21-letter words containing p, u, l, e, c
- nuclear power station — a station or plant where nuclear energy is converted into heat, electricity, etc
- occupational guidance — advice and guidance relating to employment issues and career choices
- optical double (star) — double star (sense 2)
- packed encoding rules — (protocol, standard) (PER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing a compact transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1, defined in 1994. PER provides a much more compact encoding then BER. It tries to represents the data units using the minimum number of bits. The compactness requires that the decoder knows the complete abstract syntax of the data structure to be decoded, however. Documents: ITU-T X.691, ISO 8825-2.
- peroxydisulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 2).
- photoelectric current — photocurrent.
- phrase-structure rule — a rule that generates a sentence or other syntactic construction from words and phrases and identifies its constituent structure.
- picture quality scale — (graphics) (PQS) A system for rating image quality based upon features of images that affect their perception by the human eye, rather than the traditional signal-to-noise ratio which examines differences for every single pixel.
- pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
- place of articulation — the location at which two speech organs approach or come together in producing a speech sound, as in the contact of the tongue and the teeth to form a dental sound. Also called point of articulation. Compare articulator (def 2).
- plate glass insurance — Plate glass insurance is insurance coverage against damage to or breakage of large panes of glass such as shop windows.
- play with a full deck — Nautical. a floorlike surface wholly or partially occupying one level of a hull, superstructure, or deckhouse, generally cambered, and often serving as a member for strengthening the structure of a vessel. the space between such a surface and the next such surface above: Our stateroom was on B deck.
- pneumoencephalography — encephalography.
- premature ejaculation — a male psychosexual disorder in which ejaculation occurs soon after the commencement of sexual intercourse.
- pressure-vacuum valve — a valve for relieving a sealed tank of any pressure or vacuum exceeding acceptable limits.
- prince rupert's metal — a brass composed of from about 60 to 85 percent copper and about 15 to 40 percent zinc, used to imitate gold.
- pseudo-cleft sentence — cleft sentence (def 2).
- psychoneuroimmunology — the study of the effects of psychological factors on the immune system
- public address system — loudspeaker
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- public-address system — a combination of electronic devices that makes sound audible via loudspeakers to many people, as in an auditorium or out of doors.
- public-key encryption — (cryptography) (PKE, Or "public-key cryptography") An encryption scheme, introduced by Diffie and Hellman in 1976, where each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person's public key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient's public key and can only be decrypted using his private key. This is often used in conjunction with a digital signature. The need for sender and receiver to share secret information (keys) via some secure channel is eliminated: all communications involve only public keys, and no private key is ever transmitted or shared. Public-key encryption can be used for authentication, confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation. See also knapsack problem.
- pulse code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- pulse-code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- purple-fringed orchid — either of two orchids, Habenaria fimbriata or H. psycodes, of eastern North America, having a cluster of fragrant purple flowers with a fringed lip.
- purple-fringed orchis — either of two North American orchids (Habenaria psycodes and H. fimbriata) with purple-fringed flowers
- put sb in their place — If you put someone in their place, you show them that they are less important or clever than they think they are.
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- rectangular hyperbola — a hyperbola with perpendicular asymptotes
- remote procedure call — (networking, programming) (RPC) A protocol which allows a program running on one host to cause code to be executed on another host without the programmer needing to explicitly code for this. RPC is an easy and popular paradigm for implementing the client-server model of distributed computing. An RPC is initiated by the caller (client) sending request message to a remote system (the server) to execute a certain procedure using arguments supplied. A result message is returned to the caller. There are many variations and subtleties in various implementations, resulting in a variety of different (incompatible) RPC protocols.
- return the compliment — repay sb's kindness with a kind act
- roll with the punches — a thrusting blow, especially with the fist.
- round-necked pullover — a sweater with a plain round neckline
- scalar triple product — the volume of the parallelepiped defined by three given vectors, u, v, and w, usually represented as u·v 1 (v×w), [ uvw ], or (uvw), where × denotes a cross product and · denotes an inner product.
- school superintendent — an official whose job is to oversee school administration within a district
- simple actor language — (language) (SAL) A minimal actor language, used for teaching in:
- sinusoidal projection — an equal-area projection in which parallels are straight lines spaced at regular intervals, the central meridian is a straight line one-half the length of the equator, and the other meridians are curves symmetrical to the central meridian.
- social inquiry report — (in Britain) a report on a person and his or her circumstances, which may be required by a court before sentencing and is made by a probation officer or a social worker from a local authority social services department
- space shuttle orbiter — orbiter (def 1).
- special court-martial — a court-martial established to try violations of military law less serious than those tried by a general court-martial but more serious than those tried by a summary court-martial.
- spicebush swallowtail — a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus, having a dark body with yellow spots on the forewings and greenish hind wings.
- sport utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- sport-utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- stop loss reinsurance — Stop loss reinsurance is a form of reinsurance under which the reinsurer pays the cedant's losses in any year over a particular percentage of the earned premium.
- subjective complement — subject complement.
- subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
- supergranulation cell — one of a number of large convection cells in the photosphere and chromosphere of the sun, each having a diameter of 10,000–20,000 miles (16,000–32,000 km) and lasting longer than a day.
- supply-side economics — a school of economic thought that emphasizes the importance to a strong economy of policies that remove impediments to supply
- thermoelectric couple — thermocouple.
- to be public property — to be publicly owned