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19-letter words containing s, u, p, r, e

  • passenger enquiries — enquiries from passengers to a transport company such as a railway or airline
  • pastoral counseling — the use of psychotherapeutic techniques by trained members of the clergy to assist parishioners who seek help for personal or emotional problems.
  • penecontemporaneous — formed during or shortly after the formation of the containing rock stratum: penecontemporaneous minerals.
  • peninsular malaysia — part of Malaysia, on the Malay Peninsula: consists of the former Federated Malay States, the former Unfederated Malay States, and the former Straits Settlements. Capital: Kuala Lumpur. Pop: 17 144 322 (2000). Area: 131 587 sq km (50 806 sq miles)
  • percussion drilling — Percussion drilling is a drilling method which involves lifting and dropping heavy tools to break rock, and uses steel casing tubes to stop the borehole from collapsing.
  • performance figures — the statistics that indicate how well or badly a company or organization has performed
  • peroxysulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • persecution complex — an acute irrational fear that other people are plotting one's downfall and that they are responsible for one's failures
  • persian gulf states — group of Arab sheikdoms along the Persian Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, & United Arab Emirates
  • pillars of hercules — the two promontories at the E end of the Strait of Gibraltar: the Rock of Gibraltar on the European side and the Jebel Musa on the African side; according to legend, formed by Hercules
  • pneumogastric nerve — the vagus nerve.
  • pointe-aux-trembles — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, N of Montreal, on the St. Lawrence.
  • police headquarters — building where police are stationed
  • popular sovereignty — the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people and that those chosen to govern, as trustees of such power, must exercise it in conformity with the general will.
  • population pressure — the force exerted by a growing population upon its environment, resulting in dispersal or reduction of the population.
  • portobello mushroom — a dark mushroom, strong in flavor, having a broad, flat cap that is often grilled and eaten
  • portuguese-speaking — being a speaker of Portuguese; having Portuguese as the national language
  • posterior pituitary — a small, somewhat cherry-shaped double structure attached by a stalk to the base of the brain and constituting the master endocrine gland affecting all hormonal functions in the body, consisting of an anterior region ((anterior pituitary) or (adenohypophysis)) that develops embryonically from the roof of the mouth and that secretes growth hormone, LH, FSH, ACTH, TSH, and MSH, a posterior region ((posterior pituitary) or (neurohypophysis)) that develops from the back of the forebrain and that secretes the hormones vasopressin and oxytocin, and an intermediate part (pars intermedia) derived from the anterior region but joined to the posterior region, that secretes the hormone MSH in lower vertebrates.
  • potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
  • potassium hydroxide — a white, deliquescent, water-soluble solid, KOH, usually in the form of lumps, sticks, or pellets, that upon solution in water generates heat: used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, as a laboratory reagent, and as a caustic.
  • presidente prudente — a city in central Brazil.
  • presumption of fact — a presumption based on experience or knowledge of the relationship between a known fact and a fact inferred from it.
  • pretty as a picture — girl: sweetly attractive
  • prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
  • priority scheduling — (operating system)   Processes scheduling in which the scheduler selects tasks to run based on their priority as opposed to, say, a simple round-robin. Priorities may be static or dynamic. Static priorities are assigned at the time of creation, while dynamic priorities are based on the processes' behaviour while in the system. For example, the scheduler may favour I/O-intensive tasks so that expensive requests can be issued as early as possible. A danger of priority scheduling is starvation, in which processes with lower priorities are not given the opportunity to run. In order to avoid starvation, in preemptive scheduling, the priority of a process is gradually reduced while it is running. Eventually, the priority of the running process will no longer be the highest, and the next process will start running. This method is called aging.
  • private prosecution — a prosecution started by a private individual rather than by the police
  • privatization issue — an issue of shares available for purchase by members of the public when a publicly owned organization is transferred to the private sector
  • progressive judaism — Reform Judaism.
  • property speculator — a person who takes part in property speculation
  • provably unsolvable — The set or property of problems for which no algorithm at all exists. E.g. the Halting Problem. See also provably difficult.
  • pseudo-aristocratic — of or relating to government by an aristocracy.
  • pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
  • pseudo-conservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
  • pseudo-experimental — pertaining to, derived from, or founded on experiment: an experimental science.
  • pseudo-hieroglyphic — noting or pertaining to a script dating from the second millennium b.c. that appears to be syllabic and to represent the Phoenician language and that is inscribed on objects found at Byblos.
  • pseudo-intransitive — denoting an occurrence of a normally transitive verb in which a direct object is not explicitly stated or forms the subject of the sentence, as in Margaret is cooking or these apples cook well
  • pseudo-professional — following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.
  • pseudohermaphrodite — an individual having internal reproductive organs of one sex and external sexual characteristics resembling those of the other sex or being ambiguous in nature. Compare hermaphrodite (def 1).
  • pseudorandom number — (programming)   One of a sequence of numbers generated by some algorithm so as to have an even distribution over some range of values and minimal correlation between successive values. Pseudorandom numbers are used in simulation and encryption. They are pseudorandom not random because the sequence eventually repeats exactly and is entirely determined by the initial conditions. One of the simplest algorithms is x[i+1] = (a * x[i] + c) mod m but this repeats after at most m numbers and successive numbers are closely related. Better algorithms generally use more previous numbers to calculate the next number.
  • public-interest law — a branch of law that often utilizes class-action suits to protect the interest of a large group or of the public at large, as in matters relating to racial discrimination, air pollution, etc.
  • puerperal psychosis — a mental disorder sometimes occurring in women after childbirth, characterized by deep depression, delusions of the child's death, and homicidal feelings towards the child
  • pugwash conferences — international peace conferences of scientists held regularly to discuss world problems: Nobel peace prize 1995 awarded to Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) , one of the founders of the conferences, secretary-general (1957–73), and president (1988–97)
  • pull in one's horns — one of the bony, permanent, hollow paired growths, often curved and pointed, that project from the upper part of the head of certain ungulate mammals, as cattle, sheep, goats, or antelopes.
  • purse-string suture — a suture for a circular opening, stitched around the edge, that closes it when pulled.
  • put a figure on sth — When you put a figure on an amount, you say exactly how much it is.
  • put one's finger on — any of the terminal members of the hand, especially one other than the thumb.
  • put the skids under — a plank, bar, log, or the like, especially one of a pair, on which something heavy may be slid or rolled along.
  • put up the shutters — to close business at the end of the day or permanently
  • quartermaster corps — the branch of the U.S. Army responsible for supplying food, clothing, fuel, and equipment and for the operation of commissaries, laundries, etc.
  • rap on the knuckles — a mild reprimand or light sentence
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