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20-letter words containing n, a, p

  • occupational therapy — a form of therapy in which patients are encouraged to engage in vocational tasks or expressive activities, as art or dance, usually in a social setting.
  • 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.
  • open learning centre — an establishment which provides further education on a flexible part-time basis
  • operant conditioning — conditioning (def 1).
  • operating conditions — Operating conditions are a set of conditions for operating a particular system or process.
  • operation barbarossa — the codename for Hitler's invasion (1941) of Russia
  • 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
  • operator overloading — overloading
  • ophthalmodynamometer — a device for determining the nearest point of ocular convergence.
  • optical mark reading — the reading of marks by an optical device whereby the information can be stored in machine-readable form
  • organization expense — the costs associated with organizing a business entity and bringing it into existence
  • 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.
  • paint the town (red) — to go on a boisterous spree; carouse
  • 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.
  • pan-american highway — a road system proposed in the 1920s linking nations of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Alaska to Santiago, Chile, with some gaps remaining in Panama and Colombia. The section between Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Panama City is known as the Inter-American Highway Total length about 16,000 miles (25,744 km).
  • 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
  • para-dichlorobenzene — a white, crystalline, volatile, water-insoluble solid, C 6 H 4 Cl 2 , of the benzene series, having a penetrating odor: used chiefly as a moth repellent.
  • parametric equations — one of two or more equations expressing the location of a point on a curve or surface by determining each coordinate separately.
  • paranoid programming — (programming)   A programming style that tries to prepare for the worst external conditions, including incorrect input, resource limitations, hardware and software failure and even can't happen errors, to the fullest possible extent. While some believe in the motto "professional programming is paranoid programming", the expression usually has the connotation that the efforts are unnecessary or too costly ("Maybe this code is just paranoid programming, but I think it is necessary to avoid a possible overflow condition".)
  • parataxic distortion — a distortion in perception, especially of interpersonal relationships, based on a tendency to perceive others in accordance with a pattern determined by previous experiences.
  • parkinson's syndrome — a complex of symptoms indistinguishable from Parkinson's disease, commonly affecting boxers or sometimes occurring as a result of substance abuse or an encephalitic infection.
  • partial differential — an expression obtained from a given function of several variables by taking the partial derivative with respect to one of the variables and multiplying by the increment in that variable.
  • particle beam weapon — a weapon that fires particle beams into the atmosphere or space
  • partitioned data set — (file format)   (PDS) A data set on an IBM mainframe that contains members, each of which acts like a separate data set. Partitioned data sets are more space-efficient than individual data sets, because they can put more than one data set on a track. They are also used to hold libraries, with one function per member. The syntax for a member is NAME.OF.PDS(MEMBER) although some systems (such as Phoenix) could use NAME.OF.PDS:MEMBER Original PDSes were of fixed size, and needed frequent compression to recover space after deleting or changing members. Newer PDS/E Extended PDSes do not have this problem.
  • pass in one's marble — to die
  • patagonian toothfish — a large food fish, Dissostichus eleginoides, found in the cold deep waters of the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans
  • patent foramen ovale — a congenital heart defect resulting from failure of the foramen ovale to close shortly after birth.
  • paternal grandfather — the father of someone's father
  • paternal grandmother — the mother of someone's father
  • pay through the nose — the part of the face or facial region in humans and certain animals that contains the nostrils and the organs of smell and functions as the usual passageway for air in respiration: in humans it is a prominence in the center of the face formed of bone and cartilage, serving also to modify or modulate the voice.
  • peaceful coexistence — competition without war, or a policy of peace between nations of widely differing political systems and ideologies, especially between Communist and non-Communist nations: peaceful coexistence between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
  • peculiar institution — black slavery in the southern U.S. before the Civil War.
  • pedro juan caballero — a city in E central Paraguay.
  • pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
  • pentose nucleic acid — a nucleic acid containing a pentose.
  • peremptory challenge — a formal objection to the service of a juror by a party to a criminal prosecution or a civil action that requires no showing of cause.
  • periarteritis nodosa — polyarteritis.
  • periodontal membrane — the collagenous, fibrous connective tissue between the cementum of the tooth and the alveolus.
  • permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • peroxyacetyl nitrate — an unstable nitrogen compound, found in certain types of smog, that is an irritant, esp. to the eyes and to plants
  • perpendicular gothic — the style of Gothic architecture in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by tracery having vertical lines, a four-centred arch, and fan vaulting
  • person of no account — (University of California at Santa Cruz) Used when referring to a person with no network address, frequently to forestall confusion. Most often as part of an introduction: "This is Bill, a person of no account, but he used to be [email protected]". Compare return from the dead.
  • 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
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