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23-letter words containing p, e, n, r

  • pin someone's ears back — the organ of hearing and equilibrium in vertebrates, in humans consisting of an external ear that gathers sound vibrations, a middle ear in which the vibrations resonate against the tympanic membrane, and a fluid-filled internal ear that maintains balance and that conducts the tympanic vibrations to the auditory nerve, which transmits them as impulses to the brain.
  • pithecanthropus erectus — Java man
  • 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.
  • polyvinylidene chloride — a polymer of vinylidene chloride, used chiefly in the manufacture of saran.
  • 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
  • preclinical safety data — Preclinical safety data is information about the safety of a medication that is assessed before clinical trials.
  • preferred provider plan — A preferred provider plan is a health insurance plan in the U.S. written by an organization of hospitals and physicians who provide services to clients of a particular insurance company.
  • 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
  • print services facility — (printer)   (PSF) IBM's system software which generates native IBM printer language, IPDS and, depending on the version, PostScript and LaserJet PCL. See also: Advanced Function Presentation.
  • 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 branch exchange — (communications)   (PBX) A telephone exchange local to a particular organisation who use, rather than provide, telephone services. The earliest PBXs were manual (Private Manual Branch EXchange, PMBX) but are now more likely to be automatic (Private Automatic Branch eXchange).
  • private limited company — a company whose shares can be bought by the public
  • process gas compression — Process gas compression is a procedure for pressurizing and circulating gas through a process by compressing it in a cylinder, to enhance conditions for chemical reaction.
  • process hazard analysis — Process hazard analysis is calculating what might be a hazard in a process, how likely it is to happen, and what should be done if someone or something is exposed to this hazard.
  • 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
  • professional misconduct — a violation of the rules or boundaries set by the governing body of a profession
  • program design language — Any of a large class of formal and profoundly useless pseudo-languages in which management forces one to design programs. Too often, management expects PDL descriptions to be maintained in parallel with the code, imposing massive overhead of little or no benefit. See also flow chart.
  • programmer brain damage — (humour)   (PBD) A classification of a bug which was obviously introduced by an incompetent or short-sighted programmer. Compare UBD. See also brain-damaged.
  • 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.
  • public enemy number one — (not in official use) a criminal at the top of the FBI's list of the ten most wanted criminals.
  • public sector borrowing — government borrowing to fund the public sector
  • 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 one's finger on sth — If you put your finger on something, for example a reason or problem, you see and identify exactly what it is.
  • 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.
  • queenborough in sheppey — a town in SE England, in Kent: formed in 1968 by the amalgamation of Queenborough, Sheerness, and Sheppey. Pop: 3471 (2001)
  • 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.
  • respondent conditioning — conditioning (def 2).
  • 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.
  • self-addressed envelope — addressed to self
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