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20-letter words containing p, a, t

  • auxiliary power unit — an additional engine fitted to an aircraft to operate when the main engines are not in use
  • babylonian captivity — the exile of the Jews in Babylonia from about 586 to about 538 bc
  • back-of-the-envelope — (of a plan, calculation, etc) composed or performed quickly and without detailed analysis or research
  • backwards compatible — backward compatibility
  • bacteriochlorophylls — Plural form of bacteriochlorophyll.
  • balanced three-phase — A balanced three-phase voltage or current is one in which the size of each phase is the same, and the phase angles of the three phases differ from each other by 120 degrees.
  • ballet-wrap cardigan — a cardigan with wrapover fronts which are fastened with wraparound ties
  • baptism for the dead — the baptism of a living person in the place of and for the sake of one who has died unbaptized: now practiced chiefly by Mormons.
  • barothermohygrograph — an automatic instrument for recording pressure, temperature, and humidity.
  • bartramian sandpiper — upland sandpiper.
  • basic object adapter — (architecture)   (BOA) Part of the CORBA architecture.
  • be hard pushed to do — If you are hard pushed to do something, you find it very difficult to do it.
  • benztropine mesylate — a synthetic anticholinergic, C 21 H 25 NO⋅CH 4 O 3 S, used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
  • bomb disposal expert — an expert in bomb disposal
  • brain fingerprinting — a technique in which sensors worn on the head are used to measure the involuntary brain activity of someone in response to certain images or pieces of evidence pertaining to a crime
  • break the glass plan — a plan that is put into operation in an emergency when all other options have been exhausted
  • bristly sarsaparilla — a coarse plant, Aralia hispida, of the ginseng family, of eastern North America, having a loose cluster of small, greenish flowers and black fruit.
  • buck's horn plantain — a Eurasian plant, Plantago coronopus, having leaves resembling a buck's horn: family Plantaginaceae
  • buoyancy compensator — an inflatable vest used to control one's buoyancy underwater or to rest at the surface, usually having a connecting hose for inflation or deflation by mouth and a CO 2 cartridge for rapid, emergency inflation.
  • caesar and cleopatra — a comedy (1898) by G. B. Shaw.
  • calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
  • calcium permanganate — a violet, crystalline, deliquescent solid, Ca(MnO 4) 2 ⋅4H 2 O, used chiefly as a disinfectant and deodorizer.
  • canine leptospirosis — an often fatal intestinal disease in dogs, caused by any of several spirochetes of the genus Leptospira.
  • capacitive crosstalk — Capacitive crosstalk is a situation in which a signal on one line can cause a smaller version of the same signal on an adjacent line because of the capacitance between the lines.
  • capacitive reactance — the opposition of capacitance to alternating current, equal to the reciprocal of the product of the angular frequency of the current times the capacitance. Symbol: X C.
  • capillary attraction — a force that is the resultant of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension in liquids which are in contact with solids, as in a capillary tube: when the cohesive force is greater, the surface of the liquid tends to rise in the tube, as with mercury; when the adhesive force is greater, the surface tends to be depressed, as with water
  • capital transactions — the flow of money and assets
  • capital transfer tax — (in Britain) a tax payable from 1974 to 1986 at progressive rates on the cumulative total of gifts of money or property made during the donor's lifetime or after his death. It was replaced by inheritance tax
  • capitation allowance — an amount of money given to a school based on the number of students it has
  • carpathian mountains — a mountain system of central and E Europe, extending from Slovakia to central Romania: mainly forested, with rich iron ore resources. Highest peak: Gerlachovka, 2663 m (8788 ft)
  • cassegrain telescope — an astronomical reflecting telescope in which incident light is reflected from a large concave paraboloid mirror onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror and then back through a hole in the concave mirror to form the image
  • cast a pall over sth — If something unpleasant casts a pall over an event or occasion, it makes it less enjoyable than it should be.
  • cat's-tail speedwell — a widely cultivated Eurasian plant, Veronica spicata, of the figwort family, having blue flowers in long, spikelike clusters.
  • catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
  • catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
  • cavendish experiment — the experiment, conducted by Henry Cavendish, that determined the constant of gravitation by using a torsion balance and measuring the torsion produced by two masses placed at given distances from the masses on the balance.
  • cellular respiration — the oxidation of organic compounds that occurs within cells, producing energy for cellular processes.
  • centrifugal spinning — the spinning of rayon filaments in a centrifugal box.
  • chapter of accidents — a series of misfortunes
  • character repertoire — (character)   The set of all characters onto which a coded character set maps integers (code positions). For example, consider these two simple coded character sets: Coded Character Set One: integer 0 -> the character "A" integer 1 -> the character "B" Coded Character Set Two: integer 0 -> the character "B" integer 1 -> the character "A" Both of these coded character sets map to the characters "A" and "B", so they have the same character repertoire. But since the mapping is different (and obviously incompatible), these are different coded character sets.
  • checkerboard pattern — checked pattern that looks like a draughtboard
  • chemical fingerprint — a distinctive characteristic or pattern indicating the presence of a certain molecule, used to identify a chemical.
  • chemically dependent — addicted to a drug or drugs
  • chemolithoautotrophs — Plural form of chemolithoautotroph.
  • chemotherapeutically — By means of chemotherapy.
  • child support agency — the British government agency concerned with the welfare of children
  • christopher strachey — (person)   Professor of Computation at Oxford, England, born 1916, died May 1975. He invented the term "currying". See also: General Purpose Macro-generator.
  • chromatic adaptation — the alteration by photosynthesizing organisms of the proportions of their photosynthetic pigments in response to the intensity and colour of the available light, as shown by algae in the littoral zone, which change from green to red as the zone is descended
  • chuck it all (in/up) — If someone chucks it all, they stop doing their job, and usually move somewhere else. In British English you can also say that someone chucks it all up or chucks it all in.
  • clay-pigeon shooting — the activity of shooting clay pigeons
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