19-letter words containing t, h, i, r
- phenylthiocarbamide — a crystalline, slightly water-soluble solid, C 6 H 5 NHCSNH 2 , that is either tasteless or bitter, depending upon the heredity of the taster, and is used in medical genetics and as a diagnostic.
- philosopher's stone — a substance sought by alchemists that would be capable of transmuting baser metals into gold or silver and of prolonging life.
- philosophers' stone — a substance sought by alchemists that would be capable of transmuting baser metals into gold or silver and of prolonging life.
- photodisintegration — the disintegration of a nucleus, induced by its absorption of a photon.
- photoelectric meter — an exposure meter using a photocell for the measurement of light intensity.
- photographic memory — total recall
- photopolymerization — polymerization induced by light.
- photoreconnaissance — reconnaissance using aerial photography.
- physical impairment — A physical impairment is a condition in which a part of a person's body is damaged or is not working properly.
- pistachio ice cream — ice cream flavoured with pistachios
- pocket-handkerchief — handkerchief (def 1).
- point the finger at — to accuse or blame
- police headquarters — building where police are stationed
- political geography — the branch of human geography that deals with the relationship between political processes and spatial structures (regions, territories, etc)
- polyphonic ringtone — (in mobile phones) a ringtone in which more than one musical note is played at the same time
- postsynchronization — the process of adding sound, such as dubbing, to a film or video after shooting or videotaping is completed
- 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.
- preach to the choir — to express an opinion to someone who is already in agreement with it
- prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
- primitive methodist — a member of a Protestant denomination (Primitive Methodist Church) founded in England in 1812 and later established in the U.S., characterized by its adherence to the basic doctrines, principles, and practices taught by John Wesley.
- 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.
- programmer's switch — (hardware) A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
- protease inhibitors — a drug that inhibits the action of protease, especially any of a class of antiviral drugs that prevent the cleavage and replication of HIV proteins.
- proton-proton chain — a series of thermonuclear reactions, responsible for the energy production in stars like the sun, in which the nuclei of hydrogen atoms are transformed into helium nuclei by sequential addition of single hydrogen nuclei.
- 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).
- psychic determinism — the theory that all aspects of a person's psychological makeup arise from specific causes or forces, as previous experiences or instinctual drives, which may be conscious or unconscious.
- psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
- put a figure on sth — When you put a figure on an amount, you say exactly how much it is.
- 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.
- quick-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
- radiochromatography — chromatography in which radiolabeled substances on the chromatogram are determined quantitatively or qualitatively by measuring their radioactivity.
- radiopharmaceutical — any of a number of radioactive drugs used diagnostically or therapeutically.
- rayleigh scattering — the scattering of light by particles that are very small in relation to the wavelength of the light, and in which the intensity of the scattered light varies inversely with the fourth power of the wavelength.
- reef whitetip shark — whitetip shark (def 1).
- reflux oesophagitis — inflammation of the gullet caused by regurgitation of stomach acids, producing heartburn: may be associated with a hiatus hernia
- resorcinolphthalein — fluorescein.
- reticuloendothelial — pertaining to, resembling, or involving cells of the reticuloendothelial system.
- rhetorical question — a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply, as “What is so rare as a day in June?”.
- rhythmic gymnastics — a form of gymnastics involving movements using hand apparatus such as balls, hoops, and ribbons
- right circular cone — a cone whose surface is generated by lines joining a fixed point to the points of a circle, the fixed point lying on a perpendicular through the center of the circle.
- right-eyed flounder — any of several flatfishes of the family Pleuronectidae, having both eyes on the right side of the head.
- ring up the curtain — to begin a theatrical performance
- run into the ground — to do too long or too often; overdo
- run-length encoding — A kind of compression algorithm which replaces sequences ("runs") of consecutive repeated characters (or other units of data) with a single character and the length of the run. This can either be applied to all input characters, including runs of length one, or a special character can be used to introduce a run-length encoded group. The longer and more frequent the runs are, the greater the compression that will be achieved. This technique is particularly useful for encoding black and white images where the data units would be single bit pixels.
- saber-toothed tiger — any of several extinct members of the cat family Felidae from the Oligocene to Pleistocene Epochs, having greatly elongated, saberlike upper canine teeth.
- sabre-toothed tiger — any of various extinct Tertiary felines of the genus Smilodon and related genera, with long curved upper canine teeth
- saccharolactic acid — mucic acid.
- sandwich generation — the generation of people still raising their children while having to care for their aging parents.
- sb's spiritual home — your spiritual home is the place where you feel that you belong, usually because your ideas or attitudes are the same as those of the people who live there
- scattersite housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.