17-letter words containing s, p
- preemptive strike — preventive war.
- prefect apostolic — the administrator, usually below the rank of bishop, in charge of a prefecture apostolic.
- preference shares — a share of preferred stock.
- preferential shop — a shop in which union members are preferred, usually by agreement of an employer with a union.
- premiere danseuse — the leading female dancer in a ballet company.
- premonstratensian — a member of a religious order founded at Prémontré in N France in 1120 by St Norbert (about 1080–1134)
- prescription drug — medication available only on doctor's instruction
- presentation copy — a copy of a book given by the publisher or author
- presentationalism — a style of production in which the audience is addressed directly with songs, skits, exposition, etc., and no attempt is made at realism.
- presiding officer — the person who presides over the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly
- press association — an organization formed for the purpose of gathering news for transmittal to its members. Compare news agency.
- pressure altitude — the altitude for a given pressure in a standard atmosphere, such as that registered by a pressure altimeter.
- pressure drawdown — Pressure drawdown is the difference between the reservoir pressure and the flowing wellbore pressure, which drives fluids from the reservoir into the wellbore.
- pressure gradient — the change of pressure per unit distance
- pressurized cabin — the cabin of an aircraft in which the air has been pressurized
- previous question — a move that a vote be taken at once on a main question, used especially as a means of cutting off further debate.
- prima inter pares — (of a female) first among equals.
- primary processes — the generally unorganized mental activity characteristic of the unconscious and occurring in dreams, fantasies, and related processes.
- primary qualities — any of the qualities inherent in an object, namely quantity, extent, figure, solidity, and motion or rest.
- primary structure — Biochemistry. the basic sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide or protein.
- prime ministerial — of or relating to the head of a parliamentary government
- primitive baptist — (especially in the Southern U.S.) one belonging to a highly conservative, loosely organized Baptist group, characterized by extreme fundamentalism and by opposition to missionary work, Sunday Schools, and the use of musical instruments in church.
- printing industry — the industry engaged in the business of producing printed matter
- prismatic compass — a hand compass equipped with sights and prisms to permit aiming the instrument at a point and at the same time reading the compass direction of the point.
- prison population — all the people who are confined in prison
- private ownership — the fact of being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body
- private secretary — a person who attends to the individual or confidential correspondence, files, etc., of a business executive, official, or the like.
- procurator fiscal — In the Scottish legal system, the procurator fiscal is a public official who puts people on trial.
- production string — A production string is the series of pipes through which the oil or gas is brought up from the reservoir.
- production system — (programming) A production system consists of a collection of productions (rules), a working memory of facts and an algorithm, known as forward chaining, for producing new facts from old. A rule becomes eligible to "fire" when its conditions match some set of elements currently in working memory. A conflict resolution strategy determines which of several eligible rules (the conflict set) fires next. A condition is a list of symbols which represent constants, which must be matched exactly; variables which bind to the thing they match and "<> symbol" which matches a field not equal to symbol. Example production systems are OPS5, CLIPS, flex.
- 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.
- program statement — a single instruction in a computer program
- progressive party — a political party formed in 1912 under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, advocating popular control of government, direct primaries, the initiative, the referendum, woman suffrage, etc.
- project assurance — The process of specifying the support system: techniques, internal standards, measurements, tools, and training for a project; counselling the project team in the application of these elements and monitoring the adherence to the standards.
- prolonged-release — A prolonged-release drug delivers a dose of a medication over an extended period of time.
- proof of purchase — a document, such as a receipt, etc, that proves that you have purchased or bought something
- proof-of-purchase — a sales slip, label, box top, or other item associated with a product that is presentable as evidence of actual purchase, as for claiming a refund or rebate.
- property mistress — a female member of the stage crew in charge of the stage properties
- 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.
- protected species — a species of animal or plant which it is forbidden by law to harm or destroy
- protective system — protectionism (def 1).
- protein synthesis — the process by which amino acids are linearly arranged into proteins through the involvement of ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, messenger RNA, and various enzymes.
- 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.
- proton microscope — a powerful type of microscope that uses a beam of protons, giving high resolution and sharp contrast
- prusso-danish war — a war of 1864 between Prussia and Denmark by which Denmark lost Schleswig-Holstein.
- pseudepigraphical — certain writings (other than the canonical books and the Apocrypha) professing to be Biblical in character.
- pseudo-aggressive — characterized by or tending toward unprovoked offensives, attacks, invasions, or the like; militantly forward or menacing: aggressive acts against a neighboring country.