16-letter words containing p, i
- arteriocapillary — Relating to the arteries and the capillaries.
- arthroscopically — By means of arthroscopy.
- ascidian tadpole — the free-swimming larva of an ascidian, having a tadpole-like tail containing the notochord and nerve cord
- ashurnasirpal ii — ("the Merciless") died 859? b.c, warrior king of Assyria 884?–859 b.c.
- asiatic elephant — Indian elephant. See under elephant.
- asparaginic acid — aspartic acid.
- assistant priest — a person who assists a priest in their work or who is not yet fully qualified as a priest
- assisted passage — a scheme whereby a government encourages people to emigrate or return home by agreeing to pay for their ticket
- assurnasirpal ii — Ashurnasirpal II.
- asymptomatically — showing no evidence of disease.
- at bayonet point — done while having a bayonet pointed at one
- atmospheric tide — a movement of atmospheric masses caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon and by daily solar heating.
- atomic physicist — a scientist specializing in atomic physics
- attitude problem — a frame of mind perceived by others to be hostile or uncooperative
- auction pinochle — a variety of pinochle for three to five players in which, for every hand, there are three active players, each dealt 15 cards, with the highest bidder winning the contract and playing against the other two active opponents.
- auditory aphasia — aphasia in which there is no comprehension of spoken words; word deafness.
- australopithecus — an extinct genus of small-brained,large-toothed bipedal hominids that lived in Africa between one and four million years ago.
- autobiographical — An autobiographical piece of writing relates to events in the life of the person who has written it.
- autobogotiphobia — bogotify
- autoethnographic — Using ethnographic techniques to describe one's own life, or events in which one is a participant.
- automanipulation — physical stimulation of one's own genitals.
- automatic pistol — a type of pistol having a mechanism that throws out the empty shell, puts in a new one, and prepares the pistol to be fired again.
- automatic repeat — a key on the keyboard of a typewriter, computer, etc, which, when depressed continuously, produces the character repeatedly until the key is released
- autoradiographic — Of or pertaining to an autoradiograph, a radiographic image produced by the decay of a radioactive substance.
- autostereoscopic — Of or pertaining to autostereoscopy.
- auxiliary police — a part-time reserve attached to a regular police force
- avalon peninsula — a large peninsula of Newfoundland, between Trinity and Placentia Bays. Area: about 10 000 sq km (4000 sq miles)
- aversion therapy — a method of suppressing an undesirable habit, such as excessive smoking, by causing the subject to associate an unpleasant effect, such as an electric shock or nausea, with the habit
- avian diphtheria — a virus disease of chickens and other birds characterized by warty excrescences on the comb and wattles, and often by diphtherialike changes in the mucous membranes of the head.
- axminster carpet — a type of patterned carpet with a cut pile
- azuero peninsula — a peninsula in SW Panama, bordered on the E by the Gulf of Panama.
- back-propagation — (Or "backpropagation") A learning algorithm for modifying a feed-forward neural network which minimises a continuous "error function" or "objective function." Back-propagation is a "gradient descent" method of training in that it uses gradient information to modify the network weights to decrease the value of the error function on subsequent tests of the inputs. Other gradient-based methods from numerical analysis can be used to train networks more efficiently. Back-propagation makes use of a mathematical trick when the network is simulated on a digital computer, yielding in just two traversals of the network (once forward, and once back) both the difference between the desired and actual output, and the derivatives of this difference with respect to the connection weights.
- bacterioplankton — (biology) The bacterial component of marine plankton.
- balkan peninsula — a large peninsula in SE Europe, between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas
- banana republics — any of the small countries in the tropics, especially in the Western Hemisphere, whose economies are largely dependent on fruit exports, tourism, and foreign investors.
- band-pass filter — a filter that transmits only those currents having a frequency lying within specified limits
- bargaining power — the ability of a person, group, or organization to exert influence over another party in a negotiation in order to achieve a deal which is favourable to themselves
- bargaining scope — the range of topics within the scope of a particular set of negotiations leading to a collective agreement
- bashkir republic — a constituent republic of E central Russia, in the S Urals: established as the first Soviet autonomous republic in 1919; rich mineral resources. Capital: Ufa. Pop: 4 012 900 (2002). Area: 143 600 sq km (55 430 sq miles)
- basque provinces — an autonomous region of N Spain, comprising the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya: inhabited mainly by Basques, who retained virtual autonomy from the 9th to the 19th century. Pop: 1 840 700 (2003 est). Area: about 7250 sq km (2800 sq miles)
- bastard pointing — an imitation of tuck pointing, having a fillet made from the mortar of the joint.
- batch processing — manufacturing products or treating materials in batches, by passing the output of one process to subsequent processes
- batch production — production of goods in batches, rather than continuously
- bayonet practice — drill in the use of a bayonet
- be in one's cups — If someone is in their cups, they are drunk.
- bearing pedestal — an independent support for a bearing, usually incorporating a bearing housing
- beautiful people — wealthy, fashionable people of the leisure class
- beauty therapist — a person whose job is to carry out treatments to improve a person's appearance, such as facials, manicures, removal of unwanted hair, etc
- behavior pattern — a recurrent way of acting by an individual or group toward a given object or in a given situation.
- behavior therapy — therapy employing behavior modification