0%

16-letter words containing m, p, a, y

  • natural monopoly — the situation when, due to the economies of scale of a particular industry, the maximum efficiency of production and distribution is realized through a single supplier
  • non-contemporary — existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time: Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.
  • non-metaphysical — pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics.
  • one-party system — a political system in which only one party is allowed
  • onomatopoeically — the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.
  • operating system — (operating system)   (OS) The low-level software which handles the interface to peripheral hardware, schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user when no application program is running. The OS may be split into a kernel which is always present and various system programs which use facilities provided by the kernel to perform higher-level house-keeping tasks, often acting as servers in a client-server relationship. Some would include a graphical user interface and window system as part of the OS, others would not. The operating system loader, BIOS, or other firmware required at boot time or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a rommable operating system such as RISC OS. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs. Example operating systems include 386BSD, AIX, AOS, Amoeba, Angel, Artemis microkernel, BeOS, Brazil, COS, CP/M, CTSS, Chorus, DACNOS, DOSEXEC 2, GCOS, GEORGE 3, GEOS, ITS, KAOS, Linux, LynxOS, MPV, MS-DOS, MVS, Mach, Macintosh operating system, Microsoft Windows, MINIX, Multics, Multipop-68, Novell NetWare, OS-9, OS/2, Pick, Plan 9, QNX, RISC OS, STING, System V, System/360, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, TRUSIX, TWENEX, TYMCOM-X, Thoth, Unix, VM/CMS, VMS, VRTX, VSTa, VxWorks, WAITS.
  • operating-system — the collection of software that directs a computer's operations, controlling and scheduling the execution of other programs, and managing storage, input/output, and communication resources. Abbreviation: OS.
  • orthosympathetic — Of or pertaining to the sympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system.
  • overcompensatory — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
  • paint-by-numbers — formulaic; showing no original thought or creativity
  • paleoclimatology — the branch of paleogeography dealing with the study of paleoclimates.
  • papillary muscle — one of the small bundles of muscles attached to the ventricle walls and to the chordae tendineae that tighten these tendons during ventricular contraction.
  • paradigmatically — of or relating to a paradigm.
  • paraformaldehyde — a white, crystalline polymer of formaldehyde, (HCOH) n , from which it is obtained by evaporation of the aqueous solution: used chiefly as an antiseptic.
  • passive immunity — immunity resulting from the injection of antibodies or sensitized lymphocytes from another organism or, in infants, from the transfer of antibodies through the placenta or from colostrum.
  • patent ambiguity — uncertainty of meaning created by the obscure or ambiguous language appearing on the face of a written instrument.
  • pharmacodynamics — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the course of action, effect, and breakdown of drugs within the body.
  • phenoxybenzamine — an alpha blocker, C 1 8 H 2 2 ClNO, used to dilate vascular peripheral blood vessels in the treatment of Raynaud's disease and in pheochromocytoma.
  • phenylethylamine — an amine that occurs naturally as a neurotransmitter in the brain, has properties similar to those of amphetamine, is an antidepressant, and is found in chocolate. Formula: C8H11N
  • pheochromocytoma — a tumor of the sympathetic nervous system or adrenal medulla, that produces excess norepinephrine and epinephrine and causes hypertension, headaches, nausea, etc.
  • physiognomically — the face or countenance, especially when considered as an index to the character: a fierce physiognomy.
  • phytoremediation — a process of decontaminating soil or water by using plants and trees to absorb or break down pollutants.
  • plymouth company — a company, formed in England in 1606 to establish colonies in America and that founded a colony in Maine in 1607.
  • policy statement — a declaration of the plans and intentions of an organization or government
  • political asylum — asylum provided by one nation to refugees, especially political refugees, from another nation.
  • political system — a coordinated set of principles, laws, ideas, and procedures relating to a particular form of government, or the form of government itself: Democracy is a political system in which citizens govern themselves.
  • polyvinyl formal — a colorless, water-insoluble, polyvinyl acetal produced from partially hydrolyzed polyvinyl acetate and formaldehyde, used chiefly in the manufacture of lacquers.
  • pragmatic theory — the theory of truth that the truth of a statement consists in its practical consequences, especially in its agreement with subsequent experience.
  • primary consumer — (in the food chain) an animal that feeds on plants; a herbivore.
  • primary deviance — the violation of a norm or rule that does not result in the violator's being stigmatized as deviant.
  • primary election — primary (def 15a).
  • primary electron — in thermionics, any of the electrons falling on a body, distinguished from those emitted by it
  • primary industry — an industry, as agriculture, forestry, or fishing, that deals in obtaining natural materials.
  • primary meristem — primary tissue derived from an apical meristem.
  • primary producer — any green plant or any of various microorganisms that can convert light energy or chemical energy into organic matter.
  • primary syphilis — the first stage of syphilis, characterized by the formation of a chancre at the site of infection.
  • programmatically — by using a computer program: You can set the value in each field programmatically with a simple algorithm. The background shapes can be programmatically drawn and animated.
  • progress payment — an instalment of a larger payment made to a contractor for work carried out up to a specified stage of the job
  • property company — a business that makes money by buying, selling, and renting out land and houses
  • proprietary name — a name of a product or service that is protected by a patent, copyright, or trademark and cannot be used by another party for commercial purposes without permission of the registered owner or licensee.
  • pseudoparenchyma — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
  • ptolemaic system — a system elaborated by Ptolemy and subsequently modified by others, according to which the earth was the fixed center of the universe, with the heavenly bodies moving about it.
  • pulmonary artery — an artery conveying venous blood from the right ventricle of the heart to the lungs.
  • pygmy chimpanzee — a small chimpanzee, Pan paniscus, primarily of swamp forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: a threatened species.
  • pyramidal orchid — a chalk-loving orchid, Anacamptis pyramidalis, bearing a dense cone-shaped spike of purplish-pink flowers with a long curved spur
  • pyroracemic acid — pyruvic acid.
  • quasi-compulsory — required; mandatory; obligatory: compulsory education.
  • query by example — (database, language)   (QBE) A user-friendly query language developed by Moshé Zloof of IBM in 1975.
  • ramsden eyepiece — an eyepiece consisting of two plano-convex crown-glass lenses of equal focal length, placed with the convex sides facing each other and with a separation between the lenses of about two-thirds of the focal length of each.
  • relatively prime — (mathematics)   Having no common divisors (greater than 1). Two numbers are said to be relativey prime if there is no number greater than unity that divides both of them evenly. For example, 10 and 33 are relativly prime. 15 and 33 are not relatively prime, since 3 is a divisor of both.
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?