18-letter words containing o, r, a, l, c
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- parallel processor — (parallel) A computer with more than one central processing unit, used for parallel processing.
- parallel reduction — A form of applicative order reduction in which all redexes in an expression are reduced simultaneously. Variants include parallel outermost reduction and lenient reduction. See normal order reduction.
- parallel resonance — the resonance that results when circuit elements are connected with their inductance and capacitance in parallel, so that the impedance of the combination rises to a maximum at the resonant frequency
- passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
- pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
- people trafficking — the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally
- people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
- personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- philharmonic pitch — a standard of pitch in which A above middle C is established at 440 vibrations per second.
- physical geography — the branch of geography concerned with natural features and phenomena of the earth's surface, as landforms, drainage features, climates, soils, and vegetation.
- physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
- pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
- political prisoner — sb imprisoned for political dissidence
- polychromatophilic — having an affinity for more than one kind of stain, especially for acid, neutral, and basic stains, as polychromatophilic erythroblasts characteristic of pernicious anemia.
- population control — a policy of attempting to limit the growth in numbers of a population, esp in poor or densely populated parts of the world, by programmes of contraception or sterilization
- portal circulation — blood flow in a portal system.
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
- potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- pour cold water on — If someone pours cold water on a plan or idea, they criticize it so much that people lose their enthusiasm for it.
- precedence lossage — /pre's*-dens los'*j/ A misunderstanding of operator precedence resulting in unintended grouping of arithmetic or logical operators when coding an expression. Used especially of mistakes in C code due to the nonintuitively low precedence of "&", "|", "^", "<<" and ">>". For example, the following C expression, intended to test the least significant bit of x, x & 1 == 0 is parsed as x & (1 == 0) which is always zero (false). Some lazy programmers ignore precedence and parenthesise everything. Lisp fans enjoy pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favourite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
- preparatory school — a private or parochial secondary school, especially one boarding its students and providing a college-preparatory education.
- principal diagonal — a diagonal line or plane.
- proprietary colony — any of certain colonies, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, that were granted to an individual or group by the British crown and that were granted full rights of self-government.
- protocol data unit — (PDU) A packet of data passed across a network. The term implies a specific layer of the OSI seven layer model and a specific protocol.
- provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
- provascular tissue — procambium.
- provincial council — (formerly) a council administering any of the New Zealand provinces
- psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
- psychopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the psychological effects of drugs.
- public corporation — a corporation, owned and operated by a government, established for the administration of certain public programs.
- pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
- pyromucic aldehyde — furfural.
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- quality controller — a person responsible for checking that the goods or services produced by an organization are of an acceptable standard
- quality of service — (communications, networking) (QoS) The performance properties of a network service, possibly including throughput, transit delay, priority. Some protocols allow packets or streams to include QoS requirements.
- rabbit-foot clover — a plant, Trifolium arvense, having trifoliate leaves with narrow leaflets and fuzzy, cylindrical, grayish-pink flower heads.
- racial segregation — social policy: separation of races
- racially motivated — motivated by (the hate or prejudice of) someone's race
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- real-estate office — the place where a real-estate agent works
- real-time computer — a computer that can process data or information almost immediately