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18-letter words containing p, e, r, i, o

  • predation pressure — the effect of predation upon a population, resulting in the decrease in size of that population.
  • prefect of studies — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
  • preferred position — especially desirable advertising space for which, if it is specifically requested by the advertiser, a publication charges a premium rate.
  • prepositional verb — a combination of verb and preposition, often with idiomatic meaning, differing from other phrasal verbs in that an object must always follow the preposition, as take after in The children take after their mother.
  • prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
  • present continuous — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the present tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that a present action or event is in progress, being repeated, or of a temporary nature or to express the future.
  • presentation layer — (networking)   The second highest layer (layer 6) in the OSI seven layer model. Performs functions such as text compression, code or format conversion to try to smooth out differences between hosts. Allows incompatible processes in the application layer to communicate via the session layer. Documents: ITU Rec. X.226 (ISO 8823), ITU Rec. X.216 (ISO 8822).
  • preservation order — In Britain, a preservation order is an official order that makes it illegal for anyone to alter or destroy something such as an old building or an area of countryside.
  • prestidigitization — /pres`t*-di"j*-ti:-zay"sh*n/ 1. A term coined by Daniel Klein <[email protected]> for the act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand. 2. Data entry through legerdemain.
  • presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
  • presuppositionless — to suppose or assume beforehand; take for granted in advance.
  • price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
  • primate of england — a title of the archbishop of Canterbury.
  • prince of darkness — Satan.
  • priority interrupt — (jargon)   Any stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of hack mode. Classically used to describe being dragged away by an SO for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity. Also called an NMI (non-maskable interrupt), especially in PC-land.
  • priority inversion — (parallel)   The state of a concurrent system where a high priority task is waiting for a low priority task which is waiting for a medium priority task. The system may become unstable and crash under these circumstances. In an operating system that uses multiple tasks, each task (or context) may be given a priority. These priorities help the scheduler decide which task to run next. Consider tasks, L, M, and H, with priorities Low, Medium, and High. M is running and H is blocked waiting for some resource that is held by L. So long as any task with a priority higher than L is runable, it will prevent task L, and thus task H, from running. Priority inversion is generally considered either as a high-level design failure or an implementation issue to be taken into account depending on who is talking. Most operating systems have methods in place to prevent or take inversion into account. Priority inheritance is one method. The most public instance of priority inversion is the repeated 'fail-safe' rebooting of the Mars Pathfinder. base station ('Sagan Memorial Station').
  • prism spectrometer — an optical device for measuring wavelengths, deviation of refracted rays, and angles between faces of a prism, especially an instrument (prism spectrometer) consisting of a slit through which light passes, a collimator, a prism that deviates the light, and a telescope through which the deviated light is viewed and examined.
  • prison authorities — the people in charge of running a prison
  • prisoner's dilemma — (in game theory) a scenario in which the outcome of one person's decision is determined by the simultaneous decisions of the other participants, resulting in a bad outcome for all of them if all act in their own self-interest.
  • probability theory — the theory of analyzing and making statements concerning the probability of the occurrence of uncertain events. Compare probability (def 4).
  • process identifier — (operating system)   (PID) An integer used by the Unix kernel to uniquely identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process.
  • process scheduling — multitasking
  • processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • procrustean string — (programming)   A fixed-length string. If a string value is too long for the allocated space, it is truncated to fit; and if it is shorter, the empty space is padded, usually with space characters. This is an allusion to Procrustes, a legendary robber of ancient Attica. He bound his victims to a bed, and if they were shorter than the bed, he stretched their limbs until they would fit; if their limbs were longer, he lopped them off.
  • product life cycle — the four stages (introduction, growth, maturity, and decline) into one of which the sales of a product fall during its market life
  • production manager — a supervisor of the budget, crew and other details in the production of a film or play
  • programme planning — the act of creating plans or schedules, esp in relation to your occupation
  • progressive coding — (graphics, file format, algorithm)   (Or "interlacing") An aspect of a graphics storage format or transmission algorithm that treats bitmap image data non-sequentially in such a way that later data adds progressively greater resolution to an already full-size image. This contrasts with sequential coding. Progressive coding is useful when an image is being sent across a slow communications channel, such as the Internet, as the low-resolution image may be sufficient to allow the user to decide not to wait for the rest of the file to be received. In an interlaced GIF89 image, the pixels in a row are stored sequentially but the rows are stored in interlaced order, e.g. 0, 8, 4, 12, 2, 6, 8, 10, 14, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15. Each vertical scan adds rows in the middle of the gaps left by the previous one. Interlacing is also supported by other formats. JPEG supports a functionally similar concept known as Progressive JPEG. [How does the algorithm differ?] See also progressive/sequential coding.
  • progressive dinner — a dinner party in which each successive course is prepared and eaten at the residence of a different participant.
  • projection machine — an apparatus that projects motion pictures; projector.
  • projection printer — enlarger.
  • propaganda machine — the group of people, publications, etc, such as of a government, country etc, responsible for the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc, to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc
  • property insurance — insurance coverage for land and housing
  • proprietary colony — any of certain colonies, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, that were granted to an individual or group by the British crown and that were granted full rights of self-government.
  • proprietary rights — rights of ownership
  • protease inhibitor — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.
  • protective colloid — a lyophilic colloid added to a lyophobic sol to lessen its sensitivity to the precipitating effect of an electrolyte.
  • protective custody — detention of a person by the police solely as protection against a possible attack or reprisal by someone.
  • protein deficiency — a lack or insuffiency of protein
  • provascular tissue — procambium.
  • provincetown print — a print made from a woodblock incised with grooves that serve to separate the colors being used and to leave white lines highlighting the design.
  • provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
  • przewalski's horse — a wild horse, Equus caballus przevalskii, chiefly of Mongolia and Sinkiang, characterized by light yellow coloring and a stiff, upright black mane with no forelock: the only remaining breed of wild horse, it is now endangered and chiefly maintained in zoos.
  • pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
  • pseudotuberculosis — an acute, sometimes fatal disease of rodents, birds, and other animals, including humans, caused by the bacterium Yersinia (Pasteurella) pseudotuberculosis, and characterized by the formation of nodules resembling those that result from tuberculosis.
  • psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
  • puerto rico trench — a depression in the ocean floor, N of Puerto Rico: includes deepest part of Atlantic Ocean, 28,374 feet (8648 meters).
  • pulmonary embolism — the blockage of a pulmonary artery, often by a blood clot, that stops the flow of blood to the lungs and which can result in death if untreated
  • pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
  • purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
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