17-letter words containing s, l, e, p
- post-and-rail tea — (in the 19th century) a coarse tea in which floating particles resembled a post-and-rail fence
- post-depositional — removal from an office or position.
- postal stationery — an envelope, postal card, wrapper, or aérogramme, with the stamp printed directly on the paper.
- postbaccalaureate — bachelor's degree.
- postmillennialism — the doctrine or belief that the second coming of Christ will follow the millennium.
- postural drainage — a therapy for clearing congested lungs by placing the patient in a position for drainage by gravity, often accompanied by percussion with hollowed hands.
- potassium oxalate — a colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, K 2 C 2 O 4 ⋅H 2 O, used chiefly as a bleaching agent and in medical tests as an anticoagulant.
- potassium sulfate — a crystalline, water-soluble solid, K 2 SO 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers, alums, and mineral water, and as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- poulter's measure — a metrical pattern using couplets having the first line in iambic hexameter, or 12 syllables, and the second in iambic heptameter, or 14 syllables.
- power supply unit — (hardware) (PSU) An electronic module that converts high voltage (110 or 240 VAC) alternating current mains electricity into smoothed direct current at the various differnt voltages required by the motherboard; internal peripheral devices, cheifly storage devices: hard disks, CD or DVD, floppy disks and external connections such as USB. A PSU needs a high enough power output rating to supply all the devices connected to it and should output as little as possible electrical noise, both on the output wires and as electromagnetic radiation. See also uninterruptable power supply.
- prefect apostolic — the administrator, usually below the rank of bishop, in charge of a prefecture apostolic.
- preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
- presentationalism — a style of production in which the audience is addressed directly with songs, skits, exposition, etc., and no attempt is made at realism.
- pressure altitude — the altitude for a given pressure in a standard atmosphere, such as that registered by a pressure altimeter.
- primary qualities — any of the qualities inherent in an object, namely quantity, extent, figure, solidity, and motion or rest.
- prime ministerial — of or relating to the head of a parliamentary government
- production values — the quality of a media production (such as a film) in regards to elements such as colours, quality, style, etc
- professional army — an army of trained soldiers
- professional foul — In football, if a player commits a professional foul, they deliberately do something which is against the rules in order to prevent another player from scoring a goal.
- prolonged-release — A prolonged-release drug delivers a dose of a medication over an extended period of time.
- prosperity gospel — a modern version or, according to some, perversion of the gospel according to which the full blessings of God available to those who approach Him in faith and obedience include wealth, health and power
- prostatic utricle — a small pouch near the prostate gland that opens into the urethra.
- protocol analyser — (communications, hardware, networking, testing, tool) Any device that captures and interprets the network traffic between two or more connected computer systems. The traffic can then be decoded so that it is possible to see what processes are occurring. By examining the flow of traffic, protocol analysers can be used to find out where problems (such as bottlenecks or the failure of a network device) are on a LAN. Advanced protocol analysers can also provide statistics on the traffic that can help to identify trends that may in future lead to further problems with the network.
- pseudepigraphical — certain writings (other than the canonical books and the Apocrypha) professing to be Biblical in character.
- pseudo-biological — pertaining to biology.
- pseudo-historical — of, pertaining to, treating, or characteristic of history or past events: historical records; historical research.
- pseudo-moralistic — a person who teaches or inculcates morality.
- psychoeducational — designating or of psychological methods, as intelligence tests, used in evaluating learning ability
- public assistance — government aid to the poor, disabled, or aged or to dependent children, as financial assistance or food stamps.
- public enterprise — economic activity by governmental organizations
- public prosecutor — an officer charged with the conduct of criminal prosecution in the interest of the public.
- public television — a type of noncommercial, usually educational, television programming funded by the government, grants, viewers, and corporations. Compare educational television.
- publicity-seeking — eager to attract publicity
- pull one's weight — the amount or quantity of heaviness or mass; amount a thing weighs.
- pulsejet (engine) — a jet engine without a compressor or turbine, in which intermittent combustion provides the thrust
- purely and simply — You use purely and simply to emphasize that the thing you are mentioning is the only thing involved.
- purple of cassius — a purple pigment precipitated as a sol by the interaction of gold chloride and a solution of stannic acid and stannous chloride: used chiefly in the manufacture of ruby glass, ceramic glazes, and enamels.
- purple shore crab — any of numerous crabs that live along the shoreline between the tidemarks, as Hemigrapsus nudus (purple shore crab) of the Pacific coast of North America.
- push the envelope — a flat paper container, as for a letter or thin package, usually having a gummed flap or other means of closure.
- put on a pedestal — an architectural support for a column, statue, vase, or the like.
- put on the gloves — to box
- pyroligneous acid — a yellowish, acidic, water-soluble liquid, containing about 10 percent acetic acid, obtained by the destructive distillation of wood: used for smoking meats.
- pythagorean scale — the major scale as derived acoustically by Pythagoras from the perfect fifth.
- quality newspaper — a more serious newspaper which gives detailed accounts of world events, as well as reports on business, culture, and society
- quasiexperimental — (medicine) Describing a trial in which the assignment to a group is based upon an experimental condition.
- recoil escapement — anchor escapement.
- reformed spelling — a revised orthography intended to simplify the spelling of English words, especially to eliminate unpronounced letters, as by substituting thru for through, tho for though, slo for slow, etc.
- refuse a proposal — If an insurer refuses a proposal, it does not agree to underwrite a risk proposed by a potential client.
- register spilling — (programming, compiler) (By analogy with spilling the contents of an overfull container) When a compiler is performing the register allocation phase of generating machine code and there are more live variables than the machine has registers and it has to transfer or "spill" some variables from registers to memory.
- rehospitalization — the act, process, or state of being hospitalized.