17-letter words containing p, u
- blowout preventer — A blowout preventer is a valve that can be closed when there is uncontrolled flow of fluids.
- boileau-despreaux — Nicolas [nee-kaw-lah] /ni kɔˈlɑ/ (Show IPA), 1636–1711, French critic and poet.
- boothia peninsula — a peninsula of N Canada: the northernmost part of the mainland of North America, lying west of the Gulf of Boothia, an arm of the Arctic Ocean
- bottom-up testing — (programming) An integration testing technique that tests the low-level components first using test drivers for those components that have not yet been developed to call the low-level components for test. Compare bottom-up implementation.
- boulder raspberry — a shrub, Rubus deliciosus, of Colorado, having large white flowers and purple fruit.
- bring up the rear — to be at the back in a procession, race, etc
- buckingham palace — the London residence of the British sovereign: built in 1703, rebuilt by John Nash in 1821–36 and partially redesigned in the early 20th century
- bulbous buttercup — a European buttercup, Ranunculus bulbosus, having yellow flowers in irregular branching clusters: a common weed in North America.
- burton-upon-trent — a town in W central England, in E Staffordshire: famous for brewing. Pop: 43 784 (2001)
- business envelope — an envelope into which standard-size (81⁄2″ × 11″) letterhead stationery can be put with only two folds
- butternut pumpkin — a variety of pumpkin, eaten as vegetable
- by return of post — by the next mail in the opposite direction
- café-au-lait spot — a brown patch on the skin that can occur normally in small numbers or in neurofibromatosis, when they are more numerous
- calcium phosphate — the insoluble nonacid calcium salt of orthophosphoric acid (phosphoric(V) acid): it occurs in bones and is the main constituent of bone ash. Formula: Ca3(PO4)2
- campus university — a university in which the buildings, often including shops and cafés, are all on one site
- canine parvovirus — a highly contagious viral disease of dogs characterized by vomiting, haemorrhagic diarrhoea, depression, and, in severe cases, death
- capacity audience — a situation when the maximum number of people possible are watching an event
- cape horn current — the part of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current flowing E at Cape Horn.
- capital equipment — the equipment that a business buys
- capital structure — the way that a company finances its assets through a combination of equity, debt etc
- captain's biscuit — a type of hard fancy biscuit
- carbon disulphide — a colourless slightly soluble volatile flammable poisonous liquid commonly having a disagreeable odour due to the presence of impurities: used as an organic solvent and in the manufacture of rayon and carbon tetrachloride. Formula: CS2
- cartesian product — the set of all ordered pairs of members of two given sets. The product A × B is the set of all pairs <a, b> where a is a member of A and b is a member of B
- castor and pollux — the twin sons of Leda: Pollux was fathered by Zeus, Castor by the mortal Tyndareus. After Castor's death, Pollux spent half his days with his half-brother in Hades and half with the gods in Olympus
- catapult-launched — (of aircraft) launched into the air by a device installed in warships
- causality paradox — the hypothetical cause-and-effect of time travel and making changes in the past that would affect current actions.
- chadless keypunch — (hardware) A card punch which cut little U-shapes in punched cards, rather than punching out a circle or rectangle. The U's made a hole when folded back. One of the Jargon File's correspondents believed that the term "chad" derived from the Chadless keypunch. Obviously, if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the stuff that other keypunches made had to be "chad". The assertion that the keypunch was named after its inventor is not supported by any record in US or UK patents or surname references.
- chemotherapeutics — chemotherapy.
- chincoteague pony — a wild pony found on certain islands off the Virginia coast, apparently descended from Moorish ponies shipwrecked in this vicinity in the 16th century.
- christmas pudding — Christmas pudding is a special pudding that is eaten at Christmas.
- chukchi peninsula — a peninsula in the extreme NE of Russia, in NE Siberia: mainly tundra
- church triumphant — those Christians in heaven who have triumphed over evil and the enemies of Christ.
- circumscriptively — In a circumscriptive manner.
- close punctuation — punctuation in which many commas, full stops, etc, are used
- club subscription — an amount of money that someone pays regularly in order to belong to a club
- clumber (spaniel) — a short-legged spaniel with a heavy body and a thick coat of straight, white hair marked with yellow or orange
- color temperature — a temperature defined in terms of the temperature of a black body at which it emits light of a specified spectral distribution: used to specify the color of a light source.
- colour photograph — a photograph that is developed and printed in colour
- colour separation — the division of a coloured original into cyan, magenta, yellow, and black so that plates may be made for print reproduction. Separation may be achieved by electronic scanning or by photographic techniques using filters to isolate each colour
- colour supplement — A colour supplement is a colour magazine which is one of the sections of a newspaper, especially at weekends.
- communication gap — a lack of communication
- commuter airplane — air taxi.
- compilation album — a musical recording consisting of works chosen for a particular purpose or theme
- complement clause — a subordinate clause that functions as the subject, direct object, or prepositional object of a verb, as that you like it in I'm surprised that you like it.
- complete fracture — a bone fracture in which the bone is split completely across.
- complex conjugate — the complex number whose imaginary part is the negative of that of a given complex number, the real parts of both numbers being equal
- complex-conjugate — one of a group of conjugate words.
- compound fraction — complex fraction
- compound fracture — A compound fracture is a fracture in which the broken bone sticks through the skin.
- compound interest — Compound interest is interest that is calculated both on an original sum of money and on interest which has previously been added to the sum. Compare simple interest.