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18-letter words containing p, u, i, r

  • countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
  • coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
  • creeping featurism — (jargon)   /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
  • critical apparatus — the variant readings, footnotes, etc found in a scholarly work or a critical edition of a text
  • cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
  • currency principle — the principle that banks should be permitted to issue notes only against bullion or coin.
  • cursor dipped in x — (jargon)   The metaphorical source of the electronic equivalent of a poisoned-pen letter. Derived from English metaphors of the form "pen dipped in X" (where X = e.g. "acid", "bile", "vitriol"). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
  • decision procedure — a procedure, as an algorithm, for determining in a finite number of steps the validity of any of a certain class of propositions.
  • delmarva peninsula — a peninsula of the northeast US, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic
  • descriptive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
  • developing country — a nonindustrialized poor country that is seeking to develop its resources by industrialization
  • devil's paintbrush — a perennial European hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) with leafless flower stalks bearing a cluster of orange-red heads: now a common weed in N U.S. and Canada
  • dietary supplement — a substance taken in addition to what you eat in order to promote health
  • dominican republic — a republic in the West Indies, occupying the E part of the island of Hispaniola. 19,129 sq. mi. (49,545 sq. km). Capital: Santo Domingo.
  • drainpipe trousers — trousers with very narrow legs
  • drop in the bucket — a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.
  • duty-free shopping — the making of duty-free purchases
  • ejaculatio praecox — premature ejaculation during sexual intercourse
  • electrotherapeutic — Relating to electrotherapeutics.
  • energy consumption — amount of energy used
  • entrepreneurialism — The spirit or state of acting in an entrepreneurial manner.
  • epstein-barr virus — a virus belonging to the herpes family that causes infectious mononucleosis; it is also implicated in the development of Burkitt's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease
  • equine herpesvirus — a viral disease of horses that may cause respiratory signs, abortion, neonatal death, and paresis. A vaccine is available against this disease
  • equinoctial spring — either of the two highest spring tides that occur at the equinoxes
  • european community — an economic and political association of European States that came into being in 1967, when the legislative and executive bodies of the European Economic Community merged with those of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: subsumed into the European Union in 1993
  • executive producer — a producer of a film or television programme who is involved with business or technical issues rather than the technical aspects of film or television production
  • exercise equipment — equipment that can be used for exercising, such as tread mills, rowing machines, etc
  • feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
  • fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
  • functional program — (language)   A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
  • funding operations — the conversion of government floating stock or short-term debt into holdings of long-term bonds
  • funeral procession — ceremonial cortège at a burial
  • get one's irish up — of, relating to, or characteristic of Ireland, its inhabitants, or their language.
  • giuseppe garibaldi — Giuseppe [juh-sep-ee;; Italian joo-zep-pe] /dʒəˈsɛp i;; Italian dʒuˈzɛp pɛ/ (Show IPA), 1807–82, Italian patriot and general.
  • glomerulonephritis — a kidney disease affecting the capillaries of the glomeruli, characterized by albuminuria, edema, and hypertension.
  • gnu superoptimiser — (GSO) A function sequence generator that uses an exhaustive generate-and-test approach to find the shortest instruction sequence for a given function. Written by Torbjorn Granlund <[email protected]> and Tom Wood. You have to tell the superoptimiser which function and which CPU you want to get code for. This is useful for compiler writers. FTP superopt-2.2.tar.Z from a GNU archive site. Generates code for DEC Alpha, SPARC, Intel 80386, 88000, RS/6000, 68000, 29000 and Pyramid (SP, AP and XP).
  • golden opportunity — perfect chance
  • grampian mountains — a mountain system of central Scotland, extending from the southwest to the northeast and separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. Highest peak: Ben Nevis, 1344 m (4408 ft)
  • gravitational pull — force of gravity
  • grumbling appendix — a condition in which the appendix causes intermittent pain but appendicitis has not developed
  • gum digger's spear — a long steel probe used by gum diggers digging for kauri gum
  • helicopter gunship — military attack helicopter
  • houghton-le-spring — a town in N England, in Sunderland unitary authority, Tyne and Wear: coal-mining. Pop: 36 746 (2001)
  • human rights group — a group that campaigns for human rights
  • hyper-intellectual — appealing to or engaging the intellect: intellectual pursuits.
  • hyperbilirubinemia — an abnormally high level of bilirubin in the blood, manifested by jaundice, anorexia, and malaise, occurring in association with liver disease and certain hemolytic anemias.
  • hypersexualisation — Alternative spelling of hypersexualization.
  • hypersexualization — The act or process of hypersexualizing.
  • hyposulfurous acid — an acid, H 2 S 2 O 4 , next in a series below sulfurous acid, known only in solution or in the form of its salts.
  • immunopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology concerned with the immune system
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