17-letter words containing p, a, l, e
- equal opportunity — policies that bar discrimination
- equinoctial point — either of the two points at which the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic
- esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
- ethnopharmacology — The scientific study correlating ethnic groups, their health, and how it relates to their physical habits and methodology in creating and using medicines.
- eupen and malmédy — a region of Belgium in Liège province: ceded by Germany in 1919. Pop: 29 372 (2004 est)
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
- exceptional child — a gifted child
- exclamation point — exclamation mark
- exemplary damages — law: fine imposed as a deterrent
- experimental lisp — (language) (xlisp) An experimental programming language combining a subset of Common Lisp with an object-oriented extension capability (Class and Object types). It was implemented by David Micheal Betz at Apple to allow experimentation with object-oriented programming on small computers. The C source code has been ported to Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, and MS-DOS. Version 2.1 of the interpreter, by Tom Almy is closer to Common Lisp. E-mail: Tom Almy <[email protected]>.
- extrasolar planet — any other celestial body revolving around a star, illuminated by light from that star
- fee-paying school — a school which charges fees to parents of pupils
- feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- financial planner — a person whose business is advising individuals in the management of their financial affairs
- fingerling potato — a finger-shaped potato
- flat as a pancake — without any curves or bumps
- foolscap envelope — an envelope of dimensions suitable to hold an unfolded sheet of foolscap paper
- foucault pendulum — a pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the earth by exhibiting an apparent change in its plane of oscillation.
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- french provincial — noting, pertaining to, or resembling a style of furnishings and decoration originating in the provinces of France in the 18th century, derived from but less ornate than styles then current in Paris and featuring simply carved wood furniture, often with decorative curved moldings.
- front-line player — a regular player on a sports team or one who plays in the farthest forward position
- full linear group — the group of all nonsingular linear transformations mapping a finite-dimensional vector space into itself.
- garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
- gause's principle — the principle that similar species cannot coexist for long in the same ecological niche
- general paralysis — a syphilitic brain disorder characterized by chronic inflammation and degeneration of cerebral tissue resulting in mental and physical deterioration.
- geographical mile — nautical mile.
- glove compartment — a compartment in the dashboard of an automobile for storing small items.
- glymphatic system — Anatomy. the system or process by which cerebrospinal fluid moves through channels formed by glia, cleansing the mammalian brain of harmful waste.
- golf ball printer — IBM 2741
- grapefruit league — a series of training games played by major-league teams before the opening of the season (so named because they take place in the citrus-growing South, as in Florida).
- graphic equalizer — an equalizer in an audio system that is controlled by sliders that show graphically and correct the frequency response within the preset frequency range.
- grey-faced petrel — a dark-coloured New Zealand petrel, Pterodroma macroptera gouldi
- guadalupe hidalgo — a city in the Federal District of Mexico: famous shrine; peace treaty 1848.
- haemoglobinopathy — (medicine) Any of a group of inherited disorders in which haemoglobin does not function properly.
- half-breadth plan — a diagrammatic plan of one half of the hull of a vessel divided lengthwise amidships, showing water lines, stations, diagonals, and bow and buttock lines.
- hardware platform — a group of compatible computers that can run the same software.
- health care proxy — a legal document in which a person can appoint someone to make decisions about medical treatment in the event that he or she is no longer mentally competent or able to communicate.
- helicopter parent — a style of child rearing in which an overprotective mother or father discourages a child's independence by being too involved in the child's life: In typical helicopter parenting, a mother or father swoops in at any sign of challenge or discomfort.
- henry of portugal — ("the Navigator") 1394–1460, prince of Portugal: sponsor of geographic explorations.
- holding operation — a plan or procedure devised to prolong the existing situation
- holy roman empire — a Germanic empire located chiefly in central Europe that began with the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in a.d. 800 (or, according to some historians, with the coronation of Otto the Great, king of Germany, in a.d. 962) and ended with the renunciation of the Roman imperial title by Francis II in 1806, and was regarded theoretically as the continuation of the Western Empire and as the temporal form of a universal dominion whose spiritual head was the pope.
- hospital gangrene — Pathology. a contagious, often fatal gangrene, especially involving amputation stumps and war wounds, occurring usually in crowded, ill-kept hospitals, and caused by putrefactive bacteria.
- hospitality suite — a suite or room, as in a hotel or convention center, rented by a business firm, political candidate, or the like, to meet and entertain clients, potential customers, etc.
- hydrotherapy pool — a pool of water used for hydrotherapy
- hyper-peristalsis — the progressive wave of contraction and relaxation of a tubular muscular system, especially the alimentary canal, by which the contents are forced through the system.
- hyperalimentation — overfeeding.
- hyperbolic secant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of cosh; sech
- hyperbolic spiral — rθ = a, (where a is a constant)
- hyperchlorination — Chemistry. to combine or treat with chlorine. to introduce chlorine atoms into an organic compound by an addition or substitution reaction.