17-letter words containing r, e, p, l, a
- critical pressure — the pressure of a gas or the saturated vapour pressure of a substance in its critical state
- cryptocrystalline — (of rocks) composed of crystals that can be distinguished individually only by the use of a polarizing microscope
- cylinder capacity — the cylinder volume that is swept by the pistons of an internal-combustion engine
- cyrillic alphabet — the alphabet derived from that of the Greeks, supposedly by Saint Cyril, for the writing of Slavonic languages: now used primarily for Russian, Bulgarian, and the Serbian dialect of Serbo-Croat
- dagestan republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the Caspian Sea: annexed from Persia in 1813; rich mineral resources. Capital: Makhachkala. Pop: 2 584 200 (2002). Area: 50 278 sq km (19 416 sq miles)
- dark-complexioned — (of a person) having a dark complexion
- david copperfield — a novel (1850) by Charles Dickens.
- departmentalizing — Present participle of departmentalize.
- depersonalisation — Alternative spelling of depersonalization.
- depersonalization — the act or an instance of depersonalizing
- dephosphorylation — the removal of a phosphate group from an organic compound, as in the changing of ATP to ADP.
- deprofessionalise — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- deprofessionalize — to remove from professional control, influence, manipulation, etc.
- development grant — a grant awarded, esp by a government, to a person or company in order to fund the development of a new product
- dialect geography — linguistic geography
- diethyltryptamine — a synthetic derivative of tryptamine with hallucinogenic and psychotogenic effects. Abbreviation: DET.
- disaster planning — disaster recovery
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- double pair royal — a set of four cards of the same denomination, worth 12 points.
- drive up the wall — to cause to become crazy or furious
- drool-proof paper — (jargon) Documentation that has been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written on drool-proof paper". For example, this is an actual quote from Apple Computer's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
- duality principle — the principle that a mathematical duality exists under certain conditions.
- echoencephalogram — a graphic record produced by an echoencephalograph.
- ehelp corporation — (company) A vendor of Microsoft Windows application development tools such as RoboHELP and RoboDemo. EHelp were formerly (around 1997) Blue Sky Software. Address: 7777 Fay Avenue, Suite 201, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. Telephone: +1-800-793-0364, +1 (619) 459 6365. Fax: +1 (619) 459 6366.
- electromyographic — Using electromyography.
- elevator operator — a person who operates a platform raised or lowered in a vertical shaft to transport people from floor to floor in a building
- elliptical spring — An elliptical spring is a spring that is made from two springs in the shape of elongated ovals laid cut in half and back-to-back.
- emotional cripple — someone who is unable to feel or show true emotion and so cannot form relationships with other people
- empirical formula — a chemical formula indicating the proportion of each element present in a molecule
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- entrepreneurially — In an entrepreneurial manner.
- epicycloidal gear — a gear of an epicyclic train
- equal opportunity — policies that bar discrimination
- esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
- ethnopharmacology — The scientific study correlating ethnic groups, their health, and how it relates to their physical habits and methodology in creating and using medicines.
- exception handler — Special code which is called when an exception occurs during the execution of a program. If the programmer does not provide a handler for a given exception, a built-in system exception handler will usually be called resulting in abortion of the program run and some kind of error indication being returned to the user. Examples of exception handler mechanisms are Unix's signal calls and Lisp's catch and throw.
- exemplary damages — law: fine imposed as a deterrent
- experimental lisp — (language) (xlisp) An experimental programming language combining a subset of Common Lisp with an object-oriented extension capability (Class and Object types). It was implemented by David Micheal Betz at Apple to allow experimentation with object-oriented programming on small computers. The C source code has been ported to Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, and MS-DOS. Version 2.1 of the interpreter, by Tom Almy is closer to Common Lisp. E-mail: Tom Almy <[email protected]>.
- extrasolar planet — any other celestial body revolving around a star, illuminated by light from that star
- feint-ruled paper — writing paper with light horizontal lines printed across at regular intervals
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- financial planner — a person whose business is advising individuals in the management of their financial affairs
- fingerling potato — a finger-shaped potato
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- french provincial — noting, pertaining to, or resembling a style of furnishings and decoration originating in the provinces of France in the 18th century, derived from but less ornate than styles then current in Paris and featuring simply carved wood furniture, often with decorative curved moldings.
- front-line player — a regular player on a sports team or one who plays in the farthest forward position
- full linear group — the group of all nonsingular linear transformations mapping a finite-dimensional vector space into itself.
- garden heliotrope — the common valerian, Valeriana officinalis, especially when cultivated as an ornamental.
- gause's principle — the principle that similar species cannot coexist for long in the same ecological niche