24-letter words containing o, n, e, s, p, a
- optical signal processor — optical computing
- parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
- passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
- people's liberation army — See under Huk (def 1).
- photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
- plantation walking horse — one of a breed of saddle horses developed largely from Standardbred and Morgan stock.
- port address translation — (networking) (PAT) A function provided by some routers which allows hosts on a LAN to communicate with the rest of a network (such as the Internet) without revealing their own private IP address. All outbound packets have their IP address translated to the routers external IP address. Replies come back to the router which then translates them back into the private IP address of the original host for final delivery. Compare SOCKS.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- prairie button snakeroot — a stout composite plant, Liatris pycnostachya, of prairies in the central U.S., having showy, rose-purple flower heads in dense spikes.
- preparatory to doing sth — If one action is done preparatory to another, it is done before the other action, usually as preparation for it.
- present company excepted — If you are making a general, unfavourable comment about a particular type of person, and you are with people of that type, you can say 'present company excepted' as a way of making your comment sound more polite.
- professional association — a body of persons engaged in the same profession, formed usually to control entry into the profession, maintain standards, and represent the profession in discussions with other bodies
- professional corporation — a corporation formed by one or more licensed practitioners, especially medical or legal, to operate their practices on a corporate plan. Abbreviation: PC, P.C.
- professional programming — paranoid programming
- progressive assimilation — assimilation in which a preceding sound has an effect on a following one, as in shortening captain to cap'm rather than cap'n.
- progressive conservative — a member of the Progressive Conservative party of Canada.
- psychopathic personality — an antisocial personality characterized by the failure to develop any sense of moral responsibility and the capability of performing violent or antisocial acts
- public access television — television in which local producers or individuals can participate
- public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
- public-access television — a noncommercial system of broadcasting on television channels made available to independent or community groups for programs of general interest to the community.
- punch above one's weight — to do something that is considered to be beyond one's ability
- put the show on the road — to set things in operation; start an activity, venture, etc.
- rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- reciprocal translocation — an exchange of segments between two nonhomologous chromosomes.
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- research and development — the part of a commercial company's activity concerned with applying the results of scientific research to develop new products and improve existing ones
- responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
- shenandoah national park — a national park in N Virginia, including part of the Blue Ridge mountain range. 302 sq. mi. (782 sq. km).
- short-horned grasshopper — locust (def 1).
- single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- tear someone off a strip — to rebuke (someone) angrily
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- telescope user interface — (hardware, interface) (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
- thompson sub-machine-gun — a .45 calibre sub-machine-gun
- to cramp someone's style — If someone or something cramps your style, their presence or existence restricts your behaviour in some way.
- to keep something at bay — If you keep something or someone at bay, or hold them at bay, you prevent them from reaching, attacking, or affecting you.
- to pick someone's brains — If you pick someone's brains, you ask them to help you with a problem because they know more about the subject than you.
- to speak well of someone — If you speak well of someone or speak highly of someone, you say good things about them. If you speak ill of someone, you criticize them.
- transpersonal psychology — a branch of psychology or psychotherapy that recognizes altered states of consciousness and transcendent experiences as a means to understand the human mind and treat psychological disordrs.
- tuva autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Asia: formerly an independent republic in Mongolia. 65,810 sq. mi. (170,500 sq. km). Capital: Kyzyl.
- visual component library — (programming) VCL A application framework library for Microsoft Windows and Borland Software Corp.'s Delphi and C++Builder rapid application development software. VCL was originally designed for Delphi but is now also used for C++Builder. This replaces OWL Object Windows Library as Borland's Windows C++ framework of choice. VCL encapsulates the C-based Win32 API into a much easier to use, object-oriented form. Like its direct rival, Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), VCL includes classes to create Windows programs. The VCL component class can be inherited to create new VCL components, which are the building blocks of Delphi and C++Builder applications. VCL components are somewhat in competition with ActiveX controls, though a VCL wrapper can be created to make an ActiveX control seem like a VCL component.