17-letter words containing n, o, s, y
- personality clash — friction between two people who have different personalities or points of view
- phenyl isocyanate — a liquid reagent, C 7 H 5 NO, having an unpleasant, irritating odor: used chiefly for identifying alcohols and amines.
- play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- point reyes lilac — a prostrate shrub, Ceanothus gloriosus, of southern California, having leathery, roundish leaves and purplish or deep-blue flowers.
- polystyrene chips — small pieces of polystyrene used for insulating or packing
- postal stationery — an envelope, postal card, wrapper, or aérogramme, with the stamp printed directly on the paper.
- potassium cyanide — a white, granular, water-soluble, poisonous powder, KCN, having a faint almondlike odor, used chiefly in metallurgy and photography.
- power supply unit — (hardware) (PSU) An electronic module that converts high voltage (110 or 240 VAC) alternating current mains electricity into smoothed direct current at the various differnt voltages required by the motherboard; internal peripheral devices, cheifly storage devices: hard disks, CD or DVD, floppy disks and external connections such as USB. A PSU needs a high enough power output rating to supply all the devices connected to it and should output as little as possible electrical noise, both on the output wires and as electromagnetic radiation. See also uninterruptable power supply.
- presentation copy — a copy of a book given by the publisher or author
- production system — (programming) A production system consists of a collection of productions (rules), a working memory of facts and an algorithm, known as forward chaining, for producing new facts from old. A rule becomes eligible to "fire" when its conditions match some set of elements currently in working memory. A conflict resolution strategy determines which of several eligible rules (the conflict set) fires next. A condition is a list of symbols which represent constants, which must be matched exactly; variables which bind to the thing they match and "<> symbol" which matches a field not equal to symbol. Example production systems are OPS5, CLIPS, flex.
- professional army — an army of trained soldiers
- protein synthesis — the process by which amino acids are linearly arranged into proteins through the involvement of ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, messenger RNA, and various enzymes.
- protocol analyser — (communications, hardware, networking, testing, tool) Any device that captures and interprets the network traffic between two or more connected computer systems. The traffic can then be decoded so that it is possible to see what processes are occurring. By examining the flow of traffic, protocol analysers can be used to find out where problems (such as bottlenecks or the failure of a network device) are on a LAN. Advanced protocol analysers can also provide statistics on the traffic that can help to identify trends that may in future lead to further problems with the network.
- psychodiagnostics — the study and evaluation of character or personality in terms of behavioral and anatomical traits, as gesture, posture and physiognomy.
- psychoeducational — designating or of psychological methods, as intelligence tests, used in evaluating learning ability
- psycholinguistics — the study of the relationship between language and the cognitive or behavioral characteristics of those who use it.
- pyroligneous acid — a yellowish, acidic, water-soluble liquid, containing about 10 percent acetic acid, obtained by the destructive distillation of wood: used for smoking meats.
- pythagorean scale — the major scale as derived acoustically by Pythagoras from the perfect fifth.
- quantity discount — When you receive a quantity discount from a store or supplier, you pay less because you have bought a large quantity of goods. Also known as bulk buying discount.
- quantity surveyor — A quantity surveyor is a person who calculates the cost and amount of materials and workers needed for a job such as building a house or a road.
- recovery position — a position in which an unconscious person can be lain on the floor, which minimises them from further risk
- recrystallization — to become crystallized again.
- recursive acronym — (convention) A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also mung.
- reiter's syndrome — a disease of unknown cause, occurring primarily in adult males, marked by urethritis, conjunctivitis, and arthritis.
- respiratory chain — a series of mitochondrial proteins that transport electrons of hydrogen, released in the Krebs cycle, from acetyl coenzyme A to inhaled oxygen to form H 2 O: the energy released in the process is conserved as ATP.
- ross and cromarty — a historic county in NW Scotland.
- royal institution — a British society founded in 1799 for the dissemination of scientific knowledge
- rybinsk reservoir — a vast water reservoir in W central Russia on the River Volga and its tributaries Sheksna and Mologa, formed by Rybinsk Hydroelectric Station dam
- sable island pony — a variety of wild pony found on Sable Island, Nova Scotia
- safety inspection — an inspection of a place carried out to ensure that it is safe and not dangerous
- safety precaution — a precaution that is taken in order to ensure that something is safe and not dangerous
- san francisco bay — a bay in W California: the harbor of San Francisco; connected with the Pacific by the Golden Gate strait. 50 miles (80 km) long; 3–12 miles (5–19 km) wide.
- school playground — school's outdoor recreation area
- scientific theory — a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation: the scientific theory of evolution.
- secondary battery — storage battery.
- secondary boycott — a boycott by union members against their employer in order to induce the employer to bring pressure on another company involved in a labor dispute with the union.
- secondary contact — communication or relationship between people characterized by impersonal and detached interest on the part of those involved.
- secondary glazing — insulation by means of a second pane of glass, or a sheet of plastic: a simple form of double glazing
- secondary process — the conscious mental activity and logical thinking controlled by the ego and influenced by environmental demands.
- secondary product — a product that is not the main product of an industry; a by-product
- secondary quality — one of the qualities attributed by the mind to an object perceived, such as color, temperature, or taste.
- secondary rainbow — a faint rainbow formed by light rays that undergo two internal reflections in drops of rain, appearing above the primary rainbow and having its colors in the opposite order.
- secondary sealing — Secondary sealing is a system of wiper seals used in floating roof tanks.
- secondary winding — A secondary winding is the winding of a transformer that receives its energy by electromagnetic induction from the primary winding.
- semimicroanalysis — any analytical method in which the weight of the sample is between 10 and 100 milligrams.
- sensitivity group — a group of persons participating in sensitivity training.
- sensory paralysis — impairment or loss of sensation in a part or area of the body
- separation energy — binding energy (def 1).
- shake one's booty — to dance
- shopping bag lady — bag lady (def 1).