18-letter words containing p, v, s

overspecialization — excessive specialization, as in a field of study.
passive euthanasia — a form of euthanasia in which medical treatment that will keep a dying patient alive for a time is withdrawn
passive resistance — opposition to a government or to specific governmental laws by the use of noncooperation and other nonviolent methods, as economic boycotts and protest marches.
passive vocabulary — all the words, collectively, that a person can understand
passive-aggressive — denoting or pertaining to a personality type or behavior marked by the expression of negative emotions in passive, indirect ways, as through manipulation or noncooperation: a passive-aggressive employee who often misses deadlines.
pemphigus vulgaris — a potentially fatal blistering skin disease, characterized by large blisters on the skin, mucous membranes of the mouth, genitals, intestines, etc, which eventually rupture and form painful denuded areas from which critical amounts of bodily protein, fluid, and blood may be lost
pennsylvania dutch — the descendants of 17th- and 18th-century settlers in Pennsylvania from southwest Germany and Switzerland.
physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
pitt-rivers museum — a museum in Oxford that houses a major anthropological collection of tools and weapons assembled by Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers
positively charged — having a positive charge
possessive pronoun — See at possessive (def 4a).
post-revolutionary — of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
prepositional verb — a combination of verb and preposition, often with idiomatic meaning, differing from other phrasal verbs in that an object must always follow the preposition, as take after in The children take after their mother.
preservation order — In Britain, a preservation order is an official order that makes it illegal for anyone to alter or destroy something such as an old building or an area of countryside.
priority inversion — (parallel) The state of a concurrent system where a high priority task is waiting for a low priority task which is waiting for a medium priority task. The system may become unstable and crash under these circumstances. In an operating system that uses multiple tasks, each task (or context) may be given a priority. These priorities help the scheduler decide which task to run next. Consider tasks, L, M, and H, with priorities Low, Medium, and High. M is running and H is blocked waiting for some resource that is held by L. So long as any task with a priority higher than L is runable, it will prevent task L, and thus task H, from running. Priority inversion is generally considered either as a high-level design failure or an implementation issue to be taken into account depending on who is talking. Most operating systems have methods in place to prevent or take inversion into account. Priority inheritance is one method. The most public instance of priority inversion is the repeated 'fail-safe' rebooting of the Mars Pathfinder. base station ('Sagan Memorial Station').
private enterprise — free enterprise (def 1).
productivity bonus — an extra payment made to workers for being more productive or yielding more favourable results than normal
progressive coding — (graphics, file format, algorithm) (Or "interlacing") An aspect of a graphics storage format or transmission algorithm that treats bitmap image data non-sequentially in such a way that later data adds progressively greater resolution to an already full-size image. This contrasts with sequential coding. Progressive coding is useful when an image is being sent across a slow communications channel, such as the Internet, as the low-resolution image may be sufficient to allow the user to decide not to wait for the rest of the file to be received. In an interlaced GIF89 image, the pixels in a row are stored sequentially but the rows are stored in interlaced order, e.g. 0, 8, 4, 12, 2, 6, 8, 10, 14, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15. Each vertical scan adds rows in the middle of the gaps left by the previous one. Interlacing is also supported by other formats. JPEG supports a functionally similar concept known as Progressive JPEG. [How does the algorithm differ?] See also progressive/sequential coding.
progressive dinner — a dinner party in which each successive course is prepared and eaten at the residence of a different participant.
protective custody — detention of a person by the police solely as protection against a possible attack or reprisal by someone.
provascular tissue — procambium.
provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
pseudo-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
puvis de chavannes — Puvis de [py-vee duh] /püˈvi də/ (Show IPA), Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre.
representativeness — a person or thing that represents another or others.
reverse psychology — (in nontechnical use) a method of getting another person to do what one wants by pretending not to want it or to want something else or something more.
sea-level pressure — the atmospheric pressure, at any elevation, reduced by formula to a value approximating the pressure at sea level.
service department — a repair shop
set priority level — (SPL) The way traditional Unix kernels implement mutual exclusion by running code at high interrupt priority levels and thus blocking lower level interrupts.
silvery spleenwort — a fern, Diplazium pycnocarpon, of eastern North America, having fronds from 20 to 30 inches (50.8 to 76.2 cm) long on yellowish-green stalks.
sodium-vapour lamp — a type of electric lamp consisting of a glass tube containing neon and sodium vapour at low pressure through which an electric current is passed to give an orange light. They are used in street lighting
special relativity — the state or fact of being relative.
specific viscosity — a measure of the resistance to flow of a fluid, expressed as the ratio of the absolute viscosity of the fluid to that of a reference fluid (usually water in the case of liquids)
split-level cooker — a cooker that is designed with a separate oven and hob so that they can be fitted wherever is most convenient in the kitchen
super royal octavo — a book size, 63⁄4 by 101⁄4 inches
superior vena cava — See under vena cava.
supportive therapy — any treatment, such as the intravenous administration of certain fluids, designed to reinforce or sustain the physiological well-being of a patient
surveyor's compass — an instrument used by surveyors for measuring azimuths.
television company — a company that broadcasts programmes by television
the heavens opened — it started pouring with rain
to play favourites — to display favouritism
to scrape a living — If you say that someone scrapes a living or scratches a living, you mean that they manage to earn enough to live on, but it is very difficult. In American English, you say they scrape out a living or scratch out a living.
transverse process — a process that projects from the sides of a vertebra.
transylvanian alps — a mountain range in S Romania; a SW extension of the Carpathian Mountains. Highest peak: Mount Negoiu, 2548 m (8360 ft)
universal coupling — a coupling between rotating shafts set at an angle to one another, allowing for rotation in three planes.
valle de la pascua — a city in N Venezuela.
venture capitalist — funds invested or available for investment in a new or unproven business enterprise.
video compact disc — (storage) (VCD) A storage format used for film distribution.

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