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17-letter words containing p, o, f

  • periodic function — a function of a real or complex variable that is periodic.
  • personnel officer — a worker responsible for recruiting employees and dealing with matters relating to them
  • petrol filler cap — a small cover that goes over the hole in a vehicle into which you put petrol
  • phase of the moon — Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See also heisenbug. True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this routine into a Lisp program that, when it wrote out a file, would print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read back in the program would barf. The length of the first line depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter "corrected" it. This has since been described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
  • phenylformic acid — benzoic acid.
  • phlebotomus fever — sandfly fever.
  • photofluorography — photography of images produced by a fluoroscopic examination, used in x-ray examination of the lungs of large groups of people.
  • piece of business — business (def 10).
  • pincushion flower — scabious2 (def 1).
  • pink-footed goose — a Eurasian goose, Anser brachyrhynchus, having a reddish-brown head, pink legs, and a pink band on its black beak
  • plains of abraham — a high plain adjoining the city of Quebec, Canada: battlefield where the English under Wolfe defeated the French under Montcalm in 1759.
  • play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
  • point of presence — (PoP) A site where there exists a collection of telecommunications equipment, usually modems, digital leased lines and multi-protocol routers. An Internet access provider may operate several PoPs distributed throughout their area of operation to increase the chance that their subscribers will be able to reach one with a local telephone call. The alternative is for them to use virtual PoPs (virtual points of presence) via some third party.
  • point of purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • point-of-purchase — designating or in use at a retail outlet where an item can be purchased; point-of-sale: point-of-purchase displays to entice the buyer.
  • poison-arrow frog — a small, bright-colored terrestrial frog of the family Dendrobatidae, of Central and South American rain forests, that secretes a virulent poison from its skin, once used on the tips of Indian hunting arrows.
  • polarizing filter — a camera lens filter used to control the plane of polarization of light entering the lens.
  • political refugee — a person who has fled from a homeland because of political persecution.
  • port orford cedar — a tall tree, Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, of coastal Oregon, having flattened, scalelike foliage and wood highly valued as timber.
  • portfolio manager — a person employed by others to make investments for them
  • positive definite — (of a quadratic form) positive for all real values of the variables, where the values are not all zero.
  • positive feedback — Electronics. the process of returning part of the output of a circuit, system, or device to the input, either to oppose the input (negative feedback) or to aid the input (positive feedback) acoustic feedback.
  • potassium sulfate — a crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 2 SO 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers, alums, and mineral water, and as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
  • potato leafhopper — any of various leafhoppers that are serious pests, damaging a wide variety of cultivated and wild plants, especially potatoes.
  • power of attorney — a written document given by one person or party to another authorizing the latter to act for the former.
  • pre-configuration — the relative disposition or arrangement of the parts or elements of a thing.
  • pre-manifestation — an act of manifesting.
  • pre-modifications — an act or instance of modifying.
  • pre-qualification — a quality, accomplishment, etc., that fits a person for some function, office, or the like.
  • prefect apostolic — the administrator, usually below the rank of bishop, in charge of a prefecture apostolic.
  • preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
  • presiding officer — the person who presides over the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly
  • pro forma invoice — an invoice issued before an order is placed or before the goods are delivered giving all the details and the cost of the goods
  • probation officer — an officer who investigates and reports on the conduct of offenders who are free on probation.
  • procurator fiscal — In the Scottish legal system, the procurator fiscal is a public official who puts people on trial.
  • professional army — an army of trained soldiers
  • professional foul — In football, if a player commits a professional foul, they deliberately do something which is against the rules in order to prevent another player from scoring a goal.
  • proficiency badge — an insignia or device granted by the Girl Scouts and worn especially on a uniform to indicate special achievement.
  • profile component — attainment targets in different subjects brought together for the general assessment of a pupil
  • programming fluid — (jargon)   (Or "wirewater") Coffee, unleaded coffee (decaffeinated), Cola, or any caffeinacious stimulant. Many hackers consider these essential for those all-night hacking runs.
  • proof of coverage — A policyholder's proof of coverage is a document from an insurer stating that they have insurance coverage.
  • proof of identity — a document or documents used to verify someone's identity
  • proof of purchase — a document, such as a receipt, etc, that proves that you have purchased or bought something
  • proof-of-purchase — a sales slip, label, box top, or other item associated with a product that is presentable as evidence of actual purchase, as for claiming a refund or rebate.
  • proportional font — a font type in which the width of letters and symbols varies depending on the letter or symbol
  • protection factor — a figure representing the relative degree of protection from the sun's rays afforded by a particular sunscreen
  • protective tariff — a tariff levied on imports to protect the domestic economy rather than to raise revenue
  • pseudo-scientific — any of various methods, theories, or systems, as astrology, psychokinesis, or clairvoyance, considered as having no scientific basis.
  • publicity officer — a person who is employed to get publicity for an organization, or to provide information about it
  • purple of cassius — a purple pigment precipitated as a sol by the interaction of gold chloride and a solution of stannic acid and stannous chloride: used chiefly in the manufacture of ruby glass, ceramic glazes, and enamels.
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