16-letter words containing p, a, r, o
- palmerston north — a city in New Zealand, in the S North Island on the Manawatu River. Pop: 78 100 (2004 est)
- palmtop computer — a computer that has a small screen and compressed keyboard and is small enough to be held in the hand, often used as a personal organizer
- palomar mountain — mountain in SW Calif., near San Diego: site of an astronomical observatory: 6,140 ft (1,871 m)
- panoramic camera — a still camera having a movable lens that horizontally scans a view while exposing a long photographic plate or strip of film.
- panoramic screen — a very wide screen, as of a television, etc
- para-nitrophenol — any compound derived from phenol by the replacement of one or more of its ring hydrogen atoms by the nitro group.
- paraformaldehyde — a white, crystalline polymer of formaldehyde, (HCOH) n , from which it is obtained by evaporation of the aqueous solution: used chiefly as an antiseptic.
- parallel fortran — (language) (Pfortran) Extensions to Fortran by Ridgway Scott <[email protected]> of Houston University. Pfortran provides a shared memory SIMD model on message passing computers. It was under development in 1994.
- parallelepipedon — a prism with six faces, all parallelograms.
- paraprofessional — a person trained to assist a doctor, lawyer, teacher, or other professional, but not licensed to practice in the profession.
- parasol mushroom — a common edible field mushroom, Macrolepiota (Lepiota) procera, having a light-brown, scaly cap.
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- parity operation — the mathematical operation of reversing the directions of all three space coordinates. Symbol: P.
- parkerhouse roll — a yeast roll shaped by folding over a flat, round piece of buttered dough
- parochial school — a primary or secondary private school supervised by a religious organization, especially a Roman Catholic day school affiliated with a parish or a holy order.
- parochialization — a parochial character, spirit, or tendency; excessive narrowness of interests or view; provincialism.
- parole violation — an illegal act or offence that breaches the conditions of a prisoner's parole
- parrot's-feather — a South American water milfoil, Myriophyllum aquaticum, having hairlike pinnate leaves, widely cultivated as an aquarium plant.
- parser generator — A program which takes a formal description of a grammar (e.g. in BNF) and outputs source code for a parser which will recognise valid strings obeying that grammar and perform associated actions. Unix's yacc is a well known example.
- part way through — mid-way; before the end
- partial fraction — one of the fractions into which a given fraction can be resolved, the sum of such simpler fractions being equal to the given fraction: Partial fractions of 5/(x2−x) are 5/(x−1) and −5/x.
- partial function — A function which is not defined for all arguments of its input type. E.g. f(x) = 1/x if x /= 0. The opposite of a total function. In denotational semantics, a partial function f : D -> C may be represented as a total function ft : D' -> lift(C) where D' is a superset of D and ft x = f x if x in D ft x = bottom otherwise where lift(C) = C U bottom. Bottom (LaTeX \perp) denotes "undefined".
- partial ordering — a relation defined on a set, having the properties that each element is in relation to itself, the relation is transitive, and if two elements are in relation to each other, the two elements are equal.
- parts of lindsey — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- pascal's theorem — the theorem that the lines joining adjacent vertices of a hexagon intersect the same straight line if alternate vertices lie on two intersecting straight lines.
- passenger pigeon — an extinct pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, once found in great numbers in North America, noted for its sustained migratory flights.
- passport control — identity check at airport, etc.
- past progressive — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the past tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that an action or event was incomplete or in progress at a point of reference in the past, as was sleeping in I was sleeping when the phone rang.
- pastoral epistle — any one of three New Testament books, I or II Timothy or Titus, that stress pastoral and ecclesiastical concerns.
- patched-together — makeshift; roughly made from disparate elements
- paterson's curse — a purple-flowered noxious plant, Echium plantagineum, a close relative of viper's bugloss, naturalized in Australia and NZ where its harmfulness to livestock has prompted attempts to limit its spread
- pay-as-you-throw — denoting a system for waste collection in which households are charged according to the amount of refuse they leave
- pays de la loire — a region of W France, on the Bay of Biscay: generally low-lying, drained by the River Loire and its tributaries; agricultural
- peace conference — a conference where representatives of warring governments or countries sign a treaty to end conflict
- peach tree borer — the larva of any of several clearwing moths, as Sanninoidea exitiosa, that bore into the wood of the peach and other drupaceous trees.
- peano arithmetic — (mathematics) Giuseppe Peano's system for representing natural numbers inductively using only two symbols, "0" (zero) and "S" (successor). This system could be expressed as a recursive data type with the following Haskell definition: data Peano = Zero | Succ Peano The number three, usually written "SSS0", would be Succ (Succ (Succ Zero)). Addition of Peano numbers can be expressed as a simple syntactic transformation: plus Zero n = n plus (Succ m) n = Succ (plus m n) (1995-03-28)
- pearls of wisdom — good advice, wise words
- pearly razorfish — See under razorfish.
- peasants' revolt — the first great popular rebellion in English history (1381), caused by the imposition of an unpopular poll tax: it lasted less than a month and failed as a social revolution
- pectoralis major — the larger of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pelican crossing — place to cross road
- pension mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a pension fund and the interest to the mortgagee. The loan is repaid out of the tax-free lump sum proceeds of the pension plan on the borrower's retirement
- people's charter — the principles or movement of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, in England from 1838 to 1848: so called from the document (People's Charter or National Charter) that contained a statement of their principles and demands.
- percentage point — difference: one per cent
- perchloromethane — carbon tetrachloride.
- peregrine falcon — a globally distributed falcon, Falco peregrinus, much used in falconry because of its swift flight: several subspecies are endangered.
- perforated ulcer — an ulcer that bursts through the stomach wall and leaks food and gastric juices into the abdominal cavity
- performance bond — contract bond.
- performance test — a test requiring little or no use of language, the test materials being designed to elicit manual or behavioral responses rather than verbal ones.