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19-letter words containing r, e, c, i

  • pretty as a picture — girl: sweetly attractive
  • pretty good privacy — (tool, cryptography)   (PGP) A high security RSA public-key encryption application for MS-DOS, Unix, VAX/VMS, and other computers. It was written by Philip R. Zimmermann <[email protected]> of Phil's Pretty Good(tm) Software and later augmented by a cast of thousands, especially including Hal Finney, Branko Lankester, and Peter Gutmann. PGP was distributed as "guerrilla freeware". The authors don't mind if it is distributed widely, just don't ask Philip Zimmermann to send you a copy. PGP uses a public-key encryption algorithm claimed by US patent #4,405,829. The exclusive rights to this patent are held by a California company called Public Key Partners, and you may be infringing this patent if you use PGP in the USA. This is explained in the PGP User's Guide, Volume II. PGP allows people to exchange files or messages with privacy and authentication. Privacy and authentication are provided without managing the keys associated with conventional cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed to exchange keys between users, which makes PGP much easier to use. This is because PGP is based on public-key cryptography. PGP encrypts data using the International Data Encryption Algorithm with a random session key, and uses the RSA algorithm to encrypt the session key. In December 1994 Philip Zimmermann faced prosecution for "exporting" PGP out of the United States but in January 1996 the US Goverment dropped the case. A US law prohibits the export of encryption software out of the country. Zimmermann did not do this, but the US government hoped to establish the proposition that posting an encryption program on a BBS or on the Internet constitutes exporting it - in effect, stretching export control into domestic censorship. If the government had won it would have had a chilling effect on the free flow of information on the global network, as well as on everyone's privacy from government snooping.
  • preventive medicine — the branch of medical science that deals with prevention of disease.
  • prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
  • pride and prejudice — a novel (1813) by Jane Austen (written 1796–97).
  • 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.
  • primary containment — Primary containment is the main means of preventing leaks and spills using equipment in direct content with the oil or gas being stored or transported.
  • 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.
  • private first class — a soldier ranking above a private and below a corporal or specialist fourth class in the U.S. Army, and above a private and below a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps.
  • private prosecution — a prosecution started by a private individual rather than by the police
  • process engineering — the branch of engineering concerned with industrial processes, esp continuous ones, such as the production of petrochemicals
  • proctosigmoidoscope — sigmoidoscope.
  • 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
  • programmer's switch — (hardware)   A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
  • projection printing — the act or process of making projection prints.
  • projective geometry — the geometric study of projective properties.
  • projective property — a geometric property that is unaltered by projection; a property of relative position, as coincidence or length, but not of magnitude.
  • promotion prospects — the chances or prospects an employee has for promotion or for gaining a better position, often in the same company
  • promotions director — someone in charge of encouraging the sale of (a product) by advertising or securing financial support
  • pseudo-aristocratic — of or relating to government by an aristocracy.
  • pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
  • pseudo-conservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
  • 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.
  • psychic determinism — the theory that all aspects of a person's psychological makeup arise from specific causes or forces, as previous experiences or instinctual drives, which may be conscious or unconscious.
  • psychoendocrinology — the study of the relationship between the endocrine system and various symptoms or types of mental illness.
  • psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
  • public-interest law — a branch of law that often utilizes class-action suits to protect the interest of a large group or of the public at large, as in matters relating to racial discrimination, air pollution, etc.
  • 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
  • puncture repair kit — set of tools for patching a bicycle tyre
  • quantum electronics — the application of quantum mechanics and quantum optics to the study and design of electronic devices
  • quick-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
  • 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.
  • radius of curvature — the absolute value of the reciprocal of the curvature at a point on a curve.
  • 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.
  • rayleigh scattering — the scattering of light by particles that are very small in relation to the wavelength of the light, and in which the intensity of the scattered light varies inversely with the fourth power of the wavelength.
  • reactive depression — depression occurring in response to some situational stress, as loss of one's job.
  • rebus sic stantibus — (of the duration of the binding force treaty) for as long as the relevant facts and circumstances remain basically the same.
  • reception committee — an organized gathering of people to welcome a visitor
  • recessional moraine — a moraine marking a temporary halt in the general retreat of a glacier.
  • reciprocal exchange — an unincorporated association formed so that its members can participate in reciprocal insurance.
  • reciprocal leveling — leveling between two widely separated points in which observations are made in both directions to eliminate the effects of atmospheric refraction and the curvature of the earth.
  • reciprocity failure — a failure of the two exposure variables, light intensity and exposure time, to behave in a reciprocal fashion at very high or very low values
  • reconceptualization — to form into a concept; make a concept of.
  • recording equipment — devices used for sound reproduction
  • recording secretary — an officer charged with keeping the minutes of meetings and responsible for the records.
  • recurrence relation — (mathematics)   An equation that defines each element of a sequence in terms of one or more earlier elements. E.g. The Fibonacci sequence, X[1] = 1 X[2] = 1 X[n] = X[n-1] + X[n-2] Some recurrence relations can be converted to "closed form" where X[n] is defined purely in terms of n, without reference to earlier elements.
  • redbrick university — any new or little-known university, especially one built since World War II to educate students in industrial regions, emphasizing technical subjects rather than the classics, and often partially supported by government funds.
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