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20-letter words containing o, n, p, r, e, s

  • partitioned data set — (file format)   (PDS) A data set on an IBM mainframe that contains members, each of which acts like a separate data set. Partitioned data sets are more space-efficient than individual data sets, because they can put more than one data set on a track. They are also used to hold libraries, with one function per member. The syntax for a member is NAME.OF.PDS(MEMBER) although some systems (such as Phoenix) could use NAME.OF.PDS:MEMBER Original PDSes were of fixed size, and needed frequent compression to recover space after deleting or changing members. Newer PDS/E Extended PDSes do not have this problem.
  • pass in one's marble — to die
  • pay through the nose — the part of the face or facial region in humans and certain animals that contains the nostrils and the organs of smell and functions as the usual passageway for air in respiration: in humans it is a prominence in the center of the face formed of bone and cartilage, serving also to modify or modulate the voice.
  • peculiar institution — black slavery in the southern U.S. before the Civil War.
  • pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
  • periarteritis nodosa — polyarteritis.
  • permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • person of no account — (University of California at Santa Cruz) Used when referring to a person with no network address, frequently to forestall confusion. Most often as part of an introduction: "This is Bill, a person of no account, but he used to be [email protected]". Compare return from the dead.
  • personal cleanliness — physical cleanliness; the cleanliness of a person's body and habits
  • personality disorder — any of a group of mental disorders characterized by deeply ingrained maladaptive patterns of behavior and personality style, which are usually recognizable as early as adolescence and are often lifelong in duration.
  • personnel department — business: human resources
  • personnel management — the branch of management dealing with staff recruitment and matters relating to employees
  • pessimising compiler — /pes'*-mi:z"ing k*m-pi:l"r/ (Antonym of "optimising compiler") A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimise the program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.
  • pest control officer — a person who gets rid of pests such as rats and mice
  • philoprogenitiveness — producing offspring, especially abundantly; prolific.
  • phosphoric anhydride — phosphorus pentoxide.
  • phosphorus pentoxide — a white, deliquescent, crystalline powder, P 2 O 5 , that, depending upon the amount of water it absorbs, forms orthophosphoric acid, metaphosphoric acid, or pyrophosphoric acid, produced by the burning of phosphorus in dry air: used in the preparation of phosphoric acids, as a drying and dehydrating agent, and in organic synthesis.
  • photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
  • pick someone's brain — to obtain information or ideas from someone
  • pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
  • planetary precession — the small component of the precession of the equinoxes contributed by the motion of the ecliptic, the change in orientation of the plane of the earth's orbit being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets.
  • polyvinylidene resin — any of the class of thermoplastic resins derived by the polymerization or copolymerization of a polyvinylidene compound, used similarly to the polyvinyl resins.
  • poor man's something — a (cheaper) substitute for something
  • population inversion — a condition of matter in which more electrons are in a high energy state than in a lower energy state, as is required for the operation of a laser.
  • porcupine provisions — provisions, such as poison pills or staggered directorships, made in the bylaws of a company to deter takeover bids
  • postal delivery zone — zone (def 10).
  • postcode prescribing — the practice of prescribing more or less expensive and effective medical treatments to patients depending on where they live in a country, and which treatments their health board is willing and able to provide
  • postgraduate student — a student who has obtained a degree from a university, etc, and is pursuing studies for a more advanced qualification
  • postnatal depression — a form of clinical depression that occurs in mothers after the birth of a baby
  • pound cost averaging — a method of accumulating capital by investing a fixed sum in a particular security at regular intervals, in order to achieve an average purchase price below the arithmetic average of the market prices on the purchase dates
  • pour out one's heart — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
  • precision instrument — finely-tuned device
  • premenstrual tension — Premenstrual tension is the same as premenstrual syndrome. The abbreviation PMT is often used.
  • prepositional phrase — a phrase consisting of a preposition, its object, which is usually a noun or a pronoun, and any modifiers of the object, as in the gray desk I use.
  • prescription glasses — corrective spectacles
  • presentation manager — The elephantine graphical user interface to the OS/2 operating system.
  • preservation society — a society dedicated to the preservation of something, especially a building, environment, or animal
  • prestressed concrete — concrete reinforced with wire strands, pretensioned or post-tensioned within their elastic limit to give an active resistance to loads.
  • price discrimination — the practice of offering identical goods to different buyers at different prices, when the goods cost the same.
  • price-earnings ratio — the current price of a share of common stock divided by earnings per share over a 12-month period, often used in stock evaluation. Abbreviation: p/e.
  • prince rupert's drop — a glass bead in the shape of a teardrop, a by-product of the glass-making process, formed by molten glass falling into water. The body of the drop can withstand great force, for example a hammer blow, but the whole will explode if the tail is nipped or the surface scored
  • prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
  • princeton university — (body, education)   Chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, Princeton was British North America's fourth college. First located in Elizabeth, then in Newark, the College moved to Princeton in 1756. The College was housed in Nassau Hall, newly built on land donated by Nathaniel and Rebeckah FitzRandolph. Nassau Hall contained the entire College for nearly half a century. The College was officially renamed Princeton University in 1896; five years later in 1900 the Graduate School was established. Fully coeducational since 1969, Princeton now enrolls approximately 6,400 students (4,535 undergraduates and 1,866 graduate students). The ratio of full-time students to faculty members (in full-time equivalents) is eight to one. Today Princeton's main campus in Princeton Borough and Princeton Township consists of more than 5.5 million square feet of space in 160 buildings on 600 acres. The University's James Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro consists of one million square feet of space in four complexes on 340 acres. As Mercer County's largest private employer and one of the largest in the Mercer/Middlesex/Somerset County region, with approximately 4,830 permanent employees - including more than 1,000 faculty members - the University plays a major role in the educational, cultural, and economic life of the region.
  • private investigator — private detective. Abbreviation: PI, p.i., P.I.
  • prohibited substance — a substance, such as a drug, etc, that is banned or forbidden by law or other authority
  • property speculation — the buying or selling of property in the hope of deriving capital gains
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • prosthetic dentistry — prosthodontics.
  • pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
  • psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
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