21-letter words containing l, a, c, r, e, t
- open trading protocol — Internet Open Trading Protocol
- 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.
- optical double (star) — double star (sense 2)
- orthogonal projection — a two-dimensional graphic representation of an object in which the projecting lines are at right angles to the plane of the projection. Also called orthogonal projection. Compare isometric (def 5).
- orthogonal trajectory — the locus of a point whose path cuts each curve of a family of curves at right angles.
- paradoxical intention — (in psychotherapy) the deliberate practice of a neurotic habit or thought, undertaken in order to remove it
- partial reinforcement — the process of randomly rewarding an organism for making a response on only some of the occasions it makes it
- person-to-person call — a call to a specified person; if that person cannot take the call there is no charge
- phrase-structure rule — a rule that generates a sentence or other syntactic construction from words and phrases and identifies its constituent structure.
- picture quality scale — (graphics) (PQS) A system for rating image quality based upon features of images that affect their perception by the human eye, rather than the traditional signal-to-noise ratio which examines differences for every single pixel.
- piezoelectric ceramic — any ceramic that exhibits piezoelectric properties.
- piezoelectric crystal — a crystal, such as quartz, that produces a potential difference across its opposite faces when under mechanical stress
- pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
- place of articulation — the location at which two speech organs approach or come together in producing a speech sound, as in the contact of the tongue and the teeth to form a dental sound. Also called point of articulation. Compare articulator (def 2).
- place of safety order — (in Britain) under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, an order granted by a justice to a person or agency granting authority to detain a child or young person and take him or her to a place of safety for not more than 28 days, because of the child's actual or likely ill-treatment or neglect, etc
- plate glass insurance — Plate glass insurance is insurance coverage against damage to or breakage of large panes of glass such as shop windows.
- political correctness — Political correctness is the attitude or policy of being extremely careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
- politically incorrect — not politically correct; potentially offensive to a particular group of people: politically incorrect jokes.
- polygenic inheritance — the heredity of complex characters that are determined by a large number of genes, each one usually having a relatively small effect.
- portable commodore 64 — (computer) A version of the Commodore 64 modelled after the original Osborne portable PCs, with a flip-down keyboard that revealed a 5-inch colour monitor, and a built-in 1541 floppy disk drive. It is thought that few were made but that they did go on sale, at least in Canada.
- portable common loops — (PCL) A language which started out as an implementation of CommonLoops and turned into a portable CLOS implementation. Version 1992-08-28. It runs under Lucid Common LISP 4.0.1 and CMU Common LISP 16e.
- premature ejaculation — a male psychosexual disorder in which ejaculation occurs soon after the commencement of sexual intercourse.
- prince rupert's metal — a brass composed of from about 60 to 85 percent copper and about 15 to 40 percent zinc, used to imitate gold.
- programmed cell death — a normal, genetically regulated process leading to the death of cells and triggered by the presence or absence of certain stimuli, as DNA damage.
- protective coloration — coloration or anything likened to it that eliminates or reduces visibility or conspicuousness.
- public address system — loudspeaker
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- public-address system — a combination of electronic devices that makes sound audible via loudspeakers to many people, as in an auditorium or out of doors.
- put sb in their place — If you put someone in their place, you show them that they are less important or clever than they think they are.
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- rattle someone's cage — to upset or anger someone
- real estate insurance — Real estate insurance is insurance of property, land, and buildings.
- reciprocal inhibition — the theory that the pairing of an anxiety-provoking stimulus with anxiety-reducing reactions will weaken the association between the stimulus and the anxiety.
- reckless endangerment — a crime whereby a person behaves in a reckless manner which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reconnaissance patrol — a patrol made by soldiers in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- rectangular hyperbola — a hyperbola with perpendicular asymptotes
- redevelopment company — a private corporation or a public agency that stimulates the improvement of land, as through a building project subject to certain designs and controls, by financing, selling, or leasing such real estate to interested buyers or lessees.
- rehabilitation centre — a centre or clinic where people with an alcohol or drug addiction are treated
- relaxation oscillator — a nonsinusoidal oscillator, the timing of which is controlled by the charge and discharge time constants of resistance and capacitance components
- remote procedure call — (networking, programming) (RPC) A protocol which allows a program running on one host to cause code to be executed on another host without the programmer needing to explicitly code for this. RPC is an easy and popular paradigm for implementing the client-server model of distributed computing. An RPC is initiated by the caller (client) sending request message to a remote system (the server) to execute a certain procedure using arguments supplied. A result message is returned to the caller. There are many variations and subtleties in various implementations, resulting in a variety of different (incompatible) RPC protocols.
- replacement algorithm — The method used to determine which entry in an associative cache to flush to main memory when it is desired to cache a new block of data. The "least recently used" algorithm flushed the block which has not been accessed for the longest time. A random replacement algorithm picks any block with equal probability.
- retarded acceleration — velocity increase constrained by opposing forces such as wind resistance or braking
- royal victorian order — (in Britain) an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1896, membership of which is conferred for special services to the sovereign
- saint lawrence seaway — a series of channels, locks, and canals between Montreal and the mouth of Lake Ontario, a distance of 182 miles (293 km), enabling most deep-draft vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean, up the St. Lawrence River, to all the Great Lakes ports: developed jointly by the U.S. and Canada.
- santa cruz water lily — a South American aquatic plant, Victoria cruziana, of the water lily family, having floating leaves from 2–5 feet (0.6–1.5 meters) and deep pink or red flowers.
- scalar triple product — the volume of the parallelepiped defined by three given vectors, u, v, and w, usually represented as u·v 1 (v×w), [ uvw ], or (uvw), where × denotes a cross product and · denotes an inner product.
- scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
- scarlet runner (bean) — a climbing bean plant (Phaseolus coccineus) of tropical America, having pods with large, edible, red-and-black seeds and usually having scarlet flowers: often grown in cold climates as an ornamental
- schlieren photography — a type of photography which records schlieren