24-letter words containing p, u, t
- pluck sth out of the air — If you say that someone plucks a figure, name, or date out of the air, you mean that they say it without thinking much about it before they speak.
- portable document format — (file format) (PDF) The native file format for Adobe Systems' Acrobat. PDF is the file format for representing documents in a manner that is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create those documents. A PDF file can describe documents containing any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device-independent and resolution independent format. These documents can be one page or thousands of pages, very simple or extremely complex with a rich use of fonts, graphics, colour, and images.
- portable scheme debugger — (PSD) A package for source code debugging of R4RS-compliant Scheme under GNU Emacs by Kellom ?ki Pertti <[email protected]>. Version 1.1. Distributed under GNU GPL. It works with scm, Elk and Scheme->C.
- potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
- prairie button snakeroot — a stout composite plant, Liatris pycnostachya, of prairies in the central U.S., having showy, rose-purple flower heads in dense spikes.
- pre-emptive multitasking — (operating system, parallel) A type of multitasking where the scheduler can interrupt and suspend ("swap out") the currently running task in order to start or continue running ("swap in") another task. The tasks under pre-emptive multitasking can be written as though they were the only task and the scheduler decides when to swap them. The scheduler must ensure that when swapping tasks, sufficient state is saved and restored that tasks do not interfere. The length of time for which a process runs is known as its "time slice" and may depend on the task's priority or its use of resources such as memory and I/O. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking where each task must include calls to allow it to be descheduled periodically.
- presumption of innocence — the rebuttable presumption of the innocence of the defendant in a criminal action in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, placing upon the prosecution the burden of proof of the defendant's guilt.
- pretty amazing new stuff — (humour, communications) (PANS) What PSTN is evolving into.
- principal quantum number — the nonnegative, integral quantum number that defines the stationary orbits in the Bohr model of the atom.
- private health insurance — insurance against the need for medical treatment as a private patient
- privileged communication — a communication that one cannot legally be compelled to divulge, as that to a lawyer from a client
- probability distribution — a distribution of all possible values of a random variable together with an indication of their probabilities.
- public access television — television in which local producers or individuals can participate
- public international law — Also called public law. the law governing the legal relations between independent states or nations and, increasingly, between these and individuals.
- public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
- public-access television — a noncommercial system of broadcasting on television channels made available to independent or community groups for programs of general interest to the community.
- punch above one's weight — to do something that is considered to be beyond one's ability
- pure functional language — purely functional language
- put one's house in order — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- put the fear of god into — a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.
- put the show on the road — to set things in operation; start an activity, venture, etc.
- put their heads together — to consult together
- put two and two together — a cardinal number, 1 plus 1.
- pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
- recursive descent parser — (grammar) A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
- repetitive strain injury — overuse strain injury
- repondez s'il vous plait — Répondez s'il vous plait
- reproductive imagination — the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
- republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
- rose-coloured spectacles — If you look at a person or situation through rose-coloured glasses or rose-tinted glasses, you see only their good points and therefore your view of them is unrealistic. In British English, you can also say that someone is looking through rose-coloured spectacles.
- scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
- sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
- single person supplement — an additional sum of money that a hotel charges for one person to stay in a room meant for two people
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- sodium hexametaphosphate — See under Calgon.
- special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
- steak and kidney pudding — beefsteak and kidney in a suet pastry crust, steamed in a basin.
- sulphur-crested cockatoo — a large Australian white parrot, Kakatoe galerita, with a yellow erectile crest
- superheterodyne receiver — a radio receiver that combines two radio-frequency signals by heterodyne action, to produce a signal above the audible frequency limit. This signal is amplified and demodulated to give the desired audio-frequency signal
- supportive psychotherapy — a type of psychotherapy that seeks to reduce psychological conflict and strengthen a patient's defenses through the use of various techniques, as reassurance, suggestion, counseling, and reeducation.
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- telescope user interface — (hardware, interface) (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
- the long-term unemployed — people who have no job and have not worked for a long time
- the occupied territories — the areas of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War
- the proof of the pudding — If you say the proof of the pudding or the proof of the pudding is in the eating, you mean that something new can only be judged to be good or bad after it has been tried or used.
- thompson sub-machine-gun — a .45 calibre sub-machine-gun
- to jump on the bandwagon — If someone, especially a politician, jumps or climbs on the bandwagon, they become involved in an activity or movement because it is fashionable or likely to succeed and not because they are really interested in it.
- to keep your eyes peeled — If you tell someone to keep their eyes peeled for something, you are telling them to watch very carefully for it.
- to light the touch paper — if someone lights the touch paper or lights the blue touch paper, they do something which causes anger or excitement
- to make up for lost time — If someone is making up for lost time, they are doing something actively and with enthusiasm because they have not had the opportunity to do it before or when they were younger.