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19-letter words containing p, r

  • pirates of penzance — an operetta (1879) by Sir William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
  • pistachio ice cream — ice cream flavoured with pistachios
  • planning permission — In Britain, planning permission is official permission that you must get from the local authority before building something new or adding something to an existing building.
  • plastic deformation — In plastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it and does not go back to its original state when the stress is removed.
  • play to the gallery — a raised area, often having a stepped or sloping floor, in a theater, church, or other public building to accommodate spectators, exhibits, etc.
  • pneumoencephalogram — an encephalogram made after the replacement of the cerebrospinal fluid by air or gas, rarely used since the development of the CAT scanner.
  • pneumogastric nerve — the vagus nerve.
  • pocket-handkerchief — handkerchief (def 1).
  • poincare conjecture — Mathematics. the question of whether a compact, simply connected three-dimensional manifold is topologically equivalent to a three-dimensional sphere.
  • point the finger at — to accuse or blame
  • pointe-aux-trembles — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, N of Montreal, on the St. Lawrence.
  • police headquarters — building where police are stationed
  • police intervention — the physical involvement of police officers in an incident, esp where officers use force to control public disorder, such as a riot
  • political geography — the branch of human geography that deals with the relationship between political processes and spatial structures (regions, territories, etc)
  • politically correct — marked by or adhering to a typically progressive orthodoxy on issues involving especially ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or ecology: The actor’s comment about unattractive women was not politically correct. The CEO feels that people who care about being politically correct are overly sensitive. Abbreviations: PC, P.C.
  • polycarboxylic acid — a type of carboxylic acid containing two or more carboxyl groups
  • polyphonic ringtone — (in mobile phones) a ringtone in which more than one musical note is played at the same time
  • polyphosphoric acid — any one of a series of oxyacids of phosphorus with the general formula Hn+2PnO3n+1. The first member is pyrophosphoric acid (n = 2) and the series includes the highly polymeric metaphosphoric acid. The higher acids exist in an equilibrium mixture
  • polytene chromosome — a giant, cross-banded chromosome that results from multiple replication of its genetic material with the duplicated chromatin strands remaining closely associated.
  • popular sovereignty — the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people and that those chosen to govern, as trustees of such power, must exercise it in conformity with the general will.
  • population pressure — the force exerted by a growing population upon its environment, resulting in dispersal or reduction of the population.
  • port jackson willow — an Australian acacia tree, Acacia cyanophylla, introduced in the 19th century into South Africa, where it is now regarded as a pest
  • portobello mushroom — a dark mushroom, strong in flavor, having a broad, flat cap that is often grilled and eaten
  • portuguese-speaking — being a speaker of Portuguese; having Portuguese as the national language
  • post office problem — (algorithm)   Given a set of points (in N dimensions), find another point which minimises the sum of the distances from that point to each of the others.
  • post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
  • post-polio syndrome — Pathology. muscle weakness occurring several decades after recovery from a polio infection, caused by fatiguing of collateral nerve axons developed during physical rehabilitation.
  • posterior pituitary — a small, somewhat cherry-shaped double structure attached by a stalk to the base of the brain and constituting the master endocrine gland affecting all hormonal functions in the body, consisting of an anterior region ((anterior pituitary) or (adenohypophysis)) that develops embryonically from the roof of the mouth and that secretes growth hormone, LH, FSH, ACTH, TSH, and MSH, a posterior region ((posterior pituitary) or (neurohypophysis)) that develops from the back of the forebrain and that secretes the hormones vasopressin and oxytocin, and an intermediate part (pars intermedia) derived from the anterior region but joined to the posterior region, that secretes the hormone MSH in lower vertebrates.
  • postsynchronization — the process of adding sound, such as dubbing, to a film or video after shooting or videotaping is completed
  • posttranscriptional — Genetics, Biochemistry. occurring after the formation of RNA from DNA but before the RNA strand leaves the nucleus.
  • potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
  • potassium hydroxide — a white, deliquescent, water-soluble solid, KOH, usually in the form of lumps, sticks, or pellets, that upon solution in water generates heat: used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, as a laboratory reagent, and as a caustic.
  • prairie rattlesnake — a rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis viridis, of the prairies of western North America.
  • pre-order traversal — traversal
  • preach to the choir — to express an opinion to someone who is already in agreement with it
  • predicate adjective — an adjective used in the predicate, especially with a copulative verb and attributive to the subject, as in He is dead, or attributive to the direct object, as in It made him sick.
  • predicate objective — objective complement.
  • preferential voting — a system of voting designed to permit the voter to indicate an order of preference for the candidates on the ballot.
  • preliminary hearing — initial court session
  • preproduction model — a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
  • preproduction trial — a trial to test a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
  • prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
  • presentation skills — the set of techniques and skills required successfully to present oral information to others
  • presidente prudente — a city in central Brazil.
  • presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
  • pretty as a picture — girl: sweetly attractive
  • pretty good privacy — (tool, cryptography)   (PGP) A high security RSA public-key encryption application for MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and other computers. It was written by Philip R. Zimmermann <[email protected]> of Phil's Pretty Good(tm) Software and later augmented by a cast of thousands, especially including Hal Finney, Branko Lankester, and Peter Gutmann. PGP was distributed as "guerrilla freeware". The authors don't mind if it is distributed widely, just don't ask Philip Zimmermann to send you a copy. PGP uses a public-key encryption algorithm claimed by US patent #4,405,829. The exclusive rights to this patent are held by a California company called Public Key Partners, and you may be infringing this patent if you use PGP in the USA. This is explained in the PGP User's Guide, Volume II. PGP allows people to exchange files or messages with privacy and authentication. Privacy and authentication are provided without managing the keys associated with conventional cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed to exchange keys between users, which makes PGP much easier to use. This is because PGP is based on public-key cryptography. PGP encrypts data using the International Data Encryption Algorithm with a random session key, and uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the session key. In December 1994 Philip Zimmermann faced prosecution for "exporting" PGP out of the United States but in January 1996 the US Goverment dropped the case. A US law prohibits the export of encryption software out of the country. Zimmermann did not do this, but the US government hoped to establish the proposition that posting an encryption program on a BBS or on the Internet constitutes exporting it - in effect, stretching export control into domestic censorship. If the government had won it would have had a chilling effect on the free flow of information on the global network, as well as on everyone's privacy from government snooping.
  • preventive medicine — the branch of medical science that deals with prevention of disease.
  • prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
  • pride and prejudice — a novel (1813) by Jane Austen (written 1796–97).
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