18-letter words containing o, p, t, i, s
- potassium sulphate — a soluble substance usually obtained as colourless crystals of the decahydrate: used in making glass and as a fertilizer. Formula: K2SO4
- pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
- precious moonstone — moonstone (def 1).
- predation pressure — the effect of predation upon a population, resulting in the decrease in size of that population.
- prefect of studies — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
- preferred position — especially desirable advertising space for which, if it is specifically requested by the advertiser, a publication charges a premium rate.
- prepositional verb — a combination of verb and preposition, often with idiomatic meaning, differing from other phrasal verbs in that an object must always follow the preposition, as take after in The children take after their mother.
- present continuous — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the present tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that a present action or event is in progress, being repeated, or of a temporary nature or to express the future.
- presentation layer — (networking) The second highest layer (layer 6) in the OSI seven layer model. Performs functions such as text compression, code or format conversion to try to smooth out differences between hosts. Allows incompatible processes in the application layer to communicate via the session layer. Documents: ITU Rec. X.226 (ISO 8823), ITU Rec. X.216 (ISO 8822).
- preservation order — In Britain, a preservation order is an official order that makes it illegal for anyone to alter or destroy something such as an old building or an area of countryside.
- prestidigitization — /pres`t*-di"j*-ti:-zay"sh*n/ 1. A term coined by Daniel Klein <[email protected]> for the act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand. 2. Data entry through legerdemain.
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- presuppositionless — to suppose or assume beforehand; take for granted in advance.
- priority inversion — (parallel) The state of a concurrent system where a high priority task is waiting for a low priority task which is waiting for a medium priority task. The system may become unstable and crash under these circumstances. In an operating system that uses multiple tasks, each task (or context) may be given a priority. These priorities help the scheduler decide which task to run next. Consider tasks, L, M, and H, with priorities Low, Medium, and High. M is running and H is blocked waiting for some resource that is held by L. So long as any task with a priority higher than L is runable, it will prevent task L, and thus task H, from running. Priority inversion is generally considered either as a high-level design failure or an implementation issue to be taken into account depending on who is talking. Most operating systems have methods in place to prevent or take inversion into account. Priority inheritance is one method. The most public instance of priority inversion is the repeated 'fail-safe' rebooting of the Mars Pathfinder. base station ('Sagan Memorial Station').
- prism spectrometer — an optical device for measuring wavelengths, deviation of refracted rays, and angles between faces of a prism, especially an instrument (prism spectrometer) consisting of a slit through which light passes, a collimator, a prism that deviates the light, and a telescope through which the deviated light is viewed and examined.
- prison authorities — the people in charge of running a prison
- prison rustic work — rustication having a deeply pitted surface.
- process identifier — (operating system) (PID) An integer used by the Unix kernel to uniquely identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process.
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- procrustean string — (programming) A fixed-length string. If a string value is too long for the allocated space, it is truncated to fit; and if it is shorter, the empty space is padded, usually with space characters. This is an allusion to Procrustes, a legendary robber of ancient Attica. He bound his victims to a bed, and if they were shorter than the bed, he stretched their limbs until they would fit; if their limbs were longer, he lopped them off.
- productivity bonus — an extra payment made to workers for being more productive or yielding more favourable results than normal
- property insurance — insurance coverage for land and housing
- proprietary rights — rights of ownership
- protease inhibitor — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.
- protective custody — detention of a person by the police solely as protection against a possible attack or reprisal by someone.
- provascular tissue — procambium.
- provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
- pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
- pseudo-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
- pseudo-socialistic — of or relating to socialists or socialism.
- pseudo-symptomatic — pertaining to a symptom or symptoms.
- pseudoappendicitis — inflammation of the vermiform appendix.
- pseudointellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- pseudotuberculosis — an acute, sometimes fatal disease of rodents, birds, and other animals, including humans, caused by the bacterium Yersinia (Pasteurella) pseudotuberculosis, and characterized by the formation of nodules resembling those that result from tuberculosis.
- psychopathological — the science or study of mental disorders.
- psychotechnologist — a specialist in psychotechnology
- psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
- ptomaine poisoning — (erroneously) food poisoning thought to be caused by ptomaine.
- pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
- purple loosestrife — an Old World plant, Lythrum salicaria, of the loosestrife family, widely naturalized in North America, growing in wet places and having spikes of reddish-purple flowers.
- puss in the corner — a parlor game for children in which one player in the middle of a room tries to occupy any of the positions along the walls that become vacant as other players dash across to exchange places at a signal.
- put one's shirt on — to bet all one has on (a horse, etc)
- pygmy hippopotamus — a small hippopotamus, Choeropsis liberiensis, of forests and swamps in western Africa.
- qattara depression — a desert basin in the Libyan Desert, in NW Egypt: lowest point is 435 feet (133 meters) below sea level. 6950 sq. mi. (18,000 sq. km).
- radiation exposure — exposure to radiant energy or to the particles emitted in the transfer of radiant energy, esp the particles and gamma rays emitted in nuclear decay; exposure to radioactive substances
- radiation pressure — the pressure exerted on a surface by electromagnetic radiation or by sound waves.
- recess appointment — a person appointed to an office by the President of the United States without approval from the Senate because the Senate is in recess
- registered company — a company which has officially registered its business
- registration plate — a plate mounted on the front and back of a motor vehicle bearing the registration number
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength