15-letter words containing p, o, t, s
- double stopping — playing two notes or parts simultaneously on a string instrument
- duelling pistol — one of a pair of identical pistols made specifically for use in duels
- duplicitousness — The state or condition of being duplicitous.
- dystrophication — the process by which a body of water becomes dystrophic.
- east providence — a town in NE Rhode Island, near Providence.
- eclipse scotoma — a blind spot; a permanent or temporary area of depressed or absent vision caused by viewing the sun directly
- editio princeps — first edition.
- edriophthalmous — (of certain crustaceans) having stalkless eyes
- electrodeposits — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of electrodeposit.
- electron optics — the study and use of beams of electrons and of their deflection and focusing by electric and magnetic fields
- electrophoreses — Plural form of electrophoresis.
- electrophoresis — The movement of charged particles in a fluid or gel under the influence of an electric field.
- electropositive — Electrically positive.
- elephant's-foot — a monocotyledonous plant, Testudinaria elephantipes, of southern Africa, with a very large starchy tuberous stem, covered in corky scales: family Dioscoreaceae
- ellipsis points — the characters (… or formerly ***) forming a punctuation mark indicating an intentional omission of words or letters or an abrupt change of thought, lapse of time, incomplete statement, etc.
- emancipationist — An advocate of the emancipation of slaves.
- enantiomorphism — (chemistry) The relationship exhibited by a pair of enantiomorphs.
- enantiomorphous — Of or pertaining to enantiomorphs or enantiomorphism; enantiomorphic.
- enterohepatitis — dual inflammation of the intestine and liver
- enteropeptidase — Enterokinase.
- enterprise zone — An enterprise zone is an area, usually a depressed or inner-city area, where the government offers incentives in order to attract new businesses.
- epidemiologists — Plural form of epidemiologist.
- epistemological — Of or pertaining to epistemology or theory of knowledge, as a field of study.
- epitestosterone — (organic compound) An inactive epimer of the steroid hormone testosterone.
- escape velocity — great enough speed to escape gravity
- esprit de corps — military, sport: team spirit
- ethnopsychology — The scientific study of psychological concepts as they exist across different ethnic groups.
- exceptionalness — The quality of being exceptional.
- existence proof — non-constructive proof
- expansion joint — structural feature: gap to allow for expansion or contraction
- expeditiousness — The state of being expeditious; celerity, rapidity or speed.
- expense account — account for expenses
- export earnings — the earnings of a company or country that are generated through the export of goods or services
- expression tree — (mathematics, grammar) The syntax tree of an expression.
- expressionistic — Expressionist.
- extemporisation — Alternative spelling of extemporization.
- fahnestock clip — a type of terminal using a spring that clamps readily onto a connecting wire.
- fairy footsteps — heavy footsteps
- fallopian tubes — one of a pair of long, slender ducts in the female abdomen that transport ova from the ovary to the uterus and, in fertilization, transport sperm cells from the uterus to the released ova; the oviduct of higher mammals.
- fencepost error — 1. (Rarely "lamp-post error") A problem with the discrete equivalent of a boundary condition, often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10). For example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want to process items m through n; how many items are there? The obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right answer is n - m + 1. The "obvious" formula exhibits a fencepost error. See also zeroth and note that not all off-by-one errors are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one should count one or both ends of a row. 2. (Rare) An error induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or hash coding implementation. The error here involves the difference between expected and worst case behaviours of an algorithm.
- file descriptor — (programming, operating system) An integer that identifies an open file within a process. This number is obtained as a result of opening a file. Operations which read, write, or close a file would take the file descriptor as an input parameter. In many operating system implementations, file descriptors are small integers which index a table of open files. In Unix, file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 correspond to the standard input, standard output and standard error files respectively. See file descriptor leak.
- first responder — a person who is certified to provide medical care in emergencies before more highly trained medical personnel arrive on the scene: a firefighter trained as a first responder.
- fission product — a nuclide produced either directly by nuclear fission or by the radioactive decay of such a nuclide
- floating supply — the aggregate supply of ready-to-market goods or securities.
- flow of spirits — natural happiness
- fluorophosphate — a salt or ester of a fluorophosphoric acid.
- follow-up study — a second study made as a follow-up to an initial study
- follow-up visit — a visit made as a follow-up to an initial visit
- food supplement — a substance designed to make up for a deficiency in one's diet
- foolscap octavo — a book size, 41⁄4 by 63⁄4 inches