18-letter words containing s, p, a, c, e, g
- physical geography — the branch of geography concerned with natural features and phenomena of the earth's surface, as landforms, drainage features, climates, soils, and vegetation.
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
- 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.
- 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.
- programmer's cheer — (humour) "Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" [Origin?]
- psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
- purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
- registered company — a company which has officially registered its business
- reprocessing plant — a plant where materials are treated in order to make them reusable
- sampling frequency — sample rate
- scripting language — a language that is used to write scripts, or executable sections of code that automate tasks.
- self-deprecatingly — in a self-deprecating manner
- self-tapping screw — a screw designed to tap its corresponding female thread as it is driven.
- shipping container — a large, strong container, usually of metal, used to store goods in during shipment
- sleeping policeman — a bump built across roads, esp in housing estates, to deter motorists from speeding
- sound spectrograph — an electronic device for recording a sound spectogram.
- spaghetti junction — an interchange, usually between motorways, in which there are a large number of underpasses and overpasses and intersecting roads used by a large volume of high-speed traffic
- specimen signature — a signature to be compared to an original signature in order to verify someone's identity
- spectroheliography — the process of obtaining an image of the sun in light of a particular wavelength, such as calcium or hydrogen, showing the distribution of the element over the surface and in the solar atmosphere, using a spectroheliograph
- spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
- spherical triangle — a triangle formed by arcs of great circles of a sphere.
- stepping-off place — jumping-off place (def 2).
- summary proceeding — a mode of trial authorized by statute to be held before a judge without the usual full hearing.
- superciliary ridge — browridge.
- supporting actress — an actress playing a supporting role
- surgical appliance — a specialized device used by somebody to relieve a particular medical condition
- sweptwing aircraft — an aircraft which has wings that are swept (usually) backwards
- sympathetic string — a thin wire string, as in various obsolete musical instruments, designed to vibrate sympathetically with the bowed or plucked strings to reinforce the sound.
- to scrape a living — If you say that someone scrapes a living or scratches a living, you mean that they manage to earn enough to live on, but it is very difficult. In American English, you say they scrape out a living or scratch out a living.
- universal coupling — a coupling between rotating shafts set at an angle to one another, allowing for rotation in three planes.