23-letter words containing p, l, a
- the scottish parliament — the devolved national legislature of Scotland, located in Edinburgh
- there'll be hell to pay — If you say there'll be hell to pay, you are emphasizing that there will be serious trouble.
- to call a spade a spade — If you say that someone calls a spade a spade, you mean that they speak clearly and directly about things, even embarrassing or unpleasant things.
- to clap eyes on someone — To clap eyes on someone or something, or set or lay eyes on them, means to see them.
- to have a police record — If you say that somebody has a police record, you mean that they have committed a crime or crimes and the police have a record of this.
- to jump to a conclusion — If you say that someone jumps to a conclusion, you are critical of them because they decide too quickly that something is true, when they do not know all the facts.
- to keep your nose clean — If you keep your nose clean, you behave well and stay out of trouble.
- to play for high stakes — to gamble on something very important
- to pluck up the courage — If you pluck up the courage to do something that you feel nervous about, you make an effort to be brave enough to do it.
- to take a leap of faith — to risk belief
- to win the popular vote — to get a majority as regards the votes cast by individual voters
- to wipe the slate clean — If you wipe the slate clean, you decide to forget previous mistakes, failures, or debts and to start again.
- topological equivalence — the property of two topological spaces such that there is a homeomorphism from one to the other.
- trans-new guinea phylum — the largest grouping of the non-Austronesian languages of Papua and New Guinea and the surrounding regions
- transplantation antigen — a histocompatibility antigen identified by its effect on the rejection of transplanted cells or tissues.
- triple expansion engine — (formerly) a steam engine in which the steam is expanded in three stages in cylinders of increasing diameter to accommodate the increasing volume of the steam
- turn-and-slip indicator — bank-and-turn indicator.
- variable contrast paper — printing paper in which the contrast of the image is controlled by the color of the printing light.
- verifiability principle — the doctrine that if a nonanalytic statement is to be cognitively meaningful it must be empirically verifiable.
- virtual private network — (networking, security) (VPN) The use of encryption in the lower protocol layers to provide a secure connection through an otherwise insecure network, typically the Internet. VPNs are generally cheaper than real private networks using private lines but rely on having the same encryption system at both ends. The encryption may be performed by firewall software or possibly by routers. Link-level (layer 2 and 3) encryption provides extra protection by encrypting all of each datagram except the link-level information. This prevents a listener from obtaining information about network structure. While link-level encryption prevents traffic analysis (a form of attack), it must encrypt/decrypt on every hop and every path. Protocol-level encryption (layer 3 and 4) encryption encrypts protocol data but leaves protocol and link headers clear. While protocol-level encryption requires you to encrypt/decrypt data only once, and it encrypts/decrypts only those sessions that need it, headers are sent as clear text, allowing traffic analysis. Application (layer 5 up) encryption is based on a particular application and requires that the application be modified to incorporate encryption.
- visual display terminal — video display terminal. Abbreviation: VDT.
- volumetric displacement — the volume of air per revolution that passes through a mechanical pump when the pressure at the intake and the exhaust is the same as that of the atmosphere
- voyageurs national park — a national park in N Minnesota. 343 sq. mi. (888 sq. km).
- weak accumulation point — accumulation point.
- wind cave national park — a national park in SW South Dakota. 41½ sq. mi. (107 sq. km).