0%

20-letter words containing p, r, i, e

  • peremptory exception — a plea in bar of an action.
  • periarteritis nodosa — polyarteritis.
  • period of revolution — a rather large interval of time that is meaningful in the life of a person, in history, etc., because of its particular characteristics: a period of illness; a period of great profitability for a company; a period of social unrest in Germany.
  • periodontal membrane — the collagenous, fibrous connective tissue between the cementum of the tooth and the alveolus.
  • permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • peroxyacetyl nitrate — an unstable nitrogen compound, found in certain types of smog, that is an irritant, esp. to the eyes and to plants
  • peroxysulphuric acid — a white hygroscopic crystalline unstable oxidizing acid. Formula: H2SO5
  • perpendicular gothic — the style of Gothic architecture in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by tracery having vertical lines, a four-centred arch, and fan vaulting
  • personal cleanliness — physical cleanliness; the cleanliness of a person's body and habits
  • personality disorder — any of a group of mental disorders characterized by deeply ingrained maladaptive patterns of behavior and personality style, which are usually recognizable as early as adolescence and are often lifelong in duration.
  • peruvian mastic tree — a pepper tree, Schinus molle.
  • pessimising compiler — /pes'*-mi:z"ing k*m-pi:l"r/ (Antonym of "optimising compiler") A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimise the program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.
  • pest control officer — a person who gets rid of pests such as rats and mice
  • phillips screwdriver — a screwdriver that has a cross at the tip that is intended to be used with Phillips screws
  • phillips-screwdriver — a screw head having two partial slots crossed at right angles, driven by a special screwdriver (Phillips screwdriver)
  • philoprogenitiveness — producing offspring, especially abundantly; prolific.
  • phosphoric anhydride — phosphorus pentoxide.
  • phosphorus pentoxide — a white, deliquescent, crystalline powder, P 2 O 5 , that, depending upon the amount of water it absorbs, forms orthophosphoric acid, metaphosphoric acid, or pyrophosphoric acid, produced by the burning of phosphorus in dry air: used in the preparation of phosphoric acids, as a drying and dehydrating agent, and in organic synthesis.
  • photoelectric effect — the phenomenon in which the absorption of electromagnetic radiation, as light, of sufficiently high frequency by a surface, usually metallic, induces the emission of electrons from the surface.
  • photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
  • phthalocyanine green — a pigment used in painting, derived from chlorinated copper phthalocyanine and characterized chiefly by its intense green color and permanence.
  • physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
  • physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
  • pick someone's brain — to obtain information or ideas from someone
  • pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
  • pico della mirandola — Count Giovanni [jaw-vahn-nee] /dʒɔˈvɑn ni/ (Show IPA), 1463–94, Italian humanist and writer.
  • piezoelectric effect — the property exhibited by some nonconducting crystals of becoming electrically polarized when mechanically strained and of becoming mechanically strained when an electric field is applied.
  • pipeline burst cache — (hardware, storage)   (PB Cache) A synchronous cache built from pipelined SRAM. A cache in which reading or writing a new location takes multiple cycles but subsequent locations can be accessed in a single cycle. On Pentium systems in 1996, pipeline burst caches are frequently used as secondary caches. The first 8 bytes of data are transferred in 3 CPU cycles, and the next 3 8-byte pieces of data are transferred in one cycle each.
  • planetary precession — the small component of the precession of the equinoxes contributed by the motion of the ecliptic, the change in orientation of the plane of the earth's orbit being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets.
  • play merry hell with — to disturb greatly; disrupt
  • polaroid land camera — any of several types of camera yielding a finished print by means of a special developing and processing technique that occurs inside the camera and takes only a few seconds to complete
  • polyconic projection — a conic projection in which the parallels are arcs of circles that are not concentric but are equally spaced along the central straight meridian, all other meridians being curves equally spaced along the parallels.
  • polyvinylidene resin — any of the class of thermoplastic resins derived by the polymerization or copolymerization of a polyvinylidene compound, used similarly to the polyvinyl resins.
  • polyvinylpyrrolidone — a white, amorphous, water-soluble powder, (C 6 H 9 NO) n , used chiefly as a vehicle in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
  • poor man's something — a (cheaper) substitute for something
  • population inversion — a condition of matter in which more electrons are in a high energy state than in a lower energy state, as is required for the operation of a laser.
  • population parameter — a quantity or statistical measure that, for a given population, is fixed and that is used as the value of a variable in some general distribution or frequency function to make it descriptive of that population: The mean and variance of a population are population parameters.
  • porcupine provisions — provisions, such as poison pills or staggered directorships, made in the bylaws of a company to deter takeover bids
  • portfolio employment — the practice of working for several employers simultaneously rather than working full-time for a single employer
  • positive electricity — the electricity present in a body or substance that has a deficiency of electrons, as the electricity developed on glass when rubbed with silk.
  • post office protocol — (messaging, protocol)   (POP) A protocol designed to allow single-user computers to retrieve electronic mail from a POP server via TCP/IP. The default port is 110. The POP server might be a computer with a permanent Internet connection whereas its clients might only connect to it occasionally, e.g. by modem. There are (in 1994) three versions: POP, POP2, and POP3. Later versions are NOT compatible with earlier ones.
  • postal delivery zone — zone (def 10).
  • postcode prescribing — the practice of prescribing more or less expensive and effective medical treatments to patients depending on where they live in a country, and which treatments their health board is willing and able to provide
  • posted write-through — A cache with a posted write-through policy (e.g. Intel 80386) delays the write-back to main memory until the bus is not in use.
  • postnatal depression — a form of clinical depression that occurs in mothers after the birth of a baby
  • potassium bichromate — an orange-red, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous powder, K 2 Cr 2 O 7 , used chiefly in dyeing, photography, and as a laboratory reagent.
  • potassium bitartrate — cream of tartar.
  • potassium dichromate — an orange-red crystalline soluble solid substance that is a good oxidizing agent and is used in making chrome pigments and as a bleaching agent. Formula: K2Cr2O7
  • potassium-bitartrate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 4 H 5 KO 6 , used chiefly as an ingredient in baking powders and in galvanic tinning of metals. Also called potassium bitartrate, potassium acid tartrate. Compare tartar (def 3).
  • potential difference — voltage
Was this page helpful?
Yes No
Thank you for your feedback! Tell your friends about this page
Tell us why?