16-letter words containing p, u, m, l
- people's commune — a usually rural, Communist Chinese social and administrative unit of from 2000 to 4000 families combined for collective farming, fishing, mining, or industrial projects.
- permaculturalist — a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem.
- perpetual motion — the motion of a theoretical mechanism that, without any losses due to friction or other forms of dissipation of energy, would continue to operate indefinitely at the same rate without any external energy being applied to it.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- photograph album — bound book for photos
- photoluminescent — luminescence induced by the absorption of infrared radiation, visible light, or ultraviolet radiation.
- picture moulding — the edge around a framed picture
- pigeon guillemot — a black or brown-speckled seabird of the genus Cepphus, of northern seas, having a sharply pointed black bill, red legs, and white wing patches, as C. grylle (black guillemot) of the North Atlantic and the similar C. columba (pigeon guillemot) of the North Pacific.
- platinum-iridium — (standard) A standard, against which all others of the same category are measured. Usage: silly. The notion is that one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris, as the bar defining the standard metre once was. "This garbage collection algorithm has been tested against the platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris." Compare golden.
- pleasure steamer — a boat powered by steam, used for recreational purposes
- plumber's helper — plunger (def 3).
- plymouth company — a company, formed in England in 1606 to establish colonies in America and that founded a colony in Maine in 1607.
- pneumonic plague — a form of plague characterized by lung involvement.
- political asylum — asylum provided by one nation to refugees, especially political refugees, from another nation.
- print journalism — journalism as practiced in newspapers and magazines.
- pseudohemophilia — a clotting disorder caused by abnormal factor VIII activity, and characterized by a prolonged bleeding time but without the delayed coagulation time of hemophilia.
- psychoimmunology — the branch of medicine studying the effects of psychological phenomena on the immune system; the intersection of psychology and immunology.
- pullorum disease — a highly contagious, frequently fatal disease of young poultry caused by the bacterium Salmonella gallinarum (pullorum), transmitted by the infected hen during egg production, and characterized by weakness, loss of appetite, and diarrhea.
- pulmonary artery — an artery conveying venous blood from the right ventricle of the heart to the lungs.
- pulse modulation — a type of modulation in which a train of pulses is used as the carrier wave, one or more of its parameters, such as amplitude, being modulated or modified in order to carry information
- punctuationalism — punctuated equilibrium.
- put in mothballs — to postpone work on (a project, activity, etc)
- quasi-compulsory — required; mandatory; obligatory: compulsory education.
- quasi-diplomatic — of, relating to, or engaged in diplomacy: diplomatic officials.
- query by example — (database, language) (QBE) A user-friendly query language developed by Moshé Zloof of IBM in 1975.
- redemption value — the price at which the issuing company may choose to repurchase a security before its maturity date
- schaumburg-lippe — a former state in NW Germany.
- self-consumption — the act of consuming, as by use, decay, or destruction.
- sodium pentothal — the sodium salt of thiopental sodium.
- specific impulse — a measure, usually in seconds, of the efficiency with which a rocket engine utilizes its propellants, equal to the number of pounds of thrust produced per pound of propellant burned per second.
- sulfarsphenamine — a yellow, water-soluble, arsenic-containing powder, C 1 4 H 1 4 As 2 N 2 Na 2 O 8 S 2 , formerly used in the treatment of syphilis.
- summer complaint — an acute condition of diarrhea, occurring during the hot summer months chiefly in infants and children, caused by bacterial contamination of food and associated with poor hygiene.
- supernationalism — an extreme or fanatical loyalty or devotion to a nation.
- supranationalism — outside or beyond the authority of one national government, as a project or policy that is planned and controlled by a group of nations.
- swash plate pump — a collar or face plate on a shaft that is inclined at an oblique angle to the axis of rotation and imparts reciprocating motion to push rods parallel to the shaft axis
- taimyr peninsula — a peninsula in the N Russian Federation in Asia, between the Kara and Laptev seas.
- take one's lumps — a piece or mass of solid matter without regular shape or of no particular shape: a lump of coal.
- telephone number — digits dialled to reach sb by phone
- to put it mildly — to state it with or as if with restraint
- to speak volumes — If something such as an action speaks volumes about a person or thing, it gives you a lot of information about them.
- topless swimsuit — swimsuit which has no covering for the breasts
- torsion pendulum — a pendulum the weight of which is rotated alternately in opposite directions through a horizontal plane by the torsion of the suspending rod or spring: used for clocks intended to run a long time between windings.
- ultramicroscopic — an instrument that uses scattering phenomena to detect the position of objects too small to be seen by an ordinary microscope.
- unaccomplishable — to bring to its goal or conclusion; carry out; perform; finish: to accomplish one's mission.
- uncomprehensible — capable of being comprehended or understood; intelligible.
- uncompromisingly — not admitting of compromise or adjustment of differences; making no concessions; inaccessible to flexible bargaining; unyielding: an uncompromising attitude.
- under-employment — employed at a job that does not fully use one's skills or abilities.
- unimpressionable — easily impressed or influenced; susceptible: an impressionable youngster.
- unimproved value — the valuation of land for rating purposes, disregarding the value of buildings or other development
- unix manual page — (operating system) (Or "man page") A part of Unix's extensive on-line documentation. To read a manual page from the Unix command line, type: man [-s
] e.g. "man ftp" (the section number can usually be omitted). Pages are traditionally referred to using the notation "page(section)", e.g. ftp(1). Under SunOS (which is fairly typical), Section 1 covers commands, 2 system calls, 3 C library routines, 4 devices and networks, 5 file formats, 6 games and demos, 7 miscellaneous, 8 system administration. Each section has an introduction which can be obtained with, e.g., "man 2 intro". Manual pages are stored as nroff source files. Formatted versions are also usually cached. Man pages for most versions of Unix are available on-line in HTML.