20-letter words containing l, s, r
- north celestial pole — the point of intersection of the earth's extended axis and the northern half of the celestial sphere, lying about 1° from Polaris
- north richland hills — a town in N Texas.
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- official secrets act — law: legislation protecting state secret
- olfactory anesthesia — absence or loss of the sense of smell.
- omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
- one's spiritual home — Your spiritual home is the place where you feel that you belong, usually because your ideas or attitudes are the same as those of the people who live there.
- operational calculus — a method for solving a differential equation by treating differential operators as ordinary algebraic quantities, thus obtaining a simpler problem.
- operational database — (database) A database containing up-to-date, modifiable data, in contrast to a decision support database.
- operational strategy — a plan or set of plans for successfully running a business, etc
- order of the thistle — an ancient Scottish order of knighthood revived by James VII of Scotland in 1687. It consists of the sovereign, 16 knights brethren, and extra members created by statute. It is the equivalent of the Order of the Garter, and is usually conferred on Scots
- oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
- ousterhout's fallacy — Ousterhout's dichotomy
- overenthusiastically — With excessive enthusiasm.
- packed like sardines — If you say that a crowd of people are packed like sardines, you are emphasizing that they are sitting or standing so close together that they cannot move easily.
- pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.
- palos verdes estates — a town in S California.
- paper qualifications — qualifications gained through official examinations, etc, rather than through experience
- pappus of alexandria — 3rd century bc, Greek mathematician, whose eight-volume Synagoge is a valuable source of information about Greek mathematics
- particulars of claim — (in England) the first reading made by the claimant in a county court action, showing the facts upon which he or she relies in support of a claim and the relief asked for
- particulate scrubber — A particulate scrubber is a scrubber in which a liquid is mixed with the gas to collect solids.
- pass in one's marble — to die
- peasecod breastplate — a breastplate having a long central ridge terminating in a raised area overhanging the waistline.
- peculiar institution — black slavery in the southern U.S. before the Civil War.
- pedal steel (guitar) — a steel guitar mounted on legs and equipped with pedals that serve as an additional means of changing pitch
- pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
- people's paths cross — If you cross someone's path or if your paths cross, you meet them by chance.
- permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- peroxysulphuric acid — a white hygroscopic crystalline unstable oxidizing acid. Formula: H2SO5
- personal cleanliness — physical cleanliness; the cleanliness of a person's body and habits
- personality disorder — any of a group of mental disorders characterized by deeply ingrained maladaptive patterns of behavior and personality style, which are usually recognizable as early as adolescence and are often lifelong in duration.
- personnel department — business: human resources
- personnel management — the branch of management dealing with staff recruitment and matters relating to employees
- pessimising compiler — /pes'*-mi:z"ing k*m-pi:l"r/ (Antonym of "optimising compiler") A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimise the program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.
- pest control officer — a person who gets rid of pests such as rats and mice
- phillips screwdriver — a screwdriver that has a cross at the tip that is intended to be used with Phillips screws
- phillips-screwdriver — a screw head having two partial slots crossed at right angles, driven by a special screwdriver (Phillips screwdriver)
- philoprogenitiveness — producing offspring, especially abundantly; prolific.
- photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
- photophosphorylation — phosphorylation that utilizes light as a source of energy, as in the formation of ATP from ADP and phosphorus during photosynthesis.
- physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
- pipeline burst cache — (hardware, storage) (PB Cache) A synchronous cache built from pipelined SRAM. A cache in which reading or writing a new location takes multiple cycles but subsequent locations can be accessed in a single cycle. On Pentium systems in 1996, pipeline burst caches are frequently used as secondary caches. The first 8 bytes of data are transferred in 3 CPU cycles, and the next 3 8-byte pieces of data are transferred in one cycle each.
- planetary precession — the small component of the precession of the equinoxes contributed by the motion of the ecliptic, the change in orientation of the plane of the earth's orbit being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets.
- play pass-the-parcel — to try to avoid a responsibility, or blame, by passing it on to someone else
- polyanthus narcissus — a Eurasian amaryllidaceous plant, Narcissus tazetta, having clusters of small yellow or white fragrant flowers
- polyvinylidene resin — any of the class of thermoplastic resins derived by the polymerization or copolymerization of a polyvinylidene compound, used similarly to the polyvinyl resins.
- population inversion — a condition of matter in which more electrons are in a high energy state than in a lower energy state, as is required for the operation of a laser.
- positive electricity — the electricity present in a body or substance that has a deficiency of electrons, as the electricity developed on glass when rubbed with silk.
- post office protocol — (messaging, protocol) (POP) A protocol designed to allow single-user computers to retrieve electronic mail from a POP server via TCP/IP. The default port is 110. The POP server might be a computer with a permanent Internet connection whereas its clients might only connect to it occasionally, e.g. by modem. There are (in 1994) three versions: POP, POP2, and POP3. Later versions are NOT compatible with earlier ones.