19-letter words containing p, e, d
- physical addressing — (networking) The low level addressing scheme used on Ethernet. The 48-bit destination Ethernet address in a packet is compared with the receiving node's Ethernet address. Compare IP address.
- physically impaired — with reduced or weakened physical capacity
- pidgin sign english — an auxiliary language formed by using the signs and fingerspelling, but not the grammar, of American Sign Language in the word order of English, often used in communication between deaf signers and speakers of English. Abbreviation: PSE.
- piece de resistance — the principal dish of a meal.
- pied-de-biche spoon — a spoon having a handle with a trifid end.
- piggy-in-the-middle — Piggy-in-the-middle or pig-in-the-middle is a game in which two children throw a ball to each other and a child standing between them tries to catch it.
- pileated woodpecker — a large, black-and-white American woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, having a prominent red crest.
- pistol-handle knife — a table knife, especially of the 18th century, having a slightly curved handle resembling the grip of a flintlock pistol.
- plastic deformation — In plastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it and does not go back to its original state when the stress is removed.
- play fast and loose — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- play the devil with — Theology. (sometimes initial capital letter) the supreme spirit of evil; Satan. a subordinate evil spirit at enmity with God, and having power to afflict humans both with bodily disease and with spiritual corruption.
- pleased to meet you — greeting
- pocket-handkerchief — handkerchief (def 1).
- police headquarters — building where police are stationed
- post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
- post-polio syndrome — Pathology. muscle weakness occurring several decades after recovery from a polio infection, caused by fatiguing of collateral nerve axons developed during physical rehabilitation.
- postage and packing — the cost of packing and mailing an item bought by post
- potassium hydroxide — a white, deliquescent, water-soluble solid, KOH, usually in the form of lumps, sticks, or pellets, that upon solution in water generates heat: used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, as a laboratory reagent, and as a caustic.
- pre-order traversal — traversal
- predicate adjective — an adjective used in the predicate, especially with a copulative verb and attributive to the subject, as in He is dead, or attributive to the direct object, as in It made him sick.
- predicate objective — objective complement.
- preproduction model — a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- preproduction trial — a trial to test a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- presidente prudente — a city in central Brazil.
- pretty good privacy — (tool, cryptography) (PGP) A high security RSA public-key encryption application for MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and other computers. It was written by Philip R. Zimmermann <[email protected]> of Phil's Pretty Good(tm) Software and later augmented by a cast of thousands, especially including Hal Finney, Branko Lankester, and Peter Gutmann. PGP was distributed as "guerrilla freeware". The authors don't mind if it is distributed widely, just don't ask Philip Zimmermann to send you a copy. PGP uses a public-key encryption algorithm claimed by US patent #4,405,829. The exclusive rights to this patent are held by a California company called Public Key Partners, and you may be infringing this patent if you use PGP in the USA. This is explained in the PGP User's Guide, Volume II. PGP allows people to exchange files or messages with privacy and authentication. Privacy and authentication are provided without managing the keys associated with conventional cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed to exchange keys between users, which makes PGP much easier to use. This is because PGP is based on public-key cryptography. PGP encrypts data using the International Data Encryption Algorithm with a random session key, and uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the session key. In December 1994 Philip Zimmermann faced prosecution for "exporting" PGP out of the United States but in January 1996 the US Goverment dropped the case. A US law prohibits the export of encryption software out of the country. Zimmermann did not do this, but the US government hoped to establish the proposition that posting an encryption program on a BBS or on the Internet constitutes exporting it - in effect, stretching export control into domestic censorship. If the government had won it would have had a chilling effect on the free flow of information on the global network, as well as on everyone's privacy from government snooping.
- preventive medicine — the branch of medical science that deals with prevention of disease.
- pride and prejudice — a novel (1813) by Jane Austen (written 1796–97).
- pride-of-california — a shrubby plant, Lathyrus splendens, of the legume family, native to southern California, having showy clusters of pale rose-pink, violet, or magenta flowers and large, smooth, beaked pods.
- primitive methodist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Primitive Methodist Church) founded in England in 1812 and later established in the U.S., characterized by its adherence to the basic doctrines, principles, and practices taught by John Wesley.
- priority scheduling — (operating system) Processes scheduling in which the scheduler selects tasks to run based on their priority as opposed to, say, a simple round-robin. Priorities may be static or dynamic. Static priorities are assigned at the time of creation, while dynamic priorities are based on the processes' behaviour while in the system. For example, the scheduler may favour I/O-intensive tasks so that expensive requests can be issued as early as possible. A danger of priority scheduling is starvation, in which processes with lower priorities are not given the opportunity to run. In order to avoid starvation, in preemptive scheduling, the priority of a process is gradually reduced while it is running. Eventually, the priority of the running process will no longer be the highest, and the next process will start running. This method is called aging.
- procedural language — (language) Any programming language in which the programmer specifies an explicit sequences of steps to follow to produce a result (an algorithm). The term should not be confused with "imperative language" - a language that specifies explicit manipulation of state. An example (non-imperative) procedural language is LOGO, which specifies sequences of steps to perform but does not have an internal state. Other procedural languages include Basic, Pascal, C, and Modula-2. Both procedural and imperative languages are in contrast to declarative languages, in which the programmer specifies neither explicit steps nor explicit state manipulation.
- proctosigmoidoscope — sigmoidoscope.
- professional advice — advice given by someone trained in a particular and relevant profession or job
- programmed learning — a progressively monitored, step-by-step teaching method, employing small units of information or learning material and frequent testing, whereby the student must complete or pass one stage before moving on to the next.
- progressive judaism — Reform Judaism.
- promotions director — someone in charge of encouraging the sale of (a product) by advertising or securing financial support
- proto-indo-european — the unattested prehistoric parent language of the Indo-European languages; Indo-European.
- pseudo-aristocratic — of or relating to government by an aristocracy.
- pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- pseudo-conservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
- pseudo-experimental — pertaining to, derived from, or founded on experiment: an experimental science.
- pseudo-hieroglyphic — noting or pertaining to a script dating from the second millennium b.c. that appears to be syllabic and to represent the Phoenician language and that is inscribed on objects found at Byblos.
- pseudo-intellectual — a person exhibiting intellectual pretensions that have no basis in sound scholarship.
- pseudo-intransitive — denoting an occurrence of a normally transitive verb in which a direct object is not explicitly stated or forms the subject of the sentence, as in Margaret is cooking or these apples cook well
- pseudo-professional — following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.
- pseudohermaphrodite — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- pseudopsychological — of or relating to psychology.
- pseudorandom number — (programming) One of a sequence of numbers generated by some algorithm so as to have an even distribution over some range of values and minimal correlation between successive values. Pseudorandom numbers are used in simulation and encryption. They are pseudorandom not random because the sequence eventually repeats exactly and is entirely determined by the initial conditions. One of the simplest algorithms is x[i+1] = (a * x[i] + c) mod m but this repeats after at most m numbers and successive numbers are closely related. Better algorithms generally use more previous numbers to calculate the next number.
- psychic determinism — the theory that all aspects of a person's psychological makeup arise from specific causes or forces, as previous experiences or instinctual drives, which may be conscious or unconscious.
- psychoendocrinology — the study of the relationship between the endocrine system and various symptoms or types of mental illness.