20-letter words containing s, t, c, l
- north richland hills — a town in N Texas.
- nummulitic limestone — limestone composed predominantly of fossil nummulites.
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- occupational disease — Also called industrial disease. a disease caused by the conditions or hazards of a particular occupation.
- occupational pension — a pension scheme provided for the members of a particular occupation or by a specific employer or group of employers
- official secrets act — law: legislation protecting state secret
- olfactory anesthesia — absence or loss of the sense of smell.
- omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
- operational calculus — a method for solving a differential equation by treating differential operators as ordinary algebraic quantities, thus obtaining a simpler problem.
- oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
- ousterhout's fallacy — Ousterhout's dichotomy
- overenthusiastically — With excessive enthusiasm.
- pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.
- paper qualifications — qualifications gained through official examinations, etc, rather than through experience
- particulars of claim — (in England) the first reading made by the claimant in a county court action, showing the facts upon which he or she relies in support of a claim and the relief asked for
- particulate scrubber — A particulate scrubber is a scrubber in which a liquid is mixed with the gas to collect solids.
- peaceful coexistence — competition without war, or a policy of peace between nations of widely differing political systems and ideologies, especially between Communist and non-Communist nations: peaceful coexistence between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
- peasecod breastplate — a breastplate having a long central ridge terminating in a raised area overhanging the waistline.
- peculiar institution — black slavery in the southern U.S. before the Civil War.
- pentose nucleic acid — a nucleic acid containing a pentose.
- people's paths cross — If you cross someone's path or if your paths cross, you meet them by chance.
- pest control officer — a person who gets rid of pests such as rats and mice
- photogelatin process — collotype (def 1).
- physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- physical examination — an examination, usually by a physician, of a person's body in order to determine his or her state of health or physical fitness, as for military service or participation in a sport.
- physical meteorology — the branch of meteorology dealing with the study of optical, electrical, acoustical, and thermodynamic phenomena in the atmosphere, including the physics of clouds and precipitation.
- pipeline burst cache — (hardware, storage) (PB Cache) A synchronous cache built from pipelined SRAM. A cache in which reading or writing a new location takes multiple cycles but subsequent locations can be accessed in a single cycle. On Pentium systems in 1996, pipeline burst caches are frequently used as secondary caches. The first 8 bytes of data are transferred in 3 CPU cycles, and the next 3 8-byte pieces of data are transferred in one cycle each.
- planetary precession — the small component of the precession of the equinoxes contributed by the motion of the ecliptic, the change in orientation of the plane of the earth's orbit being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets.
- play pass-the-parcel — to try to avoid a responsibility, or blame, by passing it on to someone else
- polyanthus narcissus — a Eurasian amaryllidaceous plant, Narcissus tazetta, having clusters of small yellow or white fragrant flowers
- positive electricity — the electricity present in a body or substance that has a deficiency of electrons, as the electricity developed on glass when rubbed with silk.
- post office protocol — (messaging, protocol) (POP) A protocol designed to allow single-user computers to retrieve electronic mail from a POP server via TCP/IP. The default port is 110. The POP server might be a computer with a permanent Internet connection whereas its clients might only connect to it occasionally, e.g. by modem. There are (in 1994) three versions: POP, POP2, and POP3. Later versions are NOT compatible with earlier ones.
- prefecture apostolic — a territory in the early stage of missionary development.
- prescription glasses — corrective spectacles
- property speculation — the buying or selling of property in the hope of deriving capital gains
- proportional spacing — a feature of some typewriters and other output devices whereby the space allotted to each character is determined by the width of the character
- psychiatric hospital — institution treating mental disorders
- psychological moment — the proper or critical time for achieving a desired result: She found the right psychological moment to make her request.
- psychomotor epilepsy — temporal-lobe epilepsy.
- public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
- quasi-constitutional — of or relating to the constitution of a state, organization, etc.
- quasi-stellar object — quasar. Abbreviation: QSO.
- queensland cane toad — a toad, Bufo marinus, introduced into Queensland from Hawaii to control insect pests, becoming a pest itself
- real-time processing — data-processing by a computer which receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
- receivables turnover — A receivables turnover is a measure of cash flow that is calculated by dividing net credit sales by average accounts receivable.
- reflecting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
- refracting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
- relative atomic mass — the ratio of the average mass per atom of the naturally occurring form of an element to one-twelfth the mass of an atom of carbon-12
- royal air force list — an official list of all serving commissioned officers of the RAF and reserve officers liable for recall
- saint james's palace — a palace in London, England: the royal residence from the time of Henry VIII until the accession of Victoria.