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25-letter words containing r, e, l, i

  • orpheus in the underworld — a classical operetta; the French name is Orphée aux enfers
  • out of kilter, off kilter — If something or someone is out of kilter or off kilter, they are not completely right.
  • oxidative phosphorylation — the aerobic synthesis, coupled to electron transport, of ATP from phosphate and ADP.
  • page description language — a high-level programming language for determining the output of a page printer designed to work with it, independent of the printer's internal codes. Abbreviation: PDL.
  • pauli exclusion principle — exclusion principle.
  • peripheral nervous system — the portion of the nervous system lying outside the brain and spinal cord.
  • permanent virtual circuit — (networking)   (PVC, or in ATM terminology, "Permanent Virtual Connection") A virtual circuit that is permanently established, saving the time associated with circuit establishment and tear-down.
  • personal flotation device — a life preserver, life jacket, or other device for keeping a person afloat in the water. Abbreviation: PFD.
  • personal injury insurance — Personal injury insurance is coverage for treatment of injuries to car accident victims, including loss of work income, accidental death, and funeral expenses.
  • personal-opinion telegram — a type of domestic telegram sent at the lowest rate with a minimum charge for 20 words or less to elected federal or state officials on a subject of national or regional interest.
  • personalized number plate — a car registration plate that has the owner's initials or name on it
  • petropavlovsk-kamchatskiy — seaport in E Asian Russia, on Kamchatka Peninsula: pop. 210,000
  • please clean my room sign — A please clean my room sign is a sign that a guest in a hotel hangs outside their room to tell the cleaner the room is available for cleaning.
  • point-and-drool interface — (abuse)   (Or "point-and-grunt interface") A parody of "point-and-shoot interface", describing a windows, icons, and mouse-based (WIMP) graphical user interface. The implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable for idiots. See for the rest of us, WIMP, drool-proof paper.
  • polycystic ovary syndrome — a hormonal disorder in which the Graafian follicles in the ovary fail to develop completely so that they are unable to ovulate, remaining as multiple cysts that distend the ovary. The results can include reduced fertility, obesity, and hirsutism
  • polymerase chain reaction — a technique in which a known DNA sequence is synthesized at high temperatures by means of a polymerase, producing millions of copies for statistical analysis: used in DNA fingerprinting, in detecting minute quantities of cancer cells, etc.
  • polynomial-time algorithm — (complexity)   A known algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a polynomial function of the size of the problem. See also computational complexity, exponential time, nondeterministic polynomial-time (NP), NP-complete.
  • portable network graphics — (file format)   /ping/ (PNG) An extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of TIFF. Indexed-colour, greyscale and truecolour images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits. PNG is designed for on-line viewing applications, such as the World Wide Web, so it is fully streamable with a progressive display option. PNG is robust, providing both full file integrity checking and simple detection of common transmission errors. Also, PNG can store gamma correction and chromaticity data for improved colour matching on heterogeneous platforms.
  • positional representation — (mathematics)   The conventional way of writing numbers as a string of digits in which each digit, D, has value D * R^I, where R is the radix or (number) base and I is the digit's position counting leftward from zero at the least significant (right-hand) end. Each digit can be zero to R-1. Each position has a weight or significance R times greater than the position to its right and the right-most place has a weight of one. Decimal numbers are radix ten, binary numbers are radix two, octal radix eight and hexadecimal radix 16. Positional representation makes arithmetic operations on large numbers much easier than, say, roman numerals. It is fundamental to the binary representation used by digital computers.
  • prices and incomes policy — voluntary or statutory regulation of the level of increases in prices and incomes
  • primary domain controller — (networking)   (PDC) Each Windows NT domain has a Primary Domain Controller and zero or more Backup Domain Controllers. The PDC holds the SAM database and authenticates access requests from workstations and servers in the domain.
  • principal nursing officer — a grade of nurse concerned with administration in the British National Health Service
  • principle of indifference — the principle that, in the absence of any reason to expect one event rather than another, all the possible events should be assigned the same probability
  • principle of least action — the principle that motion between any two points in a conservative dynamical system is such that the action has a minimum value with respect to all paths between the points that correspond to the same energy
  • principle of virtual work — the principle that the total work done by all forces on a system in static equilibrium is zero for a set of infinitesimally small displacements.
  • private international law — conflict of laws (def 2).
  • process design language 2 — (language)   (PDL2) A language developed for the Texas Instruments ASC computer.
  • profit and loss statement — A profit and loss statement is a statement that is compiled at the end of a financial year showing that year's revenue and expense items and indicating gross and net profit or loss.
  • progressive federal party — a political party, formed in 1977 by a merger between the Progressive Party and members of the United Party, supporting qualified franchise for all South Africans irrespective of race, colour, or creed; merged with other parties in 1989 to form the Democratic Party
  • psychiatric social worker — (in Britain) a qualified person who works with mentally-ill people and their families, based in a psychiatric hospital, child guidance clinic, or social services department area team, and who may also be an approved social worker
  • public inter national law — Also called public law. the law governing the legal relations between independent states or nations and, increasingly, between these and individuals.
  • public key infrastructure — (cryptography, communications)   (PKI) A system of public key encryption using digital certificates from Certificate Authorities and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an electronic transaction. PKIs are currently evolving and there is no single PKI nor even a single agreed-upon standard for setting up a PKI. However, nearly everyone agrees that reliable PKIs are necessary before electronic commerce can become widespread.
  • public relations exercise — something which is done for the sake of attracting favourable publicity
  • pull/get one's finger out — If you tell someone to pull their finger out or to get their finger out, you are telling them rudely that you want them to start doing some work or making an effort.
  • qualified majority voting — a voting system, used by the EU Council of Ministers, enabling certain resolutions to be passed without unanimity
  • radio-controlled junction — A radio-controlled junction is a piece of equipment used to control underground pipelines which connect oil tanks.
  • raise (or lower) the bar — raise (or lower) the standard of judgment
  • ram's-head lady's-slipper — a rare, slender-stemmed orchid, Cypripedium arietinum, of northeastern North America, that has crimson-streaked, whitish-lipped flowers with purple sepals and grows in moist soil.
  • rate monotonic scheduling — (algorithm)   A means of scheduling the time allocated to periodic hard-deadline real-time users of a resource. The users are assigned priorities such that a shorter fixed period between deadlines is associated with a higher priority. Rate monotonic scheduling provides a low-overhead, reasonably resource-efficient means of guaranteeing that all users will meet their deadlines provided that certain analytical equations are satisfied during the system design. It avoids the design complexity of time-line scheduling and the overhead of dynamic approaches such as earliest-deadline scheduling.
  • really simple syndication — Rich Site Summary
  • red brick intelligent sql — (database)   (RISQL) A vendor-specific extension to SQL designed specifically for business managers. It augments SQL with a variety of operations appropriate to data analysis and decision support applications such as ranking, moving averages, comparisons, market share, this year vs. last year, etc. It was developed to simplify the creation of complex business queries.
  • referentially transparent — referential transparency
  • regimental sergeant major — the senior Warrant Officer I in a British or Commonwealth regiment or battalion, responsible under the adjutant for all aspects of duty and discipline of the warrant officers, NCOs, and men
  • rehabilitation department — a government department set up after World War II to assist ex-servicemen
  • ripe for picking/plucking — If something is ripe for picking or ripe for plucking, it will be very easy to obtain.
  • rotational quantum number — the quantum number that distinguishes the angular momentum states associated with the rotational motion of a molecule.
  • saint pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.
  • san nicolas de los garzas — a city in Nuevo Léon state, N Mexico, a suburb of Monterrey.
  • saybolt universal seconds — a US measurement of viscosity similar in type to the British Redwood seconds
  • selective synchronization — a sound-recording process that facilitates overdubs by feeding the recorded track to the performer straight from the recording head
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