18-letter words containing p, i, r, a, n, e
- superior vena cava — See under vena cava.
- supporting actress — an actress playing a supporting role
- surgical appliance — a specialized device used by somebody to relieve a particular medical condition
- sweptwing aircraft — an aircraft which has wings that are swept (usually) backwards
- sympathetic string — a thin wire string, as in various obsolete musical instruments, designed to vibrate sympathetically with the bowed or plucked strings to reinforce the sound.
- system-programming — a program, as an operating system, compiler, or utility program, that controls some aspect of the operation of a computer (opposed to application program).
- temporal summation — the act or process of summing.
- terrestrial planet — inner planet.
- the general public — the people in a society; people in general
- threatened species — a species likely, in the near future, to become an endangered species within all or much of its range.
- to cast aspersions — If you cast aspersions on someone or something, you suggest that they are not very good in some way.
- to scrape a living — If you say that someone scrapes a living or scratches a living, you mean that they manage to earn enough to live on, but it is very difficult. In American English, you say they scrape out a living or scratch out a living.
- to speak your mind — If you speak your mind, you say firmly and honestly what you think about a situation, even if this may offend or upset people.
- traditional weapon — a weapon having ceremonial tribal significance, such as an assegai or knobkerrie
- transient response — A transient response of a circuit is a temporary change in the way that it behaves due to an external excitation, that will disappear with time.
- transporter bridge — a bridge for carrying passengers and vehicles by means of a platform suspended from a trolley.
- under-compensation — to compensate or pay less than is fair, customary, or expected.
- under-depreciation — decrease in value due to wear and tear, decay, decline in price, etc.
- unfair competition — acts done by a seller to confuse or deceive the public with intent to acquire a larger portion of the market, as by cutting prices below cost, misleading advertising, selling a spurious product under a false identity, etc.
- universal coupling — a coupling between rotating shafts set at an angle to one another, allowing for rotation in three planes.
- upper partial tone — overtone (def 1).
- venture capitalist — funds invested or available for investment in a new or unproven business enterprise.
- vermiform appendix — a narrow, blind tube protruding from the cecum, having no known useful function, in humans being 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) long and situated in the lower right-hand part of the abdomen.
- vulcan nerve pinch — (jargon) (Or "three-finger salute", Vulcan death grip; from the old "Star Trek" TV series via Commodore Amiga hackers) The keyboard combination that forces a soft boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a feature). On an Amiga this is done with Ctrl/Right Amiga/Left Amiga; on IBM PCs and many microcomputers it is Ctrl/Alt/Del; on Suns, L1-A; on some Macintoshes, it is
- ! Silicon Graphics users are obviously the most dextrous however, as these machines use the five-finger combination: Left Shift/Left Ctrl/Left Alt/Keypad Divide/F12. Compare quadruple bucky. - weberian apparatus — (in certain fishes) a chain of small bones and ligaments connecting the inner ear with the air bladder.
- wernicke's aphasia — a type of aphasia caused by a lesion in Wernicke's area of the brain and characterized by grammatical but more or less meaningless speech and an apparent inability to comprehend speech.
- whispering gallery — a space or gallery beneath a dome or broad arch in which low sounds produced at any of certain points are clearly audible at certain other distant points.
- wild passionflower — the maypop, Passiflora incarnata.
- wilson's phalarope — a phalarope, Phalaropus tricolor, that breeds in the prairie regions of North America and winters in Argentina and Chile.
- women at point sur — a narrative poem (1927) by Robinson Jeffers.