21-letter words containing o, n, c, e, t
- price competitiveness — pricing goods or services so that they are competitive with the prices of other companies
- primitive dicotyledon — any living relative of early angiosperms that branched off before the evolution of monocotyledons and eudicotyledons. The group comprises about 5 per cent of the world's plants
- printed circuit board — a circuit in which the interconnecting conductors and some of the circuit components have been printed, etched, etc., onto a sheet or board of dielectric material (PC board, printed-circuit board)
- production department — the department of a business or organization responsible for manufacturing products
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service
- progressive education — any of various reformist educational philosophies and methodologies since the late 1800s, applied especially to elementary schools, that reject the rote recitation and strict discipline of traditional, single-classroom teaching, favoring instead more stimulation of the individual pupil as well as group discussion, more informality in the classroom, a broader curriculum, and use of laboratories, gymnasiums, kitchens, etc., in the school.
- projection television — a television picture display system consisting of a special receiver and an optical system that projects an enlarged picture on a screen.
- protective coloration — coloration or anything likened to it that eliminates or reduces visibility or conspicuousness.
- protestant work ethic — work ethic.
- pseudo-cleft sentence — cleft sentence (def 2).
- public-key encryption — (cryptography) (PKE, Or "public-key cryptography") An encryption scheme, introduced by Diffie and Hellman in 1976, where each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person's public key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient's public key and can only be decrypted using his private key. This is often used in conjunction with a digital signature. The need for sender and receiver to share secret information (keys) via some secure channel is eliminated: all communications involve only public keys, and no private key is ever transmitted or shared. Public-key encryption can be used for authentication, confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation. See also knapsack problem.
- pulse code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- pulse-code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- push the panic button — an alarm button for use in an emergency, as to summon help.
- put someone's back up — to annoy someone
- queer someone's pitch — to upset someone's plans
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- rattle someone's cage — to upset or anger someone
- reciprocal inhibition — the theory that the pairing of an anxiety-provoking stimulus with anxiety-reducing reactions will weaken the association between the stimulus and the anxiety.
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reconnaissance patrol — a patrol made by soldiers in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- record of achievement — a statement of the personal and educational development of each pupil
- rectangular hyperbola — a hyperbola with perpendicular asymptotes
- redevelopment company — a private corporation or a public agency that stimulates the improvement of land, as through a building project subject to certain designs and controls, by financing, selling, or leasing such real estate to interested buyers or lessees.
- registration document — a document giving identification details of a motor vehicle, including its manufacturer, date of registration, engine and chassis numbers, and owner's name
- rehabilitation centre — a centre or clinic where people with an alcohol or drug addiction are treated
- reinforcement therapy — a behavior modification technique in which appropriate behavior is strengthened through systematic reinforcement.
- relaxation oscillator — a nonsinusoidal oscillator, the timing of which is controlled by the charge and discharge time constants of resistance and capacitance components
- replacement algorithm — The method used to determine which entry in an associative cache to flush to main memory when it is desired to cache a new block of data. The "least recently used" algorithm flushed the block which has not been accessed for the longest time. A random replacement algorithm picks any block with equal probability.
- resident commissioner — a representative from a dependency, as Guam or Puerto Rico, who is entitled to speak, but not to vote, in the U.S. House of Representatives.
- retarded acceleration — velocity increase constrained by opposing forces such as wind resistance or braking
- return the compliment — repay sb's kindness with a kind act
- reverberation chamber — a room with walls that reflect sound. It is used to make acoustic measurements and as a source of reverberant sound to be mixed with direct sound for recording or broadcasting
- reverberatory furnace — See at reverberatory (def 2).
- ring down the curtain — to lower the curtain at the end of a theatrical performance
- road traffic accident — an accident involving vehicles
- rocky mountain oyster — mountain oyster.
- roll with the punches — a thrusting blow, especially with the fist.
- royal victorian order — (in Britain) an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1896, membership of which is conferred for special services to the sovereign
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- sao tome and principe — Democratic Republic of, a republic in W Africa, comprising the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, in the Gulf of Guinea, N of the equator: a former overseas province of Portugal; gained independence in 1975. 372 sq. mi. (964 sq. km). Capital: São Tomé.
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
- schema definition set — (SDS) Something in Portable Common Tool Environment.
- schlieren photography — a type of photography which records schlieren
- school superintendent — an official whose job is to oversee school administration within a district
- science correspondent — a newspaper or television journalist who specializes in reporting on new discoveries in science
- scintillation counter — a device for detecting and measuring radioactivity, having a crystal scintillator, a photoelectric cell sensitive to the light from scintillations, and an amplifier.