17-letter words containing p, a, r, l
- kidney transplant — surgery to replace a kidney
- king philip's war — the war (1675–76) between New England colonists and a confederation of Indians under their leader, King Philip.
- l'hospital's rule — the theorem that for the quotient of two functions satisfying certain conditions on a given closed interval, each having infinite limit or zero as limit at a given point, the limit of the quotient at the given point is equal to the limit of the quotient of the derivatives of each function.
- la perouse strait — a strait between S Sakhalin Island, Russia and N Hokkaido Island, Japan connecting the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan. 25 miles (40 km) wide.
- lambda expression — (mathematics) A term in the lambda-calculus denoting an unnamed function (a "lambda abstraction"), a variable or a constant. The pure lambda-calculus has only functions and no constants.
- lan kanal adapter — (networking) (LKA) A sort of external LAN interface for a BS200 computer.
- landscape painter — artist who depicts natural scenery
- landscaped garden — a garden that has been artistically designed
- laplace transform — a map of a function, as a signal, defined especially for positive real values, as time greater than zero, into another domain where the function is represented as a sum of exponentials.
- lares and penates — household gods
- larmor precession — the precession of charged particles, as electrons, placed in a magnetic field, the frequency of the precession (Larmor frequency) being equal to the electronic charge times the strength of the magnetic field divided by 4π times the mass.
- laryngopharyngeal — of, relating to, or involving the larynx and pharynx.
- least upper bound — an upper bound that is less than or equal to all the upper bounds of a particular set. 3 is the least upper bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbr.: lub.
- legal proceedings — court case
- lempert operation — fenestration (def 3c).
- level compensator — an automatic gain control device used in the receivers of telegraphic circuits.
- lexicographically — the writing, editing, or compiling of dictionaries.
- life of the party — most lively, outgoing person
- ligurian republic — the republic in NW Italy set up by Napoleon in 1797, incorporated into France in 1805, and united with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1814.
- lincoln's sparrow — a North American sparrow, Melospiza lincolnii, having a buff breast with black streaks.
- linear dependence — (in linear algebra) the property of a set of elements in a vector space in which at least one of the vectors in the set can be written as a linear combination of the others.
- lipopolysaccaride — a molecule, consisting of lipid and polysaccharide components, that is the main constituent of the cell walls of Gram-negative bacteria
- liquid petrolatum — mineral oil.
- liquid propellant — a rocket propellant in liquid form.
- literacy campaign — a campaign designed to reduce illiteracy and promote literacy in a country, area, etc
- lithostratigraphy — the study or character of stratified rocks based solely on their physical and petrographic features.
- loco primo citato — loc. primo cit.
- loco supra citato — l.s.c.
- logic programming — (artificial intelligence, programming, language) A declarative, relational style of programming based on first-order logic. The original logic programming language was Prolog. The concept is based on Horn clauses. The programmer writes a "database" of "facts", e.g. wet(water). ("water is wet") and "rules", e.g. mortal(X) :- human(X). ("X is mortal is implied by X is human"). Facts and rules are collectively known as "clauses". The user supplies a "goal" which the system attempts to prove using "resolution" or "backward chaining". This involves matching the current goal against each fact or the left hand side of each rule using "unification". If the goal matches a fact, the goal succeeds; if it matches a rule then the process recurses, taking each sub-goal on the right hand side of the rule as the current goal. If all sub-goals succeed then the rule succeeds. Each time a possible clause is chosen, a "choice point" is created on a stack. If subsequent resolution fails then control eventually returns to the choice point and subsequent clauses are tried. This is known as "backtracking". Clauses may contain logic variables which take on any value necessary to make the fact or the left hand side of the rule match a goal. Unification binds these variables to the corresponding subterms of the goal. Such bindings are associated with the choice point at which the clause was chosen and are undone when backtracking reaches that choice point. The user is informed of the success or failure of his first goal and if it succeeds and contains variables he is told what values of those variables caused it to succeed. He can then ask for alternative solutions.
- logical operation — Boolean operation.
- lower paleolithic — See under Paleolithic.
- lumpenproletariat — the lowest level of the proletariat comprising unskilled workers, vagrants, and criminals and characterized by a lack of class identification and solidarity.
- lymphangiographic — Relating to lymphangiography.
- malagasy republic — former name of Madagascar.
- malay archipelago — an extensive island group in the Indian and Pacific oceans, SE of Asia, including the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and the Philippines.
- manpower planning — a procedure used in organizations to balance future requirements for all levels of employee with the availability of such employees
- manual typewriter — a keyboard machine, operated entirely by hand, for writing mechanically in characters resembling print
- maximum principle — the theorem that a function of a complex variable that is analytic in a domain and on its boundary attains its maximum absolute value on the boundary.
- mayflower compact — an agreement to establish a government, entered into by the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620.
- mean proportional — (between two numbers a and b) a number x for which a/x = x/b : The number 3 is a mean proportional between 1 and 9.
- medical procedure — A medical procedure is a medical treatment or operation.
- meissen porcelain — Dresden china.
- mental impairment — (in England, according to the Mental Health Act 1983) a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind, which includes significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning and is associated with abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct
- mentally impaired — with reduced or weakened mental capacity
- metalloproteinase — (enzyme) Any of several proteinases that have a metal atom (often zinc) at their active centre.
- microencapsulated — Encapsulated using microencapsulation.
- micromanipulation — the technique of performing mechanical operations under high magnification through the use of specialized tools.
- micromanipulators — Plural form of micromanipulator.
- micropaleontology — the branch of paleontology dealing with the study of microscopic fossils.
- middle-age spread — an increase in bulk, especially in the waist and buttocks, associated with the onset of middle age and the body's decreasing ability to metabolize calories efficiently.