20-letter words containing p, l, e, r
- diplomatic-secretary — secretary (def 5).
- disciplinary hearing — a hearing at which the conduct of a member of an organization, profession etc is examined and a punishment may be handed down
- displacement current — the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time.
- dolly varden pattern — a fabric print consisting of bouquets of flowers.
- double-aspect theory — a monistic theory that holds that mind and body are not distinct substances but merely different aspects of a single substance
- drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
- dry-bulb temperature — A dry-bulb temperature is the temperature of a dry surface in a vapor-gas environment.
- due process (of law) — the course of legal proceedings established by the legal system of a nation or state to protect individual rights
- ecological footprint — a mark left by the shod or unshod foot, as in earth or sand.
- ecumenical patriarch — the patriarch of Constantinople, regarded as the highest dignitary of the Greek Orthodox Church.
- eight queens problem — eight queens puzzle
- electrocardiographic — Of or pertaining to an electrocardiogram (ECG) or electrocardiograph.
- electroencephalogram — A test or record of brain activity produced by electroencephalography.
- electromagnetic pump — a device for pumping liquid metals by placing a pipe between the poles of an electromagnet and passing a current through the liquid metal
- electronic footprint — data that identifies a computer that has connected to a particular website
- electrophysiological — Of or pertaining to electrophysiology.
- electroshock therapy — a form of shock therapy in which electric current is applied to the brain
- elephant in the room — an obvious truth deliberately ignored by all parties in a situation
- employer's liability — an employer's legal responsibility to pay damages to an employee who has been injured or who has contracted an illness because of the work he or she does
- environmental impact — the impact on the environment created by an industry, service, plan, or project
- epidural anaesthesia — numbing injection in the spine
- epitaxial transistor — a transistor made by depositing a thin pure layer of semiconductor material (epitaxial layer) onto a crystalline support by epitaxy. The layer acts as one of the electrode regions, usually the collector
- equivalent air speed — the speed at sea level that would produce the same Pitot-static tube reading as that measured at altitude
- european social fund — one of the four Structural Funds of the European Union which aims to support employment and the economic and social well-being of EU member countries
- evening primrose oil — an oil, obtained from the seeds of the evening primrose, that is claimed to stimulate the production of prostaglandins
- explicit parallelism — A feature of a programming language for a parallel processing system which allows or forces the programmer to annotate his program to indicate which parts should be executed as independent parallel tasks. This is obviously more work for the programmer than a system with implicit parallelism (where the system decides automatically which parts to run in parallel) but may allow higher performance.
- external respiration — exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide across external or respiratory surfaces, as gills or lungs, in multicellular organisms
- father of the chapel — (in British trade unions in the publishing and printing industries) a shop steward
- field ion microscope — a device in which the atomic structure of the surface of a conductor is made visible by introducing helium gas into the device and applying a high voltage to ionize and accelerate the gas toward a fluorescent screen.
- field-ion microscope — a device in which the atomic structure of the surface of a conductor is made visible by introducing helium gas into the device and applying a high voltage to ionize and accelerate the gas toward a fluorescent screen.
- file descriptor leak — (programming) (Or "fd leak" /F D leek/) A kind of programming bug analogous to a core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors ("fd"s) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See leak.
- first world problems — If you say that someone has First World problems, you mean that their problems are not really very important.
- flame-fusion process — Verneuil process.
- flat-plate collector — a type of solar collector consisting of a series of flat glass or plastic plates with black metal surfaces that absorb solar energy.
- floodlight projector — a powerful lamp having a reflector curved to produce a floodlight.
- fore-and-aft topsail — gaff topsail (def 1).
- fore-topgallant mast — the spar or section of a spar forming the topgallant portion of a foremast on a ship.
- forty-ninth parallel — an informal name for the Canadian border with the USA, which is in part delineated by the parallel line of latitude at 49°N
- freefall parachuting — a variety of parachuting in which the jumper manoeuvres in free fall before opening the parachute
- frontenac et palluau — Comte de (Louis de Buade) 1620?–98, French governor of New France 1672–82, 1689–98.
- fundamental particle — elementary particle.
- general postal union — former name of Universal Postal Union. Abbreviation: GPU.
- general practitioner — a medical practitioner whose practice is not limited to any specific branch of medicine or class of diseases. Abbreviation: G.P.
- general public virus — (software, legal) A pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or application programs incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same terms as GNU code. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft "infects" software generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code.
- generative phonology — a theory of phonology that uses a set of rules to derive phonetic representations from abstract underlying forms.
- get a real computer! — (jargon) A typical hacker response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done on a toy system or bitty box. The threshold for "real computer" rises with time. As of mid-1993 it meant multi-tasking, with a hard disk, and an address space bigger than 16 megabytes. At this time, according to GLS, computers with character-only displays were verging on "unreal". In 2001, a real computer has a one gigahertz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 20 GB of hard disk, and runs Linux.
- gingival hyperplasia — Gingival hyperplasia is abnormal enlargement of the gums.
- go like the clappers — to move extremely fast
- good neighbor policy — a diplomatic policy of the U.S., first presented in 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt, for the encouragement of friendly relations and mutual defense among the nations of the Western Hemisphere.
- gorno-altai republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: mountainous, rising over 4350 m (14 500 ft) in the Altai Mountains of the south. Capital: Gorno-Altaisk. Pop: 202 900 (2002). Area: 92 600 sq km (35 740 sq miles)