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18-letter words containing p, y

  • play someone false — to deceive, cheat, hoodwink, or betray someone
  • play the race card — to introduce the subject of race into a public discussion, esp to gain a strategic advantage
  • plenary indulgence — a remission of the total temporal punishment that is still due to sin after absolution. Compare indulgence (def 6).
  • pneumatic conveyor — a tube through which powdered or granular material, such as cement, grain, etc is transported by a flow of air
  • point set topology — topology (def 2).
  • politically-minded — (of a person or group of people) interested in the way power is achieved and used in a country or society (through government, policy-making, etc)
  • polychromatophilic — having an affinity for more than one kind of stain, especially for acid, neutral, and basic stains, as polychromatophilic erythroblasts characteristic of pernicious anemia.
  • polynesian tattler — a sandpiper, H. incanus, native to the Pacific coastal regions
  • polystyrene cement — a purpose-made adhesive for fixing rigid polystyrene
  • polyvinyl chloride — a white, water-insoluble, thermoplastic resin, derived by the polymerization of vinyl chloride: used chiefly for thin coatings, insulation, and pipings.
  • population density — ratio: inhabitants to area
  • population pyramid — a graph showing the distribution of a population by sex, age, etc.
  • portrait of a lady — a novel (1881) by Henry James.
  • positively charged — having a positive charge
  • 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
  • potassium myronate — sinigrin.
  • prayer of manasses — a book of the Apocrypha.
  • pre-filled syringe — A pre-filled syringe is a disposable syringe that is supplied already loaded with the substance to be injected.
  • preparatory school — a private or parochial secondary school, especially one boarding its students and providing a college-preparatory education.
  • presentation layer — (networking)   The second highest layer (layer 6) in the OSI seven layer model. Performs functions such as text compression, code or format conversion to try to smooth out differences between hosts. Allows incompatible processes in the application layer to communicate via the session layer. Documents: ITU Rec. X.226 (ISO 8823), ITU Rec. X.216 (ISO 8822).
  • priority interrupt — (jargon)   Any stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of hack mode. Classically used to describe being dragged away by an SO for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity. Also called an NMI (non-maskable interrupt), especially in PC-land.
  • 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').
  • probability theory — the theory of analyzing and making statements concerning the probability of the occurrence of uncertain events. Compare probability (def 4).
  • processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • product life cycle — the four stages (introduction, growth, maturity, and decline) into one of which the sales of a product fall during its market life
  • production company — an organization which produces, films, plays, television or radio programmes
  • productivity bonus — an extra payment made to workers for being more productive or yielding more favourable results than normal
  • programme of study — the prescribed syllabus that pupils must be taught at each key stage in the National Curriculum
  • property developer — person: deals in real estate
  • property insurance — insurance coverage for land and housing
  • proprietary colony — any of certain colonies, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, that were granted to an individual or group by the British crown and that were granted full rights of self-government.
  • proprietary rights — rights of ownership
  • protective custody — detention of a person by the police solely as protection against a possible attack or reprisal by someone.
  • protein deficiency — a lack or insuffiency of protein
  • proton synchrotron — a synchrotron used for accelerating protons.
  • provably difficult — The set or property of problems for which it can be proven that no polynomial-time algorithm exists, only exponential-time algorithms.
  • pseudo-symptomatic — pertaining to a symptom or symptoms.
  • psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
  • psychopathological — the science or study of mental disorders.
  • psychopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the psychological effects of drugs.
  • psychosociological — psychological and sociological
  • psychotechnologist — a specialist in psychotechnology
  • psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
  • publicity campaign — an effort to convey information to the public
  • publishing company — a firm which publishes books
  • pulmonary embolism — the blockage of a pulmonary artery, often by a blood clot, that stops the flow of blood to the lungs and which can result in death if untreated
  • pulp canal therapy — endodontics.
  • put your foot down — If someone puts their foot down, they use their authority in order to stop something happening.
  • pygmy hippopotamus — a small hippopotamus, Choeropsis liberiensis, of forests and swamps in western Africa.
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