17-letter words containing p, o, d, e, t
- dephosphorylation — the removal of a phosphate group from an organic compound, as in the changing of ATP to ADP.
- deportation order — a notification that a foreign national is legally required to leave the country
- desktop publisher — desktop publishing
- despotic monarchy — absolute monarchy.
- development grant — a grant awarded, esp by a government, to a person or company in order to fund the development of a new product
- developmentalists — an expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.
- dextroamphetamine — a dextrorotatory amphetamine, used to suppress appetite
- dialect geography — linguistic geography
- dielectrophoresis — Dielectrophoresis is the movement of uncharged particles (= ones with no electrical charge) when a changing electric field is applied.
- digital audiotape — a cassette containing magnetic tape used for high-fidelity digital recording or playback of audio. Abbreviation: DAT.
- diphenylhydantoin — a white, slightly water-soluble powder, C 15 H 11 N 2 O 2 , used in the form of its sodium salt to prevent or arrest convulsions in epilepsy.
- dipterocarpaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae, a family of trees chiefly native to tropical SE Asia, having two-winged fruits. Many species yield useful timber and resins
- discrete preorder — (mathematics) A preorder is said to be discrete if any two of its elements are incomparable.
- dispassionateness — The state or quality of being dispassionate.
- dispensationalism — the interpreting of history as a series of divine dispensations.
- disproportionates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of disproportionate.
- disruptive action — action performed by protestors, workers, etc that causes the disruption of a service
- dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- down in the dumps — If you are down in the dumps, you are feeling very depressed and miserable.
- down the plughole — If you say that something has gone down the plughole, you mean that it has failed or has been lost or wasted.
- dramatis personae — (used with a plural verb) the characters in a play.
- drop on the floor — To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay sites that lose messages. See also black hole, bit bucket.
- droplet infection — infection spread by airborne droplets of secretions from the nose, throat, or lungs.
- ectoparasiticides — Plural form of ectoparasiticide.
- electrodeposition — The deposition of a metal on a cathode during electrolysis; used as a method of purification.
- employee discount — When the employees of a store or other retail business are entitled to an employee discount, they do not have to pay the full price for goods they buy in the store.
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- european standard — a specification to be used as a consistent rule or guideline in the manufacture or selling of a certain product or service traded within Europe
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
- exceptional child — a gifted child
- export department — the department of a business concerned with the export of the business's goods or services
- export-orientated — (of an industry, company, etc) mainly concerned with the export of goods or services
- field post office — a place to which mail intended for military units in the field is sent to be sorted and forwarded
- foot-pound-second — of or relating to the system of units in which the foot, pound, and second are the principal units of length, mass, and time. Abbreviation: fps, f.p.s.
- foucault pendulum — a pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the earth by exhibiting an apparent change in its plane of oscillation.
- front-end payment — a payment required or incurred in advance of a project in order to get it under way
- garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
- get one's wind up — to become (or be) nervous or alarmed
- gold export point — an exchange rate at which it is as cheap to settle international accounts by exporting gold bullion as by buying bills of exchange
- graduated pension — the money that an employee receives after retirement if they have paid into the graduated pension scheme
- hardware platform — a group of compatible computers that can run the same software.
- heptanedioic acid — pimelic acid.
- hermaphrodite rig — jackass rig.
- holding operation — a plan or procedure devised to prolong the existing situation
- hydrotherapeutics — hydrotherapy.
- hydrotherapy pool — a pool of water used for hydrotherapy
- hydroxytryptamine — (organic compound) Any hydroxy derivative of tryptamine, but especially 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin).
- identity politics — political activity or movements based on or catering to the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or social interests that characterize a group identity.
- in/into disrepair — If something is in disrepair or is in a state of disrepair, it is broken or in bad condition.