21-letter words containing r, i, d, e, o, u
- ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
- pomp and circumstance — ceremony
- populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
- postpartum depression — Postpartum depression is a mental state involving feelings of anxiety and sudden mood swings which some women experience after they have given birth.
- premium savings bonds — (in Britain) bonds issued by the Treasury since 1956 for purchase by the public. No interest is paid but there is a monthly draw for cash prizes of various sums
- printed circuit board — a circuit in which the interconnecting conductors and some of the circuit components have been printed, etched, etc., onto a sheet or board of dielectric material (PC board, printed-circuit board)
- production department — the department of a business or organization responsible for manufacturing products
- progressive education — any of various reformist educational philosophies and methodologies since the late 1800s, applied especially to elementary schools, that reject the rote recitation and strict discipline of traditional, single-classroom teaching, favoring instead more stimulation of the individual pupil as well as group discussion, more informality in the classroom, a broader curriculum, and use of laboratories, gymnasiums, kitchens, etc., in the school.
- pseudohermaphroditism — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
- purple-fringed orchid — either of two orchids, Habenaria fimbriata or H. psycodes, of eastern North America, having a cluster of fragrant purple flowers with a fringed lip.
- purple-fringed orchis — either of two North American orchids (Habenaria psycodes and H. fimbriata) with purple-fringed flowers
- pyrenean mountain dog — a large heavily built dog of an ancient breed originally used to protect sheep from wild animals: it has a long thick white coat with a dense ruff
- radius of convergence — a positive number so related to a given power series that the power series converges for every number whose absolute value is less than this particular number.
- rayleigh distribution — (mathematics) A curve that yields a good approximation to the actual labour curves on software projects.
- registration document — a document giving identification details of a motor vehicle, including its manufacturer, date of registration, engine and chassis numbers, and owner's name
- residual unemployment — the unemployment that remains in periods of full employment, as a result of those mentally, physically, or emotionally unfit to work
- richard coeur de lion — ("Richard the Lion-Hearted"; "Richard Coeur de Lion") 1157–99, king of England 1189–99.
- ring down the curtain — to lower the curtain at the end of a theatrical performance
- ring-around-the-rosey — a children's game in which the players sing while going around in a circle and squat when the lyrics “all fall down” are sung.
- roodepoort-maraisburg — a city in S Transvaal, in the NE Republic of South Africa.
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- saint-maur-des-fosses — a town in N central France, near Paris, on the Marne River.
- scalar triple product — the volume of the parallelepiped defined by three given vectors, u, v, and w, usually represented as u·v 1 (v×w), [ uvw ], or (uvw), where × denotes a cross product and · denotes an inner product.
- school superintendent — an official whose job is to oversee school administration within a district
- silicon tetrafluoride — a colorless, fuming gas, SiF 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fluosilicic acid.
- sinusoidal projection — an equal-area projection in which parallels are straight lines spaced at regular intervals, the central meridian is a straight line one-half the length of the equator, and the other meridians are curves symmetrical to the central meridian.
- sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
- statutory declaration — a declaration made under statutory authority before a justice of the peace or commissioner for oaths which may in certain cases be substituted for a statement on oath
- student participation — the extent to which students participate or involve themselves in a class, course, etc
- suction and curettage — a technique involving extraction of the fetus through a suction tube, used to perform abortions during the early stages of pregnancy.
- surface friction drag — the part of the drag on a body moving through a fluid that is dependent on the nature of the surface of the body
- the moral high ground — If you say that someone has taken the moral high ground, you mean that they consider that their policies and actions are morally superior to the policies and actions of their rivals.
- third party procedure — impleader.
- to be killed outright — If someone is killed outright, they die immediately, for example in an accident.
- to lay down your life — If someone lays down their life for another person, they die so that the other person can live.
- to let your hair down — If you let your hair down, you relax completely and enjoy yourself.
- to rear its ugly head — If something unpleasant rears its head or rears its ugly head, it becomes visible or noticeable.
- to rub shoulders with — If you rub shoulders with famous people, you meet them and talk to them. You can also say that you rub elbows with someone, especially in American English.
- to take your mind off — If something takes your mind off a problem or unpleasant situation, it helps you to forget about it for a while.
- trades union congress — The Trades Union Congress in Britain is the same as the TUC.
- universal disk format — (storage, standard) (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
- universe of discourse — the totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space; the cosmos; macrocosm.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- whip-and-tongue graft — a graft prepared by cutting both the scion and the stock in a sloping direction and inserting a tongue in the scion into a slit in the stock.
- xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare inherited disease characterized by sensitivity to ultraviolet light, exposure resulting in lesions and tumors of the skin and eyes.
- yellow mercuric oxide — a slightly crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous compound, HgO, occurring as a coarse, orange-red powder (red mercuric oxide) or as a fine, orange-yellow powder (yellow mercuric oxide) used chiefly as a pigment in paints and as an antiseptic in pharmaceuticals.