16-letter words containing ot
- plainclothes man — a detective or police officer who wears civilian clothes while on duty
- postcode lottery — a situation in which the standard of medical care, education, etc, received by the public varies from area to area, depending on the funding policies of various health boards, local authorities, etc
- postfix notation — (language) (Or "Reverse Polish Notation", RPN) One of the possible orderings of functions and operands: in postfix notation the functions are preceded by all their operands. For example, what may normally be written as "1+2" becomes "1 2 +". Postfix notation is well suited for stack based architectures but modern compilers reduced this advantage considerably. The best-known language with postfix syntax is FORTH. Some Hewlett-Packard calculators use it, e.g. HP-25, HP-29C, HP-41C, HP-23SII. Compare: infix notation, prefix notation.
- potassium iodide — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, KI, having a bitter saline taste: used chiefly in the manufacture of photographic emulsions, as a laboratory reagent, in the preparation of Gram's solution for biological staining, and in medicine as an expectorant and to treat thyroid conditions.
- potato tuberworm — the larva of the potato moth.
- potemkin village — a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition.
- potential energy — the energy of a body or a system with respect to the position of the body or the arrangement of the particles of the system.
- projection booth — a soundproof compartment in a theater where a motion-picture projector is housed and from which the picture is projected on the screen.
- promotional code — A promotional code is a code offered by retailers to customers who can use it to receive a discounted price when buying products online.
- prosecco plotter — one of a group of Labour politicians who allegedly plotted to oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown from office in the summer of 2008
- protection money — law: criminal fee
- protection order — a legal instruction by a court directing a person not to harm or harass a particular individual
- protection ratio — the minimum acceptable ratio between the amplitudes of a wanted radio or television broadcast signal and any interfering signal
- protective slope — a slope given to a yard or the like to drain surface water away from a building.
- protestant ethic — work ethic.
- proteus syndrome — a condition caused by malfunction in cell growth, in which bone and flesh tissue overgrow in localized areas of the body
- proto-algonquian — the unattested parent language from which the Algonquian languages are descended.
- pseudo-patriotic — of, like, suitable for, or characteristic of a patriot.
- psychotechnology — the body of knowledge, theories, and techniques developed for understanding and influencing individual, group, and societal behavior in specified situations.
- put a foot wrong — to make a mistake
- put in mothballs — to postpone work on (a project, activity, etc)
- radiotransparent — transparent to radiation; invisible in x-ray photographs and under fluoroscopy (opposed to radiopaque).
- rattlesnake root — any of certain composite plants of the genus Prenanthes, whose roots or tubers have been regarded as a remedy for snake bites, as P. serpentaria or P. alba.
- remote job entry — (operating system) (RJE) A system, widely used in the mid/late 1960s, for submitting jobs to mainframes like the IBM 360 under OS/MFT. Communication with the computer operator was via the keyboard and later via CRTs.
- roentgenotherapy — treatment of disease by means of x-rays.
- root mean square — the square root of the arithmetic mean of the squares of the numbers in a given set of numbers. Abbreviation: rms.
- root normal form — (RNF) Head Normal Form in graph rewriting.
- rooting compound — a substance, usually a powder, containing auxins in which plant cuttings are dipped in order to promote root growth
- rotary lawnmower — a lawn mower with a single blade attached in the middle that rotates as the mower is moved
- rotation of axes — a process of replacing the axes in a Cartesian coordinate system with a new set of axes making a specified angle with and having the same origin as the original axes.
- sandlot baseball — a form of baseball played by children on an area of vacant ground
- sawn-off shotgun — A sawn-off shotgun is a shotgun on which the barrel has been cut short. Guns like this are often used by criminals because they can be easily hidden.
- scotch blackface — one of a Scottish breed of mountain sheep having a black face and growing long, coarse wool.
- scottish borders — a council area in SE Scotland, on the English border: created in 1996, it has the same boundaries as the former Borders Region: it is mainly hilly, with agriculture (esp sheep farming) the chief economic activity. Administrative centre: Newtown St Boswells. Pop: 108 280 (2003 est). Area: 4734 sq km (1827 sq miles)
- scottish terrier — one of a Scottish breed of small terriers having short legs and a wiry, steel-gray, brindled, black, sandy, or wheaten coat.
- seaside knotweed — See under knotweed.
- seneca snakeroot — any of various plants whose roots have been regarded as a remedy for snakebites, as the herb Aristolochia serpentaria (Virginia snakeroot) having a medicinal rhizome and rootlets, and the white-flowered Polygala senega (Seneca snakeroot) having a medicinal root.
- severance motion — an application made to a judge or court for the division into separate parts of a joint estate, contract, etc
- shoot one's bolt — a movable bar or rod that when slid into a socket fastens a door, gate, etc.
- shoot one's load — (of a man) to ejaculate at orgasm
- shoot the breeze — a wind or current of air, especially a light or moderate one.
- shoot-to-disable — of or relating to shooting by soldiers or police that is intended to disable rather than kill
- shooting gallery — a place equipped with targets and used for practice in shooting.
- shot in the dark — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
- shotgun marriage — a wedding occasioned or precipitated by pregnancy.
- siberian mammoth — a shaggy-coated mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, that lived in cold regions across Eurasia and North America during the Ice Age, known from fossils, cave paintings, and well-preserved frozen carcasses.
- sick as a parrot — very disappointed
- silk-cotton tree — any of several spiny trees belonging to the genus Ceiba, of the bombax family, having palmately compound leaves and seeds surrounded by silk cotton, especially C. pentandra, from which kapok is obtained.
- smooth breathing — a symbol (') used in the writing of Greek to indicate that the initial vowel over which it is placed is unaspirated.
- sodium pentothal — the sodium salt of thiopental sodium.