18-letter words containing s, c, r, o, p
- polystyrene cement — a purpose-made adhesive for fixing rigid polystyrene
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
- potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- pragmatic sanction — any one of various imperial decrees with the effect of fundamental law.
- precedence lossage — /pre's*-dens los'*j/ A misunderstanding of operator precedence resulting in unintended grouping of arithmetic or logical operators when coding an expression. Used especially of mistakes in C code due to the nonintuitively low precedence of "&", "|", "^", "<<" and ">>". For example, the following C expression, intended to test the least significant bit of x, x & 1 == 0 is parsed as x & (1 == 0) which is always zero (false). Some lazy programmers ignore precedence and parenthesise everything. Lisp fans enjoy pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favourite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
- precious moonstone — moonstone (def 1).
- prefect of studies — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
- preparatory school — a private or parochial secondary school, especially one boarding its students and providing a college-preparatory education.
- present continuous — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the present tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that a present action or event is in progress, being repeated, or of a temporary nature or to express the future.
- price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
- prince of darkness — Satan.
- prism spectrometer — an optical device for measuring wavelengths, deviation of refracted rays, and angles between faces of a prism, especially an instrument (prism spectrometer) consisting of a slit through which light passes, a collimator, a prism that deviates the light, and a telescope through which the deviated light is viewed and examined.
- prison rustic work — rustication having a deeply pitted surface.
- process identifier — (operating system) (PID) An integer used by the Unix kernel to uniquely identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process.
- process scheduling — multitasking
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- procrustean string — (programming) A fixed-length string. If a string value is too long for the allocated space, it is truncated to fit; and if it is shorter, the empty space is padded, usually with space characters. This is an allusion to Procrustes, a legendary robber of ancient Attica. He bound his victims to a bed, and if they were shorter than the bed, he stretched their limbs until they would fit; if their limbs were longer, he lopped them off.
- productivity bonus — an extra payment made to workers for being more productive or yielding more favourable results than normal
- programmer's cheer — (humour) "Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" [Origin?]
- progressive coding — (graphics, file format, algorithm) (Or "interlacing") An aspect of a graphics storage format or transmission algorithm that treats bitmap image data non-sequentially in such a way that later data adds progressively greater resolution to an already full-size image. This contrasts with sequential coding. Progressive coding is useful when an image is being sent across a slow communications channel, such as the Internet, as the low-resolution image may be sufficient to allow the user to decide not to wait for the rest of the file to be received. In an interlaced GIF89 image, the pixels in a row are stored sequentially but the rows are stored in interlaced order, e.g. 0, 8, 4, 12, 2, 6, 8, 10, 14, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15. Each vertical scan adds rows in the middle of the gaps left by the previous one. Interlacing is also supported by other formats. JPEG supports a functionally similar concept known as Progressive JPEG. [How does the algorithm differ?] See also progressive/sequential coding.
- property insurance — insurance coverage for land and housing
- protective custody — detention of a person by the police solely as protection against a possible attack or reprisal by someone.
- proton synchrotron — a synchrotron used for accelerating protons.
- provascular tissue — procambium.
- provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
- pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
- pseudotuberculosis — an acute, sometimes fatal disease of rodents, birds, and other animals, including humans, caused by the bacterium Yersinia (Pasteurella) pseudotuberculosis, and characterized by the formation of nodules resembling those that result from tuberculosis.
- psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
- psychopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the psychological effects of drugs.
- psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
- pulmonic airstream — a current of lung air set in motion by the respiratory muscles in the production of speech.
- purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
- puss in the corner — a parlor game for children in which one player in the middle of a room tries to occupy any of the positions along the walls that become vacant as other players dash across to exchange places at a signal.
- put the mockers on — stop, thwart
- pyrosulphuric acid — a fuming liquid acid made by adding sulphur trioxide to concentrated sulphuric acid. Formula: H2S2O7
- radical expression — an expression in which radical signs appear.
- raman spectroscopy — a form of spectroscopy which uses the Raman effect for studying molecules
- recess appointment — a person appointed to an office by the President of the United States without approval from the Senate because the Senate is in recess
- registered company — a company which has officially registered its business
- reinforced plastic — plastic with fibrous matter, such as carbon fibre, embedded in it to confer additional strength
- reprocessing plant — a plant where materials are treated in order to make them reusable
- resurrection plant — a desert plant, Selaginella lepidophylla, occurring from Texas to South America, having stems that curl inward when dry.
- reverse psychology — (in nontechnical use) a method of getting another person to do what one wants by pretending not to want it or to want something else or something more.
- rhodes scholarship — one of a number of scholarships at Oxford University, established by the will of Cecil Rhodes, for selected students (Rhodes scholars) from the British Commonwealth and the United States.
- scholarship holder — a person who, because of academic merit, receives financial aid for their studies
- scissors-and-paste — designating or of a piece of writing that has been assembled from a variety of sources rather than by original research, often in a hasty or uninspired way
- secondary syphilis — the second stage of syphilis, characterized by eruptions of the skin and mucous membrane.
- self-comprehending — to understand the nature or meaning of; grasp with the mind; perceive: He did not comprehend the significance of the ambassador's remark.