18-letter words containing m, a, n, p, o
- on automatic pilot — If you are on automatic pilot or on autopilot, you are acting without thinking about what you are doing, usually because you have done it many times before.
- one-banana problem — (jargon, abuse) At computer installations where the computers have operators for routine administrivia, the programmers and hardware people tend to look down on the operators and claim that a trained monkey could do their job. The incentives offered to said monkeys would then describe the difficulty of a task. A one-banana problem is simple; hence, "It's only a one-banana job at the most; what's taking them so long?" See also Infinite-Monkey Theorem.
- operations manager — business director
- optimum population — a population that is sufficiently large to provide an adequate workforce with minimal unemployment
- pairs championship — an event in a sport such as tennis or darts open to pairs of competitors
- pan american union — a former organization of American republics dedicated to furthering understanding and peace: replaced in 1970 by the secretariat of the Organization of American States.
- parallactic motion — the apparent motion of stars due to the earth's orbital motion.
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- parallel importing — the importing of certain goods, esp pharmaceutical drugs, by dealers who undersell local manufacturers
- passing modulation — a modulation of a temporary nature.
- pathname separator — (file system) The character used to separate elements of a path or pathname. Under Unix and POSIX.1 compliant systems the pathname separator is the (forward) slash, in MS-DOS backslash serves the same purpose. For obvious reasons the no directory or file name can contain this character.
- pathologic anatomy — the branch of pathology dealing with the morphologic changes in tissues.
- peppermint camphor — menthol.
- performance artist — an artist that is involved in a theatrical presentation that incorporates various art forms, such as dance, sculpture, music, etc
- pernicious anaemia — Pernicious anaemia is a very severe blood disease.
- 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.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- phantom withdrawal — the unauthorized removal of funds from a bank account using an automated teller machine
- philharmonic pitch — a standard of pitch in which A above middle C is established at 440 vibrations per second.
- photoisomerization — isomerization induced by light.
- phytohemagglutinin — a lectin, obtained from the red kidney bean, that binds to the membranes of T cells and stimulates metabolic activity, cell division, etc.
- plane trigonometry — the branch of trigonometry dealing with plane triangles.
- 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 someone false — to deceive, cheat, hoodwink, or betray someone
- plenum ventilation — a system of mechanical ventilation in which fresh air is forced into the spaces to be ventilated from a chamber (plenum chamber) at a pressure slightly higher than atmospheric pressure, so as to expel foul air.
- pneumatic conveyor — a tube through which powdered or granular material, such as cement, grain, etc is transported by a flow of air
- policeman's helmet — a Himalayan balsaminaceous plant, Impatiens glandulifera, with large purplish-pink flowers, introduced into Britain
- politically-minded — (of a person or group of people) interested in the way power is achieved and used in a country or society (through government, policy-making, etc)
- population pyramid — a graph showing the distribution of a population by sex, age, etc.
- portable equipment — Portable equipment is electrical equipment that can easily be moved from one place to another while in operation or while connected to the supply.
- postmaster general — the executive head of the postal system of a country.
- postmillenarianism — postmillennialism.
- postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
- potassium myronate — sinigrin.
- pound the pavement — a paved road, highway, etc.
- pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
- prayer of manasses — a book of the Apocrypha.
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
- prisoner's dilemma — (in game theory) a scenario in which the outcome of one person's decision is determined by the simultaneous decisions of the other participants, resulting in a bad outcome for all of them if all act in their own self-interest.
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- production company — an organization which produces, films, plays, television or radio programmes
- production manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
- programme planning — the act of creating plans or schedules, esp in relation to your occupation
- programming skills — the skills required to write a program so that data may be processed by a computer
- project management — leadership of a task or programme
- projection machine — an apparatus that projects motion pictures; projector.
- promotion campaign — a campaign designed to encourage the sale of (a product) by advertising or securing financial support
- propaganda machine — the group of people, publications, etc, such as of a government, country etc, responsible for the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc, to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc
- proportional limit — elastic limit.