring, especially abundantly; prolific.
  • photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
  • phthalocyanine green — a pigment used in painting, derived from chlorinated copper phthalocyanine and characterized chiefly by its intense green color and permanence.
  • physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
  • poor man's something — a (cheaper) substitute for something
  • portrait photography — the activity or art of taking portrait photos
  • portuguese water dog — one of a breed of medium-sized dogs originally developed to assist Portuguese fishermen and having a profuse black or brown coat with or without white markings and webbed feet.
  • postcode prescribing — the practice of prescribing more or less expensive and effective medical treatments to patients depending on where they live in a country, and which treatments their health board is willing and able to provide
  • posted write-through — A cache with a posted write-through policy (e.g. Intel 80386) delays the write-back to main memory until the bus is not in use.
  • postgraduate student — a student who has obtained a degree from a university, etc, and is pursuing studies for a more advanced qualification
  • pound cost averaging — a method of accumulating capital by investing a fixed sum in a particular security at regular intervals, in order to achieve an average purchase price below the arithmetic average of the market prices on the purchase dates
  • poza rica de hidalgo — a city in N Veracruz, in E Mexico.
  • prenuptial agreement — A prenuptial agreement is a written contract made between a man and a woman before they marry, in which they state how their assets such as property and money should be divided if they get divorced.
  • prescription glasses — corrective spectacles
  • prescriptive grammar — an approach to grammar that is concerned with establishing norms of correct and incorrect usage and formulating rules based on these norms to be followed by users of the language.
  • presentation manager — The elephantine graphical user interface to the OS/2 operating system.
  • price-earnings ratio — the current price of a share of common stock divided by earnings per share over a 12-month period, often used in stock evaluation. Abbreviation: p/e.
  • pride of the morning — light mist or precipitation observed at sea in the morning and regarded as indicating a fine day.
  • private investigator — private detective. Abbreviation: PI, p.i., P.I.
  • procedural agreement — regulations agreed between the parties to collective bargaining, defining the bargaining units, bargaining scope, procedures for collective bargaining, and the facilities to be provided to trade union representatives
  • production agreement — a contract concerning the production or manufacture of something
  • programming language — a high-level language used to write computer programs, as COBOL or BASIC, or, sometimes, an assembly language.
  • proof of the pudding — the true value or quality of something, as seen when it is experienced, tried, or put to use: The proof of the pudding for a business is what customers say about it.
  • proportional spacing — a feature of some typewriters and other output devices whereby the space allotted to each character is determined by the width of the character
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
  • public lending right — (in Britain) an act of Parliament that directs compensation to an author for the library loan of his or her book.
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
  • pythagoras's theorem — (mathematics)   The theorem of geometry, named after Pythagoras, of Samos, Ionia, stating that, for a right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. I.e. if the longest side has length A and the other sides have lengths B and C (in any units), A^2 = B^2 + C^2 (2004-02-12)
  • quantum cryptography — a method of coding information based on quantum mechanics, which is said to be unbreakable
  • real-time processing — data-processing by a computer which receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
  • reciprocating engine — an engine in which one or more pistons move backwards and forwards inside a cylinder or cylinders
  • red-legged partridge — a partridge, Alectoris rufa, having a reddish tail, red legs and bill, and flanks barred with chestnut, black, and white: common on farmlands and heaths in SW Europe, including Britain
  • reflecting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • refracting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • regional development — aid-giving to poorer areas or countries
  • repurchase agreement — a contract between a dealer, as a bank, and an investor, whereby the investor purchases securities with the promise that they will be bought back by the dealer on a designated date, for which the investor receives a fixed return.
  • retinitis pigmentosa — degeneration of the retina manifested by night blindness and gradual loss of peripheral vision, eventually resulting in tunnel vision or total blindness.
  • revolving presidency — a form of presidency in which the president and vice-president, or countries or bodies acting as such, switch roles after a set period and then back again and so on
  • ring-necked parakeet — a small brightly coloured long-tailed tropical parrot, Psittacula krameri, often kept as a pet
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