17-letter words containing p, a, g, e, c
- palaeoarchaeology — the branch of archaeology concerned with the earliest fossil remains
- palaeoclimatology — the study of climates of the geological past
- pascal's triangle — a triangular arrangement of the binomial coefficients of the expansion (x + y) n for positive integral values of n.
- passenger traffic — number of passengers
- performance drugs — the drugs that are taken illegally by athletes to enhance their sporting performance
- phantom pregnancy — the occurrence of signs of pregnancy, such as enlarged abdomen and absence of menstruation, when no embryo is present, due to hormonal imbalance
- phonological rule — an operation in generative phonology that substitutes one sound or class of sounds for another in a phonological derivation.
- picture messaging — Picture messaging is the sending of photographs or pictures from one mobile phone to another.
- political refugee — a person who has fled from a homeland because of political persecution.
- pre-configuration — the relative disposition or arrangement of the parts or elements of a thing.
- pre-technological — of or relating to technology; relating to science and industry.
- precision casting — investment casting.
- predatory pricing — If a company practises predatory pricing, it charges a much lower price for its products or services than its competitors in order to force them out of the market.
- prerogative court — a former ecclesiastical court in England and Ireland for the trial of certain testamentary cases.
- proficiency badge — an insignia or device granted by the Girl Scouts and worn especially on a uniform to indicate special achievement.
- programmed camera — a camera with electronic facilities for setting both aperture and shutter speed automatically on the basis of a through-the-lens light value and a given film speed
- proof of coverage — A policyholder's proof of coverage is a document from an insurer stating that they have insurance coverage.
- pseudepigraphical — certain writings (other than the canonical books and the Apocrypha) professing to be Biblical in character.
- pseudo-biological — pertaining to biology.
- pyroligneous acid — a yellowish, acidic, water-soluble liquid, containing about 10 percent acetic acid, obtained by the destructive distillation of wood: used for smoking meats.
- pythagorean scale — the major scale as derived acoustically by Pythagoras from the perfect fifth.
- repeating decimal — a decimal numeral that, after a certain point, consists of a group of one or more digits repeated ad infinitum, as 2.33333 …. or 23.0218181818 ….
- repertory catalog — a catalog containing bibliographic records that indicate locations of materials in more than one library or in several units of one library.
- self-depreciating — self-deprecating.
- semi-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- septicemic plague — an especially dangerous form of plague in which the infecting organisms invade the bloodstream. Compare plague (def 2).
- severance package — an amount of compensation paid by an organization to an employee who leaves because, through no fault of their own, the job to which they were appointed ceases to exist, as during rationalization, and no comparable job is available to them
- shipping articles — articles of agreement.
- shooting practice — practice in shooting for soldiers or other people who shoot guns
- sound spectrogram — a graphic representation, produced by a sound spectrograph, of the frequency, intensity, duration, and variation with time of the resonance of a sound or series of sounds.
- spaghettification — the theoretical stretching of an object as it encounters extreme differences in gravitational forces, especially those associated with a black hole.
- special messenger — a postal worker who delivers mail by special delivery
- special privilege — exclusive advantage
- special schooling — the system of educating children with special needs in schools designed to meet their needs
- spectroheliograph — an apparatus for making photographs of the sun with a monochromatic light to show the details of the sun's surface and surroundings as they would appear if the sun emitted only that light.
- spherical polygon — a closed figure formed by arcs of great circles on a spherical surface.
- spitting distance — a short space or distance
- spongy parenchyma — the lower layer of the ground tissue of a leaf, characteristically containing irregularly shaped cells with relatively few chloroplasts and large intercellular spaces.
- spring cankerworm — the striped, green caterpillar of any of several geometrid moths: a foliage pest of various fruit and shade trees, as Paleacrita vernata (spring cankerworm) and Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm)
- spruce gall aphid — any of various homopterous insects of the family Adelgidae, as Adelges abietis (spruce gall aphid) and Pineus pinifoliae (pine leaf aphid) that feed and form galls on conifers.
- sympathetic magic — magic predicated on the belief that one thing or event can affect another at a distance as a consequence of a sympathetic connection between them.
- teaching hospital — a hospital associated with a medical college and offering clinical and other facilities to those in various areas of medical study, as students, interns, and residents.
- teaching practice — Teaching practice is a period that a student teacher spends teaching at a school as part of his or her training.
- the glacial epoch — the Pleistocene Epoch
- topological space — a set with a collection of subsets or open sets satisfying the properties that the union of open sets is an open set, the intersection of two open sets is an open set, and the given set and the empty set are open sets.
- turbosupercharger — (formerly) a turbocharger.
- vasovagal syncope — a faint brought on by excessive activity of the vagus nerve, causing the heart to slow and the blood pressure to fall. It can be caused by fear, choking, or stomach cramps and has no lasting effects
- vertical planning — the planning of education delivered in schools discussed between teachers of different classes or grades
- vulcan death grip — (jargon) A variant of Vulcan nerve pinch derived from a Star Trek classic epsisode where a non-existant "Vulcan death grip" was used to fool Romulans that Spock had killed Kirk.
- wage-price spiral — a situation in which wage and price increases drive each other upward and cause inflation