24-letter words containing s, p, e, c, i

parallel cousin marriage — marriage between the children of two brothers or two sisters.
passive balance of trade — a negative balance of trade
photomechanical transfer — a method of producing photographic prints or offset printing plates from paper negatives by a chemical transfer process rather than by exposure to light
physiological atmosphere — ecosphere.
pluck sth out of the air — If you say that someone plucks a figure, name, or date out of the air, you mean that they say it without thinking much about it before they speak.
polish people's republic — former name of Poland.
polymer matrix composite — A polymer matrix composite is a material consisting of a composite made stronger by adding fibers or particles to it.
potassium cobaltinitrite — a yellow, crystalline, slightly water-soluble powder, K 3 Co(NO 2) 6 , used as a pigment in oil and watercolor paints, and for coloring surfaces of glass, porcelain, etc.
presumption of innocence — the rebuttable presumption of the innocence of the defendant in a criminal action in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, placing upon the prosecution the burden of proof of the defendant's guilt.
private health insurance — insurance against the need for medical treatment as a private patient
professional association — a body of persons engaged in the same profession, formed usually to control entry into the profession, maintain standards, and represent the profession in discussions with other bodies
professional corporation — a corporation formed by one or more licensed practitioners, especially medical or legal, to operate their practices on a corporate plan. Abbreviation: PC, P.C.
progressive conservative — a member of the Progressive Conservative party of Canada.
psychopathic personality — an antisocial personality characterized by the failure to develop any sense of moral responsibility and the capability of performing violent or antisocial acts
public access television — television in which local producers or individuals can participate
public relations officer — a person who is responsible for communications with the public
public-access television — a noncommercial system of broadcasting on television channels made available to independent or community groups for programs of general interest to the community.
punch above one's weight — to do something that is considered to be beyond one's ability
pyrotraumatic dermatitis — hot spot.
reciprocal translocation — an exchange of segments between two nonhomologous chromosomes.
recursive descent parser — (grammar) A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
resale price maintenance — the practice by which a manufacturer establishes a fixed or minimum price for the resale of a brand product by retailers or other distributors
responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web) A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
self-fulfilling prophecy — a prophecy that comes true because of the expectation that it will
sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
she is no spring chicken — she is no longer young
single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
slop oil recovery system — A slop oil recovery system is a method and the equipment used for cleaning and disposing of mixtures of oil, chemicals, and water from various sources in a refinery or oilfield.
socialist workers' party — one of the biggest extreme left wing parties in Britain
special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
statistical independence — the condition or state of events or values of being statistically independent.
stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
superheterodyne receiver — a radio receiver that combines two radio-frequency signals by heterodyne action, to produce a signal above the audible frequency limit. This signal is amplified and demodulated to give the desired audio-frequency signal
supportive psychotherapy — a type of psychotherapy that seeks to reduce psychological conflict and strengthen a patient's defenses through the use of various techniques, as reassurance, suggestion, counseling, and reeducation.
telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
telescope user interface — (hardware, interface) (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
the occupied territories — the areas of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War
thompson sub-machine-gun — a .45 calibre sub-machine-gun
three-spined stickleback — a small teleost fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, of the family Gasterosteidae, of rivers and coastal regions, having three spines along the back and occurring in cold and temperate northern regions
to pick someone's brains — If you pick someone's brains, you ask them to help you with a problem because they know more about the subject than you.
to pick someone's pocket — If someone picks your pocket, they steal something from your pocket, usually without you noticing.

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