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18-letter words containing p, o, l, a, r

  • optical disk drive — (hardware)   (Or "optical disc drive", "optical storage") A generic term for any device that reads and/or writes optical media, i.e. compact discs, DVDs and/or Blu-ray discs or future media that uses light (from a small laser) to read data off a removable, rotating disk. At least one such drive is commonly installed in most personal computers to allow them to play and/or record audio and video media and load and store data such as program installers. The floppy disk has been replaced by optical media due to its vastly greater capacity, e.g. 50,000 megabytes for a dual-layer blu-ray disc compared with 1.5 megabytes for a floppy (over 30,000 times as much).
  • optical microscope — traditional magnifying instrument
  • optical soundtrack — the final soundtrack on a motion picture, which appears as a band of black and white serrations along a strip of film to the left of the composite print. Light is shined through the serrations and is converted to audible sound.
  • oracle corporation — (company)   The world's leading supplier of information management software. The company, worth $2 billion, offers its products, along with related consulting, education and support services in more than 90 countries around the world. Oracle is best known for its database management systems vendor and relational DBMS products. Oracle develops and markets Oracle Media Server and the Oracle7 family of software products for database management; Co-operative Development Environment and Oracle Co-operative Applications Oracle software runs on personal digital assistants, set-top boxs, IBM PCs, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes and massively parallel computers. Oracle bought Sun Microsystems on 2009-04-20. See also Adaptable User Interface, Bookviewer, CASE*Method, Component Integration Laboratories, DDE Manager, Online Media, Oracle Card, Oracle*CASE, siod. Address: Redwood Shores, CA, USA.
  • oral contraceptive — birth-control pill.
  • oriental scops owl — any of a group of small owls having ear tufts and a whistling call, especially Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl)
  • orthophthalic acid — Chemistry. any of three isomeric acids having the formula C 8 H 6 O 4 , especially the ortho isomer (orthophthalic acid) a colorless, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid used chiefly in the manufacture of dyes, medicine, and perfume.
  • oscillographically — By means of oscillography.
  • over-extrapolation — to infer (an unknown) from something that is known; conjecture.
  • overcapitalization — The state of being overcapitalized.
  • overspecialization — excessive specialization, as in a field of study.
  • pacinian corpuscle — (sometimes lowercase) a microscopic, onionlike body consisting of layers of connective tissue wrapped around a nerve ending, located in the deep layers of skin, tendons, etc., and functioning as a sensory receptor of pressure and vibration.
  • pair of spectacles — a score of 0 in each innings of a match
  • palaeoanthropology — the branch of anthropology concerned with primitive man
  • palmer archipelago — a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the NW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
  • parallactic motion — the apparent motion of stars due to the earth's orbital motion.
  • parallel computing — parallel processing
  • parallel evolution — the independent development of closely corresponding adaptive features in two or more groups of organisms that occupy different but equivalent habitats, as marsupial mammals in Australia and placental mammals on other continents.
  • parallel importing — the importing of certain goods, esp pharmaceutical drugs, by dealers who undersell local manufacturers
  • parallel processor — (parallel)   A computer with more than one central processing unit, used for parallel processing.
  • parallel reduction — A form of applicative order reduction in which all redexes in an expression are reduced simultaneously. Variants include parallel outermost reduction and lenient reduction. See normal order reduction.
  • parallel resonance — the resonance that results when circuit elements are connected with their inductance and capacitance in parallel, so that the impedance of the combination rises to a maximum at the resonant frequency
  • parallelogram rule — a rule for finding the resultant of two vectors by constructing a parallelogram with two adjacent sides representing the magnitudes and directions of the vectors, the diagonal through the point of intersection of the vectors representing their resultant
  • parathyroid glands — any of several small oval glands usually lying near or embedded in the thyroid gland.
  • partial evaluation — (compiler, algorithm)   (Or "specialisation") An optimisation technique where the compiler evaluates some subexpressions at compile-time. For example, Partial evaluation might change the termination properties of the program if, for example, the expression (x * 0) was reduced to 0 it would terminate even if x (and thus x * 0) did not. It may be necessary to reorder an expression to partially evaluate it, e.g. f x y = (x + y) + 1 g z = f 3 z If we rewrite f: f x y = (x + 1) + y then the expression x+1 becomes a constant for the function g and we can say g z = f 3 z = (3 + 1) + z = 4 + z Partial evaluation of built-in functions applied to constant arguments is known as constant folding. See also full laziness.
  • passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
  • pectoral sandpiper — an American sandpiper, Calidris melanotos, the male of which, when courting, inflates its chest conspicuously.
  • pellitory of spain — a small Mediterranean plant, Anacyclus pyrethrum, the root of which contains an oil formerly used to relieve toothache: family Asteraceae (composites)
  • people trafficking — the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally
  • people's democracy — (in Communist ideology) a country or form of government in transition from bourgeois democracy to socialism. In this stage there is more than one class, the largest being the proletariat, led by the Communist Party, which is therefore the dominant power
  • percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
  • perlocutionary act — the action of affecting someone by uttering certain words
  • personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
  • personal assistant — aide
  • personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
  • personal exemption — Your personal exemption is the amount of money that is deducted from your gross income before you have to start paying income tax.
  • personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
  • personal organizer — a small notebook with sections for personal information, as dates and addresses.
  • pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
  • peter and the wolf — a composition by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1936. It is a children's story with both music and text, spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra
  • phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • phantom withdrawal — the unauthorized removal of funds from a bank account using an automated teller machine
  • philharmonic pitch — a standard of pitch in which A above middle C is established at 440 vibrations per second.
  • phosphatidylserine — any of a class of phospholipids occurring in biological membranes and fats
  • physical geography — the branch of geography concerned with natural features and phenomena of the earth's surface, as landforms, drainage features, climates, soils, and vegetation.
  • physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
  • pileolated warbler — either of two western subspecies of Wilson's warbler.
  • pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
  • plains grasshopper — a large, destructive short-horned grasshopper, Brachystola magna, of the western U.S., marked by pinkish hind wings.
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