18-letter words containing l, o, e, r
- over the long term — in the future
- over-extrapolation — to infer (an unknown) from something that is known; conjecture.
- overcapitalization — The state of being overcapitalized.
- overdraft facility — a facility (of a bank or building-society cheque account) that allows a withdrawal of money in excess of the account's credit balance
- overgeneralization — the act or process of overgeneralizing.
- overnight telegram — a type of domestic telegram sent at a reduced rate with a minimum charge for 10 words or less and accepted until midnight for delivery the following day.
- overspecialization — excessive specialization, as in a field of study.
- owen stanley range — a mountain range in SE New Guinea. Highest peak: Mount Victoria, 4073 m (13 363 ft)
- 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
- palaeoanthropology — the branch of anthropology concerned with primitive man
- palmer archipelago — a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the NW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- parallel evolution — the independent development of closely corresponding adaptive features in two or more groups of organisms that occupy different but equivalent habitats, as marsupial mammals in Australia and placental mammals on other continents.
- parallel importing — the importing of certain goods, esp pharmaceutical drugs, by dealers who undersell local manufacturers
- parallel processor — (parallel) A computer with more than one central processing unit, used for parallel processing.
- parallel reduction — A form of applicative order reduction in which all redexes in an expression are reduced simultaneously. Variants include parallel outermost reduction and lenient reduction. See normal order reduction.
- 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
- parallelogram rule — a rule for finding the resultant of two vectors by constructing a parallelogram with two adjacent sides representing the magnitudes and directions of the vectors, the diagonal through the point of intersection of the vectors representing their resultant
- partial evaluation — (compiler, algorithm) (Or "specialisation") An optimisation technique where the compiler evaluates some subexpressions at compile-time. For example, Partial evaluation might change the termination properties of the program if, for example, the expression (x * 0) was reduced to 0 it would terminate even if x (and thus x * 0) did not. It may be necessary to reorder an expression to partially evaluate it, e.g. f x y = (x + y) + 1 g z = f 3 z If we rewrite f: f x y = (x + 1) + y then the expression x+1 becomes a constant for the function g and we can say g z = f 3 z = (3 + 1) + z = 4 + z Partial evaluation of built-in functions applied to constant arguments is known as constant folding. See also full laziness.
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- pellitory of spain — a small Mediterranean plant, Anacyclus pyrethrum, the root of which contains an oil formerly used to relieve toothache: family Asteraceae (composites)
- people trafficking — the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally
- 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.
- percussion welding — a form of resistance welding in which the required pressure is provided by a hammerlike blow.
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
- personal assistant — aide
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- personal exemption — Your personal exemption is the amount of money that is deducted from your gross income before you have to start paying income tax.
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- personal organizer — a small notebook with sections for personal information, as dates and addresses.
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- peter and the wolf — a composition by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1936. It is a children's story with both music and text, spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra
- petroleum engineer — A petroleum engineer is an engineer who is involved in most stages of oil and gas field evaluation, development, and production, whose job is to maximize hydrocarbon recovery and reduce costs and environmental impact.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phosphatidylserine — any of a class of phospholipids occurring in biological membranes and fats
- photoelectric cell — photocell.
- 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.
- pick of the litter — objects strewn or scattered about; scattered rubbish.
- pileolated warbler — either of two western subspecies of Wilson's warbler.
- pilgrim's progress — an allegory (1678) by John Bunyan.
- pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
- piperonyl butoxide — a light-brown liquid, C 1 9 H 3 0 O 5 , used chiefly as a synergist in certain insecticides.
- plains grasshopper — a large, destructive short-horned grasshopper, Brachystola magna, of the western U.S., marked by pinkish hind wings.
- plane polarization — a type of polarization in which the electric vector of waves of light or other electromagnetic radiation is restricted to vibration in a single plane
- plane trigonometry — the branch of trigonometry dealing with plane triangles.