24-letter words containing p, r, e, s, d
- licensed practical nurse — a person who has graduated from an accredited school of nursing and has become licensed to provide basic nursing care under the supervision of a physician or registered nurse. Abbreviation: LPN.
- local loopback addresses — The special Internet address, 127.0.0.1, defined by the Internet Protocol. A host can use local the loopback address to send messages to itself.
- long-spined sea scorpion — Cottus bubalis or Taurulus bubalis
- mandy rice-davis applies — (chat) (MRDA) An acronym used to imply that someone is lying to protect their own interests. During the trial of Stephen Ward (who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Rice-Davies), the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied any involvement with her and Rice-Davies replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"
- manic-depressive illness — bipolar disorder.
- open software foundation — (body) (OSF) A foundation created by nine computer vendors, (Apollo, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Bull, Nixdorf, Philips, Siemens and Hitachi) to promote "Open Computing". It is planned that common operating systems and interfaces, based on developments of Unix and the X Window System will be forthcoming for a wide range of different hardware architectures. OSF announced the release of the industry's first open operating system - OSF/1 on 23 October 1990.
- passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
- phosphorus sesquisulfide — (not in scientific use) a yellow, crystalline, flammable substance, P 4 S 3 , insoluble in cold water and decomposed by hot water: used chiefly in organic synthesis and in the manufacture of matches.
- port address translation — (networking) (PAT) A function provided by some routers which allows hosts on a LAN to communicate with the rest of a network (such as the Internet) without revealing their own private IP address. All outbound packets have their IP address translated to the routers external IP address. Replies come back to the router which then translates them back into the private IP address of the original host for final delivery. Compare SOCKS.
- portable scheme debugger — (PSD) A package for source code debugging of R4RS-compliant Scheme under GNU Emacs by Kellom ?ki Pertti <[email protected]>. Version 1.1. Distributed under GNU GPL. It works with scm, Elk and Scheme->C.
- preparatory to doing sth — If one action is done preparatory to another, it is done before the other action, usually as preparation for it.
- present company excepted — If you are making a general, unfavourable comment about a particular type of person, and you are with people of that type, you can say 'present company excepted' as a way of making your comment sound more polite.
- put one's house in order — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- put the show on the road — to set things in operation; start an activity, venture, etc.
- put their heads together — to consult together
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- rain on someone's parade — to hinder someone's enjoyment; upset someone's plans
- rapid eye movement sleep — REM sleep.
- recursive descent parser — (grammar) A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- research and development — the part of a commercial company's activity concerned with applying the results of scientific research to develop new products and improve existing ones
- rose-coloured spectacles — If you look at a person or situation through rose-coloured glasses or rose-tinted glasses, you see only their good points and therefore your view of them is unrealistic. In British English, you can also say that someone is looking through rose-coloured spectacles.
- serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
- shenandoah national park — a national park in N Virginia, including part of the Blue Ridge mountain range. 302 sq. mi. (782 sq. km).
- short-horned grasshopper — locust (def 1).
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- split image range finder — a range finder in which opposing halves of a split field move relative to each other and coincide when the object centered in the field is in focus.
- staggered pin grid array — (hardware) (SPGA) A style of integrated circuit socket or pin-out with a staggered grid of pins around the edge of the socket, positioned as several squares, one inside the other. SPGA is commonly used on motherboards for processors, e.g. Socket 5, Socket 7 and Socket 8. See also PGA.
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- sulphur-crested cockatoo — a large Australian white parrot, Kakatoe galerita, with a yellow erectile crest
- superheterodyne receiver — a radio receiver that combines two radio-frequency signals by heterodyne action, to produce a signal above the audible frequency limit. This signal is amplified and demodulated to give the desired audio-frequency signal
- the occupied territories — the areas of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War
- the star-spangled banner — Stars and Stripes.
- three-spined stickleback — a small teleost fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, of the family Gasterosteidae, of rivers and coastal regions, having three spines along the back and occurring in cold and temperate northern regions
- to keep your eyes peeled — If you tell someone to keep their eyes peeled for something, you are telling them to watch very carefully for it.
- tricyclic antidepressant — pertaining to or embodying three cycles.
- trisodium orthophosphate — a sodium salt of orthophosphoric acid having the formula Na3PO4
- ultra low sulphur diesel — a type of diesel fuel that has a low sulphur content
- usb adapter card support — (communications, software) A set of software extensions that provide support for USB adapter cards installed in the PCI bus or Cardbus slots in Macintosh computers that do not have built-in USB ports.
- yellow-bellied sapsucker — a woodpecker, Sphyrapicus varius, of eastern North America, having a red patch on the forehead and black and white plumage with a pale-yellow abdomen, and feeding on sap from trees.