18-letter words containing l, a, s, c
- pacinian corpuscle — (sometimes lowercase) a microscopic, onionlike body consisting of layers of connective tissue wrapped around a nerve ending, located in the deep layers of skin, tendons, etc., and functioning as a sensory receptor of pressure and vibration.
- pair of spectacles — a score of 0 in each innings of a match
- paleoclimatologist — the branch of paleogeography dealing with the study of paleoclimates.
- palm beach gardens — a city in SE Florida, near North Palm Beach.
- parallel processor — (parallel) A computer with more than one central processing unit, used for parallel processing.
- parallel resonance — the resonance that results when circuit elements are connected with their inductance and capacitance in parallel, so that the impedance of the combination rises to a maximum at the resonant frequency
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- payload specialist — an astronaut trained to handle highly complex or classified equipment carried aboard a space shuttle and to conduct experiments in space.
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- pennsylvania dutch — the descendants of 17th- and 18th-century settlers in Pennsylvania from southwest Germany and Switzerland.
- people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- 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.
- physical chemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical composition and transformations.
- physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
- 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.
- physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
- physical therapist — sb who performs physiotherapy
- pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
- play cat and mouse — Also called cat and rat. a children's game in which players in a circle keep a player from moving into or out of the circle and permit a second player to move into or out of the circle to escape the pursuing first player.
- play second fiddle — be considered less important
- pleasure principle — an automatic mental drive or instinct seeking to avoid pain and to obtain pleasure.
- plumber's merchant — a shop or business that sells things needed for the job of installing and repairing pipes, fixtures, etc, for water, drainage, and gas
- policeman's helmet — a Himalayan balsaminaceous plant, Impatiens glandulifera, with large purplish-pink flowers, introduced into Britain
- political prisoner — sb imprisoned for political dissidence
- political question — a question regarded by the courts as being a matter to be determined by another department of government rather than of law and therefore one with which they will not deal, as the recognition of a foreign state.
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
- potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- 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.
- predicate calculus — predicate logic
- preparatory school — a private or parochial secondary school, especially one boarding its students and providing a college-preparatory education.
- present participle — Grammar. a participle form, in English having the suffix -ing, denoting repetition or duration of an activity or event: used as an adjective, as in the growing weeds, and in forming progressive verb forms, as in The weeds are growing.
- provascular tissue — procambium.
- pseudo-socialistic — of or relating to socialists or socialism.
- pseudointellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- 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
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- quality of service — (communications, networking) (QoS) The performance properties of a network service, possibly including throughput, transit delay, priority. Some protocols allow packets or streams to include QoS requirements.