16-letter words containing o, f, t, r, a
- parts of lindsey — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- perforated ulcer — an ulcer that bursts through the stomach wall and leaks food and gastric juices into the abdominal cavity
- performance test — a test requiring little or no use of language, the test materials being designed to elicit manual or behavioral responses rather than verbal ones.
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- personal effects — belongings
- phosphor fatigue — screen saver
- plaster of paris — calcined gypsum in white, powdery form, used as a base for gypsum plasters, as an additive of lime plasters, and as a material for making fine and ornamental casts: characterized by its ability to set rapidly when mixed with water.
- platform-balance — a scale with a platform for holding the items to be weighed.
- post-reformation — the act of reforming; state of being reformed.
- powerpc platform — (architecture, standard) (PPCP, PReP - PowerPC Reference Platform, formerly CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform) An open system standard, designed by IBM, intended to ensure compatibility among PowerPC-based systems built by different companies. The PReP standard specifies the PCI bus, but will also support ISA, MicroChannel and PCMCIA. PReP-compliant systems will be able to run the Macintosh OS, OS/2, WorkplaceOS, AIX, Solaris, Taligent and Windows NT. IBM systems will (of course) be PReP-compliant. Apple's first PowerPC Macintoshes will not be compliant, but future ones may be.
- prespecification — the act of specifying.
- proof of postage — a document, such as a receipt, etc, that proves that you have posted or mailed something
- put a foot wrong — to make a mistake
- radius of action — the maximum distance that a ship, aircraft, or land vehicle can travel from its base and return without refuelling
- ramen profitable — If a startup business is ramen profitable, it is barely profitable, just enough to allow the founder to live on the cheapest diet.
- rape of the lock — a mock-epic poem (1712) by Alexander Pope.
- rate of exchange — exchange rate.
- rational fortran — (language) (RATFOR) Brian Kernighan's Fortran preprocessor that allows programming with C-like control flow. RATFOR is mainly of historical significance. A translator from Ratfor to Fortran IV was posted to comp.sources.Unix volume 13.
- reasons of state — political justifications for an immoral act
- reclassification — categorization in a different way
- reflection plane — a plane through a crystal that divides the crystal into two halves that are mirror images of each other.
- refrigerator car — a freight car having either an ice chest or machinery for chilling perishables and sometimes having a heating unit to keep perishables from freezing.
- registration fee — a fee paid to register, enrol or sign up for (a course, etc)
- reidentification — an act or instance of identifying; the state of being identified.
- releasing factor — a substance usually of hypothalamic origin that triggers the release of a particular hormone from an endocrine gland.
- rich text format — (RTF) An interchange format from Microsoft for exchange of documents between Word and other document preparation systems.
- right about face — Military. a command, given to a soldier or soldiers at attention, to turn the body about toward the right so as to face in the opposite direction. the act of so turning in a prescribed military manner.
- romantic fiction — a genre of fiction focused on romantic love
- root normal form — (RNF) Head Normal Form in graph rewriting.
- rotation of axes — a process of replacing the axes in a Cartesian coordinate system with a new set of axes making a specified angle with and having the same origin as the original axes.
- rule of the road — any of the regulations concerning the safe handling of vessels under way with respect to one another, imposed by a government on ships in its own waters or upon its own ships on the high seas.
- saccharification — to convert (starch) into sugar.
- seat of learning — People sometimes refer to a university or a similar institution as a seat of learning.
- self-affirmation — the act or an instance of affirming; state of being affirmed.
- self-approbation — approval; commendation.
- self-degradation — the act of degrading.
- self-denigration — to speak damagingly of; criticize in a derogatory manner; sully; defame: to denigrate someone's character.
- self-deprecation — belittling or undervaluing oneself; excessively modest.
- self-deprecatory — belittling or undervaluing oneself; excessively modest.
- self-deprivation — the act of depriving.
- self-elaboration — an act or instance of elaborating.
- self-exculpatory — intended to excuse oneself from blame or guilt
- self-explanatory — explaining itself; needing no explanation; obvious.
- self-integration — an act or instance of combining into an integral whole.
- self-lubrication — the process of becoming lubricated without external factors
- self-observation — an act or instance of noticing or perceiving.
- self-preparation — a proceeding, measure, or provision by which one prepares for something: preparations for a journey.
- self-propagating — to cause (an organism) to multiply by any process of natural reproduction from the parent stock.
- self-realization — the fulfillment of one's potential.
- self-reformation — the act of reforming; state of being reformed.