17-letter words containing p, r, i, e
- banking principle — the principle that bank notes are a form of credit and should be issued freely in order to maintain an elastic currency.
- bari delle puglie — Italian name of Bari.
- bbc microcomputer — A series of 6502-based personal computers launched by Acorn Computers Ltd. in January 1982, for use in the British Broadcasting Corporation's educational programmes on computing. The computers are noted for their reliability (many are still in active service in 1994) and both hardware and software were designed for easy expansion. The 6502-based computers were succeeded in 1987 by the Acorn Archimedes family.
- be sitting pretty — If you say that someone is sitting pretty, you mean that they are in a good, safe, or comfortable position.
- behaviour therapy — any of various means of treating psychological disorders, such as desensitization, aversion therapy, and instrumental conditioning, that depend on the patient systematically learning new modes of behaviour
- belleville spring — a spring having the form of a washer or dished disk with an open center, used for cushioning heavy loads with short motion.
- beyond comparison — outstanding, without equal
- beyond redemption — If you say that someone or something is beyond redemption, you mean that they are so bad it is unlikely that anything can be done to improve them.
- biological parent — a parent who has conceived (biological mother) or sired (biological father) rather than adopted a child and whose genes are therefore transmitted to the child.
- biopharmaceutical — of or relating to drugs produced using biotechnology
- boileau-despreaux — Nicolas [nee-kaw-lah] /ni kɔˈlɑ/ (Show IPA), 1636–1711, French critic and poet.
- boiler horsepower — a unit of measurement of the ability of a boiler to evaporate water, usually given as the ability to evaporate 34½ pounds (15.6 kg) of water an hour, into dry saturated steam from and at 212°F (100°C).
- book depreciation — Book depreciation is depreciation in a company's internal financial records that is different from the amount that is used for taxes.
- boolean operation — any operation in which each of the operands and the result take one of two values.
- branch prediction — (processor, algorithm) A technique used in some processors with instruction prefetch to guess whether a conditional branch will be taken or not and prefetch code from the appropriate location. When a branch instruction is executed, its address and that of the next instruction executed (the chosen destination of the branch) are stored in the Branch Target Buffer. This information is used to predict which way the instruction will branch the next time it is executed so that instruction prefetch can continue. When the prediction is correct (and it is over 90% of the time), executing a branch does not cause a pipeline break. Some later CPUs simply prefetch both paths instead of trying to predict which way the branch will go. An extension of the idea of branch prediction is speculative execution.
- brazilian peridot — a light yellowish-green tourmaline used as a gem: not a true peridot.
- breach of promise — (formerly) failure to carry out one's promise to marry
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- butternut pumpkin — a variety of pumpkin, eaten as vegetable
- california privet — a privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, of the olive family, native to Japan, having glossy, oval leaves and long clusters of white flowers, widely used for hedges in the U.S.
- camp-fire-members — a U.S. organization for girls and boys that emphasizes the building of character and good citizenship through work, health, and love; originally founded for girls (Camp Fire girls) in 1910, it is now open to both boys and girls (Camp Fire members)
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- cancer specialist — a medical professional who specializes in the treatment or study of malignant growths or tumours
- canine parvovirus — a highly contagious viral disease of dogs characterized by vomiting, haemorrhagic diarrhoea, depression, and, in severe cases, death
- capital structure — the way that a company finances its assets through a combination of equity, debt etc
- carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
- carbon microphone — a microphone in which a diaphragm, vibrated by sound waves, applies a varying pressure to a container packed with carbon granules, altering the resistance of the carbon. A current flowing through the carbon is thus modulated at the frequency of the sound waves
- cardiac pacemaker — a small area of specialized tissue within the wall of the right atrium of the heart whose spontaneous electrical activity initiates and controls the beat of the heart
- cardiac tamponade — tamponade (def 2).
- cardiac-tamponade — Medicine/Medical. the use of a tampon, as to stop a hemorrhage.
- cardio striptease — a form of keep-fit exercise in which people move their bodies in the manner of striptease artists
- cardiorespiratory — of, relating to, or affecting the heart and respiratory system.
- carolina allspice — any of a genus (Calycanthus) of hardy shrubs (family Calycanthaceae) of a dicotyledonous order (Laurales) of plants, bearing reddish-brown, sweet-smelling flowers
- carolina parakeet — an extinct New World parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis, that ranged into the northern U.S., having yellowish-green plumage with an orange-yellow head.
- cartesian product — the set of all ordered pairs of members of two given sets. The product A × B is the set of all pairs <a, b> where a is a member of A and b is a member of B
- caterpillar track — A Caterpillar track is a linked metal chain fastened around the wheels of a heavy vehicle to help it to move over rough ground.
- centripetal force — a force that acts inwards on any body that rotates or moves along a curved path and is directed towards the centre of curvature of the path or the axis of rotation
- chelsea pensioner — an old ex-soldier resident in the Chelsea Royal Hospital
- chemical property — Chemistry. a property or characteristic of a substance that is observed during a reaction in which the chemical composition or identity of the substance is changed: Combustibility is an important chemical property to consider when choosing building materials.
- chemoradiotherapy — (medicine) A combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy used to treat some cancers.
- chemotherapeutics — chemotherapy.
- chest compression — Chest compression is the act of applying pressure to someone's chest in order to help blood flow through the heart in an emergency situation.
- chinagraph pencil — a coloured pencil used for writing on china, glass, etc
- chord progression — movement from chord to chord
- choreographically — As if choreographed.
- christmas present — a present given at Christmas time, typically on Christmas Day
- circumscriptively — In a circumscriptive manner.
- civil partnership — A civil partnership is a legal relationship between two people of the same sex that is similar to marriage.
- class-a amplifier — an electronic amplifier in which the output current flows for the whole of the input signal cycle
- class-b amplifier — an electronic amplifier in which the output flows for half of the input signal cycle