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17-letter words containing u, l, p, a, n

  • henry of portugal — ("the Navigator") 1394–1460, prince of Portugal: sponsor of geographic explorations.
  • hyperintellectual — appealing to or engaging the intellect: intellectual pursuits.
  • iberian peninsula — Also called Iberian Peninsula. a peninsula in SW Europe, comprising Spain and Portugal.
  • insupportableness — The state of being insupportable; insufferableness.
  • interrupt handler — (software)   A routine which is executed when an interrupt occurs. Interrupt handlers typically deal with low-level events in the hardware of a computer system such as a character arriving at a serial port or a tick of a real-time clock. Special care is required when writing an interrupt handler to ensure that either the interrupt which triggered the handler's execution is masked out (inhibitted) until the handler exits, or the handler is re-entrant so that multiple concurrent invocations will not interfere with each other. If interrupts are masked then the handler must execute as quickly as possible so that important events are not missed. This is often arranged by splitting the processing associated with the event into "upper" and "lower" halves. The lower part is the interrupt handler which masks out further interrupts as required, checks that the appropriate event has occurred (this may be necessary if several events share the same interrupt), services the interrupt, e.g. by reading a character from a UART and writing it to a queue, and re-enabling interrupts. The upper half executes as part of a user process. It waits until the interrupt handler has run. Normally the operating system is responsible for reactivating a process which is waiting for some low-level event. It detects this by a shared flag or by inspecting a shared queue or by some other synchronisation mechanism. It is important that the upper and lower halves do not interfere if an interrupt occurs during the execution of upper half code. This is usually ensured by disabling interrupts during critical sections of code such as removing a character from a queue.
  • jumping-off place — a place for use as a starting point: Paris was the jumping-off place for our tour of Europe.
  • jurisprudentially — In terms of jurisprudence.
  • karelian republic — a constituent republic of NW Russia between the White Sea and Lakes Onega and Ladoga. Capital: Petrozavodsk. Pop: 716 700 (2002). Area: 172 400 sq km (66 560 sq miles)
  • kastor and pollux — Castor and Pollux.
  • keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
  • language planning — the development of policies or programs designed to direct or change language use, as through the establishment of an official language, the standardization or modernization of a language, or the development or alteration of a writing system.
  • least upper bound — an upper bound that is less than or equal to all the upper bounds of a particular set. 3 is the least upper bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbr.: lub.
  • leizhou peninsula — a peninsula of SE China, in SW Guangdong province, separated from Hainan Island by Hainan Strait
  • ligurian republic — the republic in NW Italy set up by Napoleon in 1797, incorporated into France in 1805, and united with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1814.
  • liquid propellant — a rocket propellant in liquid form.
  • lumpenproletariat — the lowest level of the proletariat comprising unskilled workers, vagrants, and criminals and characterized by a lack of class identification and solidarity.
  • manual typewriter — a keyboard machine, operated entirely by hand, for writing mechanically in characters resembling print
  • maximum principle — the theorem that a function of a complex variable that is analytic in a domain and on its boundary attains its maximum absolute value on the boundary.
  • microencapsulated — Encapsulated using microencapsulation.
  • micromanipulation — the technique of performing mechanical operations under high magnification through the use of specialized tools.
  • micromanipulators — Plural form of micromanipulator.
  • mounted policeman — policemen who patrol on horseback
  • multidisciplinary — composed of or combining several usually separate branches of learning or fields of expertise: a multidisciplinary study of the 18th century.
  • multiple integral — an integral in which the integrand involves a function of more than one variable and which requires for evaluation repetition of the integration process.
  • multiple-unit car — a self-propelled railroad car, generally used in commuting service, equipped so that a train of such cars can be operated from any one of them.
  • multipotentiality — The capacity to develop in multiple ways; the state of having multiple potentialities.
  • net present value — an assessment of the long-term profitability of a project made by adding together all the revenue it can be expected to achieve over its whole life and deducting all the costs involved, discounting both future costs and revenue at an appropriate rate
  • neuropathological — (medicine) Of, pertaining to, or arising from neuropathology, the pathology of nerve tissue.
  • neuropharmacology — the branch of pharmacology concerned with the effects of drugs on the nervous system.
  • olympic mountains — a mountain range in NW Washington: part of the Coast Range. Highest peak: Mount Olympus, 2427 m (7965 ft)
  • olympic peninsula — a large peninsula of W Washington
  • opportunistically — adhering to a policy of opportunism; practicing opportunism.
  • optical computing — (hardware)   (Or "Optical Signal Processing") Operating on data represented using electromagnetic radiation, e.g. visible light, instead of the electrical signals used in a conventional electronic digital computer. Electronic digital computers are built from transistors. These form components that store data and logic gates that perform the low-level Boolean operations such as AND, OR and NOT that are the basis of all digital computation. The optical equivalent requires material with a non-linear refractive index such that light beams can interact with each other to perform the same Boolean operations. Though the photons that carry optical signals offer some theoretical advantages over the electrons that carry electronic signals, there are many practical problems that would have to be overcome before optical computing could compete in terms of cost, power and speed.
  • palace revolution — a challenge to or overthrow of a sovereign or other leader by members of the ruling family or group.
  • papanicolaou test — Pap test.
  • parallel universe — Physics. any of a hypothetical collection of undetectable universes that are like our known universe but have branched off from our universe due to a quantum-level event. See also multiverse.
  • particularization — to make particular.
  • pauline privilege — (in canon law) the privilege given to converts to dissolve a marriage with an unbaptized spouse if either obstructs the religious practices of the other.
  • penalty shoot-out — In football, a penalty shoot-out is a way of deciding the result of a game that has ended in a draw. Players from each team try to score a goal in turn until one player fails to score and their team loses the game.
  • perpetual spinach — a variety of spinach that keeps producing edible leaves
  • personal computer — a compact computer that uses a microprocessor and is designed for individual use, as by a person in an office or at home or school, for such applications as word processing, data management, financial analysis, or computer games. Abbreviation: PC.
  • personal equation — the tendency to personal bias that accounts for variation in interpretation or approach and for which allowance must be made.
  • phonological rule — an operation in generative phonology that substitutes one sound or class of sounds for another in a phonological derivation.
  • phumiphon aduldet — (Phumiphon Aduldet; Bhumibol Adulyadej) born 1927, king of Thailand since 1946.
  • physical pendulum — any apparatus consisting of a body of possibly irregular shape allowed to rotate freely about a horizontal axis on which it is pivoted (distinguished from simple pendulum).
  • pittsburg landing — a village in SW Tennessee, on the Tennessee River: battle of Shiloh in 1862.
  • plastics industry — the industry that makes plastics
  • ploughman's lunch — a light lunch consisting of bread and cheese, and sometimes pickled onions.
  • plug and feathers — an apparatus for splitting stone, consisting of two tapered bars (feathers) inserted into a hole drilled into the stone, between which a narrow wedge (plug) is hammered to spread them.
  • pluvius insurance — insurance against rain
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