17-letter words containing p, a, r, l
- drilling platform — a structure, either fixed to the sea bed or mobile, which supports the machinery and equipment (the drilling rig), together with the stores, required for digging an offshore oil well
- drive up the wall — to cause to become crazy or furious
- drool-proof paper — (jargon) Documentation that has been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written on drool-proof paper". For example, this is an actual quote from Apple Computer's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
- duality principle — the principle that a mathematical duality exists under certain conditions.
- echoencephalogram — a graphic record produced by an echoencephalograph.
- ehelp corporation — (company) A vendor of Microsoft Windows application development tools such as RoboHELP and RoboDemo. EHelp were formerly (around 1997) Blue Sky Software. Address: 7777 Fay Avenue, Suite 201, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Telephone: +1-800-793-0364, +1 (619) 459 6365. Fax: +1 (619) 459 6366.
- electromyographic — Using electromyography.
- elevator operator — a person who operates a platform raised or lowered in a vertical shaft to transport people from floor to floor in a building
- elliptical spring — An elliptical spring is a spring that is made from two springs in the shape of elongated ovals laid cut in half and back-to-back.
- emotional cripple — someone who is unable to feel or show true emotion and so cannot form relationships with other people
- empirical formula — a chemical formula indicating the proportion of each element present in a molecule
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- entrepreneurially — In an entrepreneurial manner.
- epicycloidal gear — a gear of an epicyclic train
- equal opportunity — policies that bar discrimination
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- flash photography — photography using a momentary flash of artificial light as a source of illumination.
- 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).
- fra filippo lippi — Lippi, Fra Filippo.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- hippocampal gyrus — a convolution on the inner surface of the temporal lobe of the cerebrum, bordering the hippocampus.
- historiographical — the body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively.
- 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.