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18-letter words containing g, s, p

  • personal organizer — a small notebook with sections for personal information, as dates and addresses.
  • petite bourgeoisie — the portion of the bourgeoisie having the least wealth and lowest social status; the lower middle class.
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • phase-shift keying — (communications)   (PSK) A digital modulation scheme that conveys data by changing the phase of a carrier wave. The data can either determine the absolute phase relative to the unmodulated carrier or reference signal ("coherent phase-shift keying", CPSK) or the change in phase ("differential phase-shift keying", DPSK). The number of different phases used determines the amount of data that can be transmitted in each cycle. Each cycle can be considered to constitute one "symbol", e.g. with two possible phases, each cycle carries one bit. The more phases that are used, the less tollerant to noise the transmissions becomes. Alternatives to PSK are amplitude-shift keying (ASK) and frequency-shift keying (FSK).
  • photochemical smog — air pollution containing ozone and other reactive chemical compounds formed by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, especially those in automobile exhaust.
  • photomorphogenesis — plant development that is controlled by light.
  • physical geography — the branch of geography concerned with natural features and phenomena of the earth's surface, as landforms, drainage features, climates, soils, and vegetation.
  • pigmy hippopotamus — a related but smaller animal, Choeropsis liberiensis
  • pilgrim's progress — an allegory (1678) by John Bunyan.
  • pilotless ignition — a system for igniting a gas burner, as in a gas range, furnace, or boiler, without the use of a pilot light.
  • pine tree shilling — a silver coin minted in Massachusetts in the mid to late 17th century, named for the pine tree within a circle shown on the obverse side.
  • plains grasshopper — a large, destructive short-horned grasshopper, Brachystola magna, of the western U.S., marked by pinkish hind wings.
  • plate-glass window — a window that has glass which has been formed by rolling
  • play silly buggers — to fool around and waste time
  • plight one's troth — to make a promise of marriage
  • point set topology — topology (def 2).
  • population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
  • portuguese guinean — of or relating to Portuguese Guinea, a former name for Guinea-Bissau, or its inhabitants
  • positively charged — having a positive charge
  • postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
  • postmaster general — the executive head of the postal system of a country.
  • pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
  • 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.
  • premiere screening — the first screening of a film at a cinema, etc
  • prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
  • press photographer — a photographer who works for a newspaper, magazine, etc
  • 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.
  • process scheduling — multitasking
  • procrustean string — (programming)   A fixed-length string. If a string value is too long for the allocated space, it is truncated to fit; and if it is shorter, the empty space is padded, usually with space characters. This is an allusion to Procrustes, a legendary robber of ancient Attica. He bound his victims to a bed, and if they were shorter than the bed, he stretched their limbs until they would fit; if their limbs were longer, he lopped them off.
  • programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
  • programmer's cheer — (humour)   "Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" [Origin?]
  • programming skills — the skills required to write a program so that data may be processed by a computer
  • 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.
  • proprietary rights — rights of ownership
  • psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
  • psychopathological — the science or study of mental disorders.
  • psychopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the psychological effects of drugs.
  • psychosociological — psychological and sociological
  • psychotechnologist — a specialist in psychotechnology
  • ptomaine poisoning — (erroneously) food poisoning thought to be caused by ptomaine.
  • publishing company — a firm which publishes books
  • pull someone's leg — either of the two lower limbs of a biped, as a human being, or any of the paired limbs of an animal, arthropod, etc., that support and move the body.
  • punishment beating — a form of corporal punishment carried out by a paramilitary organization on a member of another sectarian organization, usually in Northern Ireland
  • purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
  • put heads together — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
  • pygmy hippopotamus — a small hippopotamus, Choeropsis liberiensis, of forests and swamps in western Africa.
  • registered company — a company which has officially registered its business
  • registration plate — a plate mounted on the front and back of a motor vehicle bearing the registration number
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