20-letter words containing i, p, r, o, s
- prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
- prosthetic dentistry — prosthodontics.
- psychiatric hospital — institution treating mental disorders
- psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
- psychomotor epilepsy — temporal-lobe epilepsy.
- public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
- pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
- 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
- reciprocal insurance — insurance in which members of a reciprocal exchange, acting through an attorney-in-fact, insure themselves and each other.
- 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.
- refuse disposal unit — a unit or part of a sink that disposes of waste food, etc, by grinding
- republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
- réseaux ip européens — (RIPE) A collaboration between European networks which use the TCP/IP protocol suite to provide Internet services.
- respiratory quotient — the ratio of the amount of carbon dioxide released by the lungs to the amount of oxygen taken in during a given period.
- 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
- rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
- rotations per minute — revolutions per minute
- royal leamington spa — a city in Warwickshire, central England: health resort.
- sailor's breastplate — a knot consisting of three overlapping loops formed by a single rope passed alternately over and under itself at crossings.
- santa cruz operation — (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. SCO maintains its world headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, USA; a European headquarters in Watford, England; a Government Systems Group in Reston, Virginia; and offices in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, and throughout Europe and the United States. In February 1993, SCO acquired IXI Limited of Cambridge, England, the leading supplier of Unix System windowing software.
- satellite photograph — a photograph taken by an artificial satellite from space
- schizoid personality — sb with identity disorder
- semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
- separation allowance — an allowance paid to a member of the military when they are forced to be apart from their family due to their military duties
- separation of powers — the principle or system of vesting in separate branches the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of a government.
- serve a person right — to pay a person back, esp for wrongful or foolish treatment or behaviour
- service access point — (networking) (SAP) The OSI term for the component of a network address which identifies the individual application on a host which is sending or receiving a packet. Different SAPs distinguish between different services or applications on a host, e.g. electronic mail, FTP, HTTP.
- sex change operation — a surgical operation designed to change a person's physical sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
- sharp-tailed sparrow — a sparrow, Ammospiza caudacuta, inhabiting salt marshes in North America, having narrow, sharply pointed tail feathers.
- sing for your supper — If someone has to sing for their supper, they have to do a job before they are allowed to do something they want to do.
- single point mooring — monobuoy.
- slip through the net — If criminals slip through the net, they avoid being caught by the system or trap that was meant to catch them.
- sound motion picture — a motion picture with a soundtrack.
- south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
- span of apprehension — the maximum number of objects that can be correctly assessed after a brief presentation
- spanish oyster plant — a composite plant, Scolymus hispanicus, of southern Europe, having spiny, thistlelike leaf margins, small yellow flowers, and an edible root.
- special boat service — a unit of the Royal Marines specializing in reconnaissance and sabotage
- special patrol group — a former police unit tasked with counter terrorism in the Royal Ulster Constabulary
- special relationship — the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom
- specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
- spectrophotoelectric — pertaining to the relationship between the wavelength of the incident radiation and the number of electrons released by a photoelectric substance.
- spectroscopic binary — a binary star having components that are not sufficiently separated to be resolved by a telescope, known to be a binary only bythe variations in wavelength of emitted light that are detected by a spectroscope.
- spherical aberration — variation in focal length of a lens or mirror from center to edge, due to its spherical shape.
- spherical coordinate — Usually, spherical coordinates. any of three coordinates used to locate a point in space by the length of its radius vector and the angles this vector makes with two perpendicular polar planes.
- spiral of archimedes — a curve that is the locus of a point that moves outward with uniform speed along a vector, beginning at the origin, while the vector rotates about the origin with uniform angular velocity. Equation (in polar coordinates): r = aθ.
- spirit of enterprise — the motivation to set up and succeed in business or commerce
- spirits of hartshorn — a colorless, pungent, suffocating, aqueous solution of about 28.5 percent ammonia gas: used chiefly as a detergent, for removing stains and extracting certain vegetable coloring agents, and in the manufacture of ammonium salts.
- spontaneous abortion — miscarriage (def 1).