18-letter words containing p, a, g, o
- ox-tongue partisan — a shafted weapon having a long, wide, tapering blade.
- palaeoanthropology — the branch of anthropology concerned with primitive man
- paleoclimatologist — the branch of paleogeography dealing with the study of paleoclimates.
- palmer archipelago — a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the NW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
- parallel computing — parallel processing
- parallel importing — the importing of certain goods, esp pharmaceutical drugs, by dealers who undersell local manufacturers
- parallelogram rule — a rule for finding the resultant of two vectors by constructing a parallelogram with two adjacent sides representing the magnitudes and directions of the vectors, the diagonal through the point of intersection of the vectors representing their resultant
- parathyroid glands — any of several small oval glands usually lying near or embedded in the thyroid gland.
- passing modulation — a modulation of a temporary nature.
- passing-out parade — a ceremonial parade of cadets who have completed their training
- pathologic anatomy — the branch of pathology dealing with the morphologic changes in tissues.
- peacekeeping force — a force designated to the maintenance of peace, esp the prevention of further fighting between hostile forces in an area
- people trafficking — the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally
- 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.
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- personal organizer — a small notebook with sections for personal information, as dates and addresses.
- phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- photochemical smog — air pollution containing ozone and other reactive chemical compounds formed by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, especially those in automobile exhaust.
- 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.
- phytohemagglutinin — a lectin, obtained from the red kidney bean, that binds to the membranes of T cells and stimulates metabolic activity, cell division, etc.
- pigmy hippopotamus — a related but smaller animal, Choeropsis liberiensis
- plains grasshopper — a large, destructive short-horned grasshopper, Brachystola magna, of the western U.S., marked by pinkish hind wings.
- plane trigonometry — the branch of trigonometry dealing with plane triangles.
- plate-glass window — a window that has glass which has been formed by rolling
- point d'angleterre — a bobbin lace in which the design is worked out with either a needle or bobbin.
- point-bearing pile — a pile depending on the soil or rock beneath its foot for support.
- pontifical college — the chief body of priests in ancient Rome.
- population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
- portage la prairie — a city in S Manitoba, in S central Canada, W of Winnipeg.
- portuguese guinean — of or relating to Portuguese Guinea, a former name for Guinea-Bissau, or its inhabitants
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
- postmaster general — the executive head of the postal system of a country.
- potential gradient — the rate of change of potential with respect to distance in the direction of greatest change.
- pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
- 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.
- prepare the ground — make conditions ready
- prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
- press photographer — a photographer who works for a newspaper, magazine, etc
- 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.
- primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
- principal diagonal — a diagonal line or plane.
- 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.
- production manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
- programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
- programme planning — the act of creating plans or schedules, esp in relation to your occupation
- programmer's cheer — (humour) "Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" [Origin?]
- programming skills — the skills required to write a program so that data may be processed by a computer
- project management — leadership of a task or programme
- promotion campaign — a campaign designed to encourage the sale of (a product) by advertising or securing financial support