12-letter words containing k, o, p
- gopher snake — a bullsnake, Pituophis melanoleucus, of western North America, that invades burrows to prey on rodents.
- groundkeeper — groundskeeper.
- haliplankton — plankton living in sea water
- hanover park — a city in NE Illinois.
- heckelphones — Plural form of heckelphone.
- hello packet — (networking, communications) An OSPF packet sent periodically on each network interface, real or virtual, to discover and test connections to neighbours. Hello packets are multicast on physical networks capable of multicasting or broadcasting to enable dynamic router discovery. They include the parameters that routers connected to a common network must agree on. Hello packets increase network resilience by, e.g., allowing a router to establish a secondary connection when a primary connection fails.
- hemiplankton — plankton that spend part of their life cycle in a vegetative state on the sea bottom, riverbed, etc. (opposed to holoplankton).
- hickory pine — bristlecone pine.
- holoplankton — plankton that spend their entire life cycle as free-swimming organisms (opposed to hemiplankton).
- hopkinsville — a city in S Kentucky.
- hotelkeepers — Plural form of hotelkeeper.
- housekeepers — Plural form of housekeeper.
- housekeeping — the maintenance of a house or domestic establishment.
- hupokeimenon — (philosophy) That which underlies, or lies beneath; substratum.
- hypokalaemia — Alternative form of hypokalemia.
- hypokeimenon — Alternative spelling of hupokeimenon.
- impost block — dosseret.
- james k polk — James Knox, 1795–1849, the 11th president of the U.S. 1845–49.
- jk flip-flop — (hardware) An edge triggered SR flip-flop with extra logic such that only one of the R and S inputs is enabled at any time. This prevents a race condition which can occur when both inputs of an RS flip-flop are active at the same time. In a JK flip-flop the R and S inputs are renamed J and K. The set input (J) is only enabled when the flip-flop is reset and K when it is set. If both J and K inputs are held active then the outputs will change ("togle") on each falling edge of the clock. JK flip-flops can be used to build a binary counter with a reset input.
- joe six-pack — Slang. the average or typical blue-collar man.
- joking apart — seriously: said to recall a discussion to seriousness after there has been joking
- kaleidophone — an instrument, invented by Professor Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), consisting of a light on a vibrating rod with a reflecting knob for exhibiting the effect of sound waves
- kaleidoscope — an optical instrument in which bits of glass, held loosely at the end of a rotating tube, are shown in continually changing symmetrical forms by reflection in two or more mirrors set at angles to each other.
- kangaroo paw — any plant of the Australian genus Anigozanthos, resembling a kangaroo's paw, esp the red-and-green flowered A. manglesii, which is the floral emblem of Western Australia: family Haemodoraceae
- karyomapping — a technique for determining whether an embryo has inherited a genetic defect by analysing DNA taken from it and its close relatives
- katamorphism — metamorphism at or near the earth's surface: breaks down complex minerals into simpler ones.
- keep company — a number of individuals assembled or associated together; group of people.
- keep tabs on — a small flap, strap, loop, or similar appendage, as on a garment, used for pulling, hanging, or decoration.
- keeping room — hall (def 11).
- ken thompson — (person) The principal inventor of the Unix operating system and author of the B language, the predecessor of C. In the early days Ken used to hand-cut Unix distribution tapes, often with a note that read "Love, ken". Old-timers still use his first name (sometimes uncapitalised, because it's a login name and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely understood (on Usenet in particular) that without a last name "Ken" refers only to Ken Thompson. Similarly, Dennis without last name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr). Ken was first hired to work on the Multics project, which was a huge production with many people working on it. Multics was supposed to support hundreds of on-line logins but could barely handle three. In 1969, when Bell Labs withdrew from the project, Ken got fed up with Multics and went off to write his own operating system. People said "well, if zillions of people wrote Multics, then an OS written by one guy must be Unix!". There was some joking about eunichs as well. Ken's wife Bonnie and son Corey (then 18 months old) went to visit family in San Diego. Ken spent one week each on the kernel, file system, etc., and finished UNIX in one month along with developing SPACEWAR (or was it "Space Travel"?). See also back door, brute force, demigod, wumpus.
- keratoplasty — plastic surgery performed upon the cornea, especially a corneal transplantation.
- keraunograph — an instrument for recording thunderstorms by detecting the radio waves generated
- ketone group — the characteristic group occurring in ketones that consists of the carbonyl group attached to two alkyl groups.
- keystone kop — Usually, Keystone Kops. (in early silent movies) a team of comic policemen noted for their slapstick routines.
- kinesophobia — Fear of movement.
- kinetography — a camera for taking pictures for a kinetoscope.
- kinetoplasts — Plural form of kinetoplast.
- kitchen soap — heavy-duty soap intended for use in the kitchen
- kleptocratic — a government or state in which those in power exploit national resources and steal; rule by a thief or thieves.
- kleptomaniac — a person who has kleptomania.
- kourotrophos — (archaeology) a class of Mycenaean terracotta figurines depicting women carrying children.
- lake nipigon — a lake in central Canada, in NW Ontario, draining into Lake Superior via the Nipigon River. Area: 4843 sq km (1870 sq miles)
- lark sparrow — a North American sparrow, Chondestes grammacus, having a distinctive brown-and-white facial pattern.
- leukopedesis — an outward flow of white blood cells through a blood-vessel wall.
- leukopoiesis — the formation and development of white blood cells.
- lincoln park — a city in SE Michigan.
- locker plant — an establishment for storing food under refrigeration, containing lockers for renting to individual users.
- lookout post — a place from which a guard or sentry can keep watch
- loudspeakers — Plural form of loudspeaker, especially a pair for a left and right channel.
- machtpolitik — power politics