18-letter words containing o, d, a, l
- platinocyanic acid — the hypothetical acid containing platinum and the cyano group, H 2 Pt(CN) 4 .
- 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 second fiddle — be considered less important
- point d'angleterre — a bobbin lace in which the design is worked out with either a needle or bobbin.
- 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 density — ratio: inhabitants to area
- population pyramid — a graph showing the distribution of a population by sex, age, etc.
- portrait of a lady — a novel (1881) by Henry James.
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- potassium fluoride — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, toxic powder, KF, used chiefly as an insecticide, a disinfectant, and in etching glass.
- potential gradient — the rate of change of potential with respect to distance in the direction of greatest change.
- pour cold water on — If someone pours cold water on a plan or idea, they criticize it so much that people lose their enthusiasm for it.
- precedence lossage — /pre's*-dens los'*j/ A misunderstanding of operator precedence resulting in unintended grouping of arithmetic or logical operators when coding an expression. Used especially of mistakes in C code due to the nonintuitively low precedence of "&", "|", "^", "<<" and ">>". For example, the following C expression, intended to test the least significant bit of x, x & 1 == 0 is parsed as x & (1 == 0) which is always zero (false). Some lazy programmers ignore precedence and parenthesise everything. Lisp fans enjoy pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favourite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
- primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
- principal diagonal — a diagonal line or plane.
- 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.
- protocol data unit — (PDU) A packet of data passed across a network. The term implies a specific layer of the OSI seven layer model and a specific protocol.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- pseudo-socialistic — of or relating to socialists or socialism.
- pseudointellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- pull one's head in — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- put a bold face on — to seem bold or confident about
- pyromucic aldehyde — furfural.
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- quarry-tiled floor — a floor covered with square or diamond-shaped unglazed floor tiles
- quartz-iodine lamp — a type of tungsten-halogen lamp containing small amounts of iodine and having a quartz envelope, operating at high temperature and producing an intense light for use in car headlamps, etc
- quevedo y villegas — Francisco Gómez de. 1580–1645, Spanish poet and writer, noted for his satires and the picaresque novel La historia de la vida del Buscón (1626)
- racially motivated — motivated by (the hate or prejudice of) someone's race
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- ragtag and bobtail — the riffraff; rabble: The ragtag and bobtail of every nation poured into the frontier in search of gold.
- random walk theory — the theory that the future movement of share prices does not reflect past movements and therefore will not follow a discernible pattern
- redevelopment area — an urban area in which all or most of the buildings are demolished and rebuilt
- refrigerated lorry — a lorry which is chilled in the back as for storing food
- reggio di calabria — a seaport in S Italy, on the Strait of Messina: almost totally destroyed by an earthquake 1908.
- regular hexahedron — a solid cube with six square faces
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- residential school — (in Canada) a boarding school maintained by the Canadian government for Indian and Inuit children from sparsely populated settlements
- rheims-douay bible — Douay Bible.
- rhode island white — one of a dual-purpose American breed of chickens having white feathers and a rose comb.
- rhodes scholarship — one of a number of scholarships at Oxford University, established by the will of Cecil Rhodes, for selected students (Rhodes scholars) from the British Commonwealth and the United States.
- rotational molding — a method for molding hollow plastic objects by placing finely divided particles in a hollow mold that is rotated about two axes, exposing it to heat and then to cold.
- sao caetano do sul — a city in SE Brazil, SE of São Paulo.
- saturated solution — A saturated solution is a solution in which there is so much solute that if there was any more, it would not dissolve.
- schofield barracks — a town on central Oahu, in central Hawaii.
- scholarship holder — a person who, because of academic merit, receives financial aid for their studies
- school for scandal — a comedy of manners (1777) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
- seafloor spreading — a process in which new ocean floor is created as molten material from the earth's mantle rises in margins between plates or ridges and spreads out.
- second-hand dealer — a person who deals in second-hand things, such as cars, or furniture