19-letter words containing r, c, o, l
- particular solution — a solution of a differential equation containing no arbitrary constants.
- party-column ballot — Indiana ballot.
- pastoral counseling — the use of psychotherapeutic techniques by trained members of the clergy to assist parishioners who seek help for personal or emotional problems.
- paumotu archipelago — Tuamotu Archipelago.
- percussion drilling — Percussion drilling is a drilling method which involves lifting and dropping heavy tools to break rock, and uses steel casing tubes to stop the borehole from collapsing.
- peroxysulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- persecution complex — an acute irrational fear that other people are plotting one's downfall and that they are responsible for one's failures
- personal watercraft — a jet-propelled boat ridden like a motorcycle.
- phenylthiocarbamide — a crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 6 H 5 NHCSNH 2 , that is either tasteless or bitter, depending upon the heredity of the taster, and is used in medical genetics and as a diagnostic.
- photoelectric meter — an exposure meter using a photocell for the measurement of light intensity.
- pileated woodpecker — a large, black-and-white American woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, having a prominent red crest.
- pilgrimage of grace — a rebellion in 1536 in N England against the Reformation and Henry VIII's government
- pillars of hercules — the two promontories at the E end of the Strait of Gibraltar: the Rock of Gibraltar on the European side and the Jebel Musa on the African side; according to legend, formed by Hercules
- plastic deformation — In plastic deformation a material changes shape when a stress is applied to it and does not go back to its original state when the stress is removed.
- pneumoencephalogram — an encephalogram made after the replacement of the cerebrospinal fluid by air or gas, rarely used since the development of the CAT scanner.
- police headquarters — building where police are stationed
- police intervention — the physical involvement of police officers in an incident, esp where officers use force to control public disorder, such as a riot
- political geography — the branch of human geography that deals with the relationship between political processes and spatial structures (regions, territories, etc)
- politically correct — marked by or adhering to a typically progressive orthodoxy on issues involving especially ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or ecology: The actor’s comment about unattractive women was not politically correct. The CEO feels that people who care about being politically correct are overly sensitive. Abbreviations: PC, P.C.
- polycarboxylic acid — a type of carboxylic acid containing two or more carboxyl groups
- polyphonic ringtone — (in mobile phones) a ringtone in which more than one musical note is played at the same time
- polyphosphoric acid — any one of a series of oxyacids of phosphorus with the general formula Hn+2PnO3n+1. The first member is pyrophosphoric acid (n = 2) and the series includes the highly polymeric metaphosphoric acid. The higher acids exist in an equilibrium mixture
- polytene chromosome — a giant, cross-banded chromosome that results from multiple replication of its genetic material with the duplicated chromatin strands remaining closely associated.
- port jackson willow — an Australian acacia tree, Acacia cyanophylla, introduced in the 19th century into South Africa, where it is now regarded as a pest
- post office problem — (algorithm) Given a set of points (in N dimensions), find another point which minimises the sum of the distances from that point to each of the others.
- post-and-rail fence — a fence constructed of upright wooden posts with horizontal timber slotted through it
- posttranscriptional — Genetics, Biochemistry. occurring after the formation of RNA from DNA but before the RNA strand leaves the nucleus.
- preproduction model — a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- preproduction trial — a trial to test a prototype of a product before the product goes into full-scale production
- pride-of-california — a shrubby plant, Lathyrus splendens, of the legume family, native to southern California, having showy clusters of pale rose-pink, violet, or magenta flowers and large, smooth, beaked pods.
- priority scheduling — (operating system) Processes scheduling in which the scheduler selects tasks to run based on their priority as opposed to, say, a simple round-robin. Priorities may be static or dynamic. Static priorities are assigned at the time of creation, while dynamic priorities are based on the processes' behaviour while in the system. For example, the scheduler may favour I/O-intensive tasks so that expensive requests can be issued as early as possible. A danger of priority scheduling is starvation, in which processes with lower priorities are not given the opportunity to run. In order to avoid starvation, in preemptive scheduling, the priority of a process is gradually reduced while it is running. Eventually, the priority of the running process will no longer be the highest, and the next process will start running. This method is called aging.
- prismatic telescope — a telescope having an eyepiece at the side or top equipped with a reflecting prism, used for taking sights at steep angles.
- procedural language — (language) Any programming language in which the programmer specifies an explicit sequences of steps to follow to produce a result (an algorithm). The term should not be confused with "imperative language" - a language that specifies explicit manipulation of state. An example (non-imperative) procedural language is LOGO, which specifies sequences of steps to perform but does not have an internal state. Other procedural languages include Basic, Pascal, C, and Modula-2. Both procedural and imperative languages are in contrast to declarative languages, in which the programmer specifies neither explicit steps nor explicit state manipulation.
- production platform — offshore power station
- professional advice — advice given by someone trained in a particular and relevant profession or job
- professional school — a postgraduate school or college which trains students for a particular profession
- property speculator — a person who takes part in property speculation
- propositional logic — (logic) (or "propositional calculus") A system of symbolic logic using symbols to stand for whole propositions and logical connectives. Propositional logic only considers whether a proposition is true or false. In contrast to predicate logic, it does not consider the internal structure of propositions.
- pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- pseudo-hieroglyphic — noting or pertaining to a script dating from the second millennium b.c. that appears to be syllabic and to represent the Phoenician language and that is inscribed on objects found at Byblos.
- psychoendocrinology — the study of the relationship between the endocrine system and various symptoms or types of mental illness.
- puerperal psychosis — a mental disorder sometimes occurring in women after childbirth, characterized by deep depression, delusions of the child's death, and homicidal feelings towards the child
- quantum electronics — the application of quantum mechanics and quantum optics to the study and design of electronic devices
- radiational cooling — the cooling of the earth's surface and adjacent air, primarily at night, caused by a loss of heat due to surface emission of infrared radiation.
- radioactive fallout — the settling to the ground of airborne particles ejected into the atmosphere from the earth by explosions, eruptions, forest fires, etc., especially such settling from nuclear explosions (radioactive fallout) Compare rainout.
- radiopharmaceutical — any of a number of radioactive drugs used diagnostically or therapeutically.
- raise one's hackles — one of the long, slender feathers on the neck or saddle of certain birds, as the domestic rooster, much used in making artificial flies for anglers.
- rake over the coals — a black or dark-brown combustible mineral substance consisting of carbonized vegetable matter, used as a fuel. Compare anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite.
- rancho palos verdes — a town in SW California.
- rap on the knuckles — a mild reprimand or light sentence