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23-letter words containing p, a, t, r, o, n

  • play by electronic mail — (games)   A kind of game where the players use electronic mail to communicate. This may be done via a human moderator or an automatic mailing list exploder on some central machine or it may be fully distributed with each player just addressing his mail to all other players. This is a natural extension of "play by mail" games conducted via snail mail.
  • political incorrectness — Political incorrectness is the attitude or policy shown by someone who does not care if they offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
  • polybrominated biphenyl — PBB.
  • polytetrafluoroethylene — any polymer, plastic, or resin having the formula (C 2 F 4) n , prepared from tetrafluoroethylene, noted for its slippery, nonsticking properties, and used in the manufacture of gaskets, electrical insulation, tubing, candy molds, container linings, frying-pan coatings, etc.
  • portable tool interface — (programming, standard)   (PTI) A standard such as PCTE, allowing interworking between different software tools via defined interfaces to the user and to the repository or object management system.
  • positive discrimination — special opportunities
  • postcode discrimination — discrimination on the basis of the area where someone lives, with relation to employment, credit rating, etc
  • power factor correction — Power factor correction is the process of increasing the power factor to near unity without altering the original load.
  • precautionary principle — the precept that an action should not be taken if the consequences are uncertain and potentially dangerous
  • precipitation hardening — a process in which alloys are strengthened by the formation, in their lattice, of a fine dispersion of one component when the metal is quenched from a high temperature and aged at an intermediate temperature
  • presidential government — a system of government in which the powers of the president are constitutionally separate from those of the legislature.
  • price escalation clause — a clause in a contract allowing the seller to raise prices if the cost of inputs increases
  • printer access protocol — (networking, protocol, printer)   (PAP) A protocol used in Mac OS Appletalk to provide bi-directional communication between PostScript printers and the client computer.
  • private limited company — a company whose shares can be bought by the public
  • probabilistic automaton — nondeterministic automaton
  • process intensification — Process intensification is a change made to a process to make it work in a smaller volume for the same performance.
  • product differentiation — the real or illusory distinction between competing products in a market
  • productivity bargaining — the process of reaching an agreement (productivity agreement) through collective bargaining whereby the employees of an organization agree to changes which are intended to improve productivity in return for an increase in pay or other benefits
  • professional misconduct — a violation of the rules or boundaries set by the governing body of a profession
  • profit and loss account — income account (def 2).
  • provocative maintenance — [Common ironic mutation of "preventive maintenance"] Actions performed upon a machine at regularly scheduled intervals to ensure that the system remains in a usable state. So called because it is all too often performed by a field servoid who doesn't know what he is doing; such "maintenance" often *induces* problems, or otherwise results in the machine's remaining in an *un*usable state for an indeterminate amount of time. See also scratch monkey.
  • psychomotor retardation — a generalized slowing of psychological and physical activity, frequently occurring as a symptom of severe depression.
  • puerto rican royal palm — a feather palm, Roystonea borinquena, of Puerto Rico and St. Croix, having leaves about 10 feet (3 meters) long and egg-shaped, yellowish-brown fruit.
  • put through one's paces — a rate of movement, especially in stepping, walking, etc.: to walk at a brisk pace of five miles an hour.
  • quote chapter and verse — [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate bible. "I don't care if "rn" gets it wrong; "Followup-To: poster" is explicitly permitted by RFC 1036. I'll quote chapter and verse if you don't believe me." See also legalese, language lawyer, RTFS (sense 2).
  • real simple syndication — (spelling)   Illiterate form of Really Simple Syndication.
  • refinery waste disposal — Refinery waste disposal is the system for dealing with waste materials, especially hazardous ones, in a refinery.
  • relative sunspot number — a number indicating the degree of sunspot activity on the sun as a factor of observer idiosyncrasies, the number of sunspot groups, and the number of individual sunspots.
  • response generalization — generalization (def 4b).
  • response-generalization — the act or process of generalizing.
  • retrolental fibroplasia — an unusual eye disease occurring in premature infants, usually from being given high concentrations of oxygen, which causes abnormal formation of fibrous tissue behind the lens and often results in blindness.
  • reverse polish notation — postfix notation
  • rocky mountain beeplant — a rank-smelling plant, Cleome serrulata, of the caper family, native to the western U.S., having showy, dense clusters of pink or white flowers, frequented by bees.
  • rub sb up the wrong way — If you rub someone up the wrong way in British English, or rub someone the wrong way in American English, you offend or annoy them without intending to.
  • saint christopher-nevis — St. Kitts-Nevis.
  • schizotypal personality — a personality disorder characterized by a group of symptoms similar to but less severe than schizophrenia, as odd behavior, peculiar thinking, and social isolation.
  • scottish national party — a political party advocating the independence of Scotland, founded in 1934
  • separation of variables — a grouping of the terms of an ordinary differential equation so that associated with each differential is a factor consisting entirely of functions of the independent variable appearing in the differential.
  • silicone breast implant — silicone filled bags that are implanted into a woman in order to increase the size of her breasts
  • social security payment — a payment of social security made to an individual
  • somaliland protectorate — official name of the former British Somaliland.
  • st. pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.
  • statutory maternity pay — the maternity pay a woman is legally entitled to
  • structural anthropology — a school of anthropology founded by Claude Lévi-Strauss and based loosely on the principles of structural linguistics.
  • structural unemployment — unemployment caused by basic changes in the overall economy, as in demographics, technology, or industrial organization.
  • suprasegmental phonemes — phonemes or features of speech, as pitch, stress, and juncture, that may extend over and modify series of segmental phonemes
  • the data protection act — a United Kingdom act of parliament designed to ensure the proper handling of information stored about individuals on computers and entitling individuals to find out what information is stored about them
  • the department of state — the United States federal department concerned with foreign policy
  • the metropolitan police — the police organization that is responsible for Greater London, excluding the City of London
  • the scottish parliament — the devolved national legislature of Scotland, located in Edinburgh
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