16-letter words containing o, p, t, i, c
- open punctuation — punctuation characterized by sparing use of stops, esp of the comma
- operating income — revenue from business operations after operating expenses are deducted from gross income.
- ophthalmological — Pertaining to ophthalmology.
- opportunity cost — the money or other benefits lost when pursuing a particular course of action instead of a mutually-exclusive alternative: The company cannot afford the opportunity cost attached to policy decisions made by the current CEO.
- optical activity — the ability of a substance to rotate the plane of polarization of plane-polarized light.
- optical computer — an experimental computer that uses photons rather than electrical impulses to process data a thousand times faster than with conventional integrated circuits.
- optical illusion — something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality.
- optical rotation — the angle at which the plane of polarized light is rotated when passed through an optically active substance.
- optical scanning — the process of interpreting data in printed, handwritten, bar-code, or other visual form by a device (optical scanner or reader) that scans and identifies the data.
- optical tweezers — a laser device used to study, manipulate, or trap a microscopic object, as a microorganism or cell, with nanometer precision.
- organoleptically — In an organoleptic manner.
- orthographically — In an orthographical manner; using proper spelling, capitalization and grammar.
- orthosympathetic — Of or pertaining to the sympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system.
- osculating plane — the plane containing the circle of curvature of a point on a given curve.
- osmotic pressure — the force that a dissolved substance exerts on a semipermeable membrane, through which it cannot penetrate, when separated by it from pure solvent.
- over-application — the act of putting to a special use or purpose: the application of common sense to a problem.
- over-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
- over-consumption — the act of consuming, as by use, decay, or destruction.
- over-descriptive — having the quality of describing; characterized by description: a descriptive passage in an essay.
- over-expectation — the act or the state of expecting: to wait in expectation.
- over-speculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- overcapitalizing — Present participle of overcapitalize.
- overcompensating — Present participle of overcompensate.
- overcompensation — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- overcomplicating — Present participle of overcomplicate.
- oversubscription — to subscribe for more of than is available, expected, or required: The charity drive was oversubscribed by several thousand dollars.
- pacific sturgeon — a dark gray sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus, inhabiting marine and fresh waters along the northwestern coast of North America, valued as a food and sport fish.
- packing fraction — Physics. a measure of the stability of an atomic nucleus, equal to 10 4 multiplied by the mass defect and divided by the mass number.
- palaeolithic man — any of various primitive types of man, such as Neanderthal man and Java man, who lived in the Palaeolithic
- paleoclimatology — the branch of paleogeography dealing with the study of paleoclimates.
- palmitoleic acid — a colorless, unsaturated fatty acid, C 1 6 H 3 0 O 2 , occurring in oils and fats of plants and animals.
- pantothenic acid — a hydroxy acid, C 9 H 1 7 O 5 N, found in plant and animal tissues, rice, bran, etc., that is part of the B complex of vitamins and is essential for cell growth.
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- parochialization — a parochial character, spirit, or tendency; excessive narrowness of interests or view; provincialism.
- partial fraction — one of the fractions into which a given fraction can be resolved, the sum of such simpler fractions being equal to the given fraction: Partial fractions of 5/(x2−x) are 5/(x−1) and −5/x.
- partial function — A function which is not defined for all arguments of its input type. E.g. f(x) = 1/x if x /= 0. The opposite of a total function. In denotational semantics, a partial function f : D -> C may be represented as a total function ft : D' -> lift(C) where D' is a superset of D and ft x = f x if x in D ft x = bottom otherwise where lift(C) = C U bottom. Bottom (LaTeX \perp) denotes "undefined".
- peano arithmetic — (mathematics) Giuseppe Peano's system for representing natural numbers inductively using only two symbols, "0" (zero) and "S" (successor). This system could be expressed as a recursive data type with the following Haskell definition: data Peano = Zero | Succ Peano The number three, usually written "SSS0", would be Succ (Succ (Succ Zero)). Addition of Peano numbers can be expressed as a simple syntactic transformation: plus Zero n = n plus (Succ m) n = Succ (plus m n) (1995-03-28)
- pectoralis major — the larger of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pentatonic scale — a scale having five tones to an octave, as one having intervals that correspond to the five black keys of a piano octave.
- percentage point — difference: one per cent
- periodic tenancy — the letting of a dwelling for a repeated short term, as by the week, month, or quarter, with no end date
- personality cult — deliberately cultivated adulation of a person, esp a political leader
- phagocytic index — the average number of bacteria ingested per phagocyte in an incubated mixture of bacteria, phagocytes, and blood serum: used in determining the opsonic index.
- phantasmagorical — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- philanthropistic — a person who practices philanthropy.
- photoautotrophic — any organism that derives its energy for food synthesis from light and is capable of using carbon dioxide as its principal source of carbon.
- photocoagulation — a surgical technique using an intense beam of light from a laser or a xenon-arc bulb to seal blood vessels or coagulate tissue, used primarily in ophthalmology to repair detached retinas or to treat certain kinds of retinopathy.