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21-letter words containing i, m, p, o, r

  • multiplication factor — the ratio of the number of neutrons in a generation to the number of neutrons in the previous generation: when the multiplication factor is equal to or greater than one, a chain reaction is possible
  • municipal corporation — a city, town, village, etc., that operates under a corporate charter granted by the state.
  • network time protocol — (NTP) A protocol built on top of TCP/IP that assures accurate local timekeeping with reference to radio, atomic or other clocks located on the Internet. This protocol is capable of synchronizing distributed clocks within milliseconds over long time periods. It is defined in STD 12, RFC 1119.
  • non-maintainer upload — (operating system)   (NMU) A release of a Debian package by someone other than its usual maintainer. E.g. "The bug was fixed in a recent NMU."
  • non-repeating decimal — a decimal representation of any irrational number, having the property that no sequence of digits is repeated ad infinitum.
  • olympic national park — a national park in NW Washington. 1323 sq. mi. (3425 sq. km).
  • operational amplifier — a high-gain, high-input impedance amplifier, usually an integrated circuit, that can perform mathematical operations when suitably wired.
  • operational semantics — (theory)   A set of rules specifying how the state of an actual or hypothetical computer changes while executing a program. The overall state is typically divided into a number of components, e.g. stack, heap, registers etc. Each rule specifies certain preconditions on the contents of some components and their new contents after the application of the rule. It is similar in spirit to the notion of a Turing machine, in which actions are precisely described in a mathematical way. Compuare axiomatic semantics, denotational semantics.
  • ophthalmia neonatorum — inflammation of the eyes of a newborn child due to an infectious disease, as gonorrhea, contracted during birth from the infected mother.
  • opposite-sex marriage — (broadly) any of the diverse forms of interpersonal union established in various parts of the world to form a familial bond that is recognized legally, religiously, or socially, granting the participating partners mutual conjugal rights and responsibilities and including, for example, opposite-sex marriage, same-sex marriage, plural marriage, and arranged marriage: Anthropologists say that some type of marriage has been found in every known human society since ancient times. See Word Story at the current entry.
  • partial reinforcement — the process of randomly rewarding an organism for making a response on only some of the occasions it makes it
  • 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 appraisal — the assessment, at regular intervals, of an employee's performance at work
  • 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
  • performance-enhancing — noting or relating to a drug or other substance used to improve one's performance in a sport or other activity requiring strength, stamina, etc.: The use of performance-enhancing steroids by athletes is banned.
  • persistence of memory — a painting (1931) by Salvador Dali.
  • personalized medicine — an approach to the practice of medicine that uses information about a patient’s unique genetic makeup and environment to customize the patient's medical care to fit his or her individual requirements.
  • pick someone's brains — to obtain information or ideas from someone
  • piezoelectric ceramic — any ceramic that exhibits piezoelectric properties.
  • ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
  • polarizing microscope — a microscope that utilizes polarized light to reveal detail in an object, used especially to study crystalline and fibrous structures.
  • pomp and circumstance — ceremony
  • 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 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.
  • prader-willi syndrome — a congenital condition characterized by obsessive eating, obesity, learning difficulties, and small genitalia
  • premature ejaculation — a male psychosexual disorder in which ejaculation occurs soon after the commencement of sexual intercourse.
  • premium savings bonds — (in Britain) bonds issued by the Treasury since 1956 for purchase by the public. No interest is paid but there is a monthly draw for cash prizes of various sums
  • 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
  • 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
  • probable maximum loss — Probable maximum loss is the maximum amount of loss that can be expected under normal circumstances.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • protest demonstration — a manifestation of protest by public rally, parade, etc
  • proton-pump inhibitor — any of a group of drugs used to treat excessive secretion of acid in the stomach and any resulting ulcers. They block the enzyme (proton pump) in the cells of the gastric glands that secrete hydrochloric acid
  • 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).
  • psychological primary — one of a set of perceived colours (red, yellow, blue, green, black, and white) that can be used to characterize all other perceived colours
  • psychomotor agitation — agitation (def 3).
  • psychomotor-agitation — the act or process of agitating; state of being agitated: She left in great agitation.
  • psychoneuroimmunology — the study of the effects of psychological factors on the immune system
  • public administration — the implementation of public policy, largely by the executive branch.
  • pulmonary circulation — the circulation of blood from the heart to the lungs for oxygenation and back to the heart.
  • put something over on — to deceive; trick
  • pyrenean mountain dog — a large heavily built dog of an ancient breed originally used to protect sheep from wild animals: it has a long thick white coat with a dense ruff
  • quantum teleportation — a hypothetical technique to instantly transfer properties from one quantum system to another without contact, or to transfer a quantum state to an arbitrarily distant location.
  • queer someone's pitch — to upset someone's plans
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