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18-letter words containing p

  • controllable-pitch — (of a marine or aircraft propeller) having blades whose pitch can be changed during navigation or flight; variable-pitch.
  • conversation piece — something, esp an unusual object, that provokes conversation
  • cooling-off period — A cooling-off period is an agreed period of time during which two sides with opposing views try to resolve a dispute before taking any serious action.
  • copper naphthenate — a green salt, soluble in benzene, used as an insecticide and a wood preservative, but harmless to plants.
  • cordless telephone — a portable battery-powered telephone with a short-range radio link to a fixed base unit
  • cornucopian thesis — the belief that, as long as science and technology continue to advance, growth can continue for ever because these new advances create new resources
  • corporate anorexia — a malaise of a business organization resulting from making too many creative people redundant in efforts to cut costs
  • corporate identity — business brand
  • corps of engineers — a branch of the U.S. Army responsible for military and many civil engineering projects.
  • corpus christi bay — a bay in S Texas, at the mouth of the Nueces River.
  • corpuscular theory — the theory, originally proposed by Newton, and revived with the development of the quantum theory, that light consists of a stream of particles
  • correspondent bank — A correspondent bank is a bank that provides services such as accepting deposits for another bank.
  • corridors of power — the higher echelons of government, the Civil Service, etc, considered as the location of power and influence
  • costume department — the department in a theatre or television company that is responsible for actors' costumes
  • counter-adaptation — the act of adapting.
  • counter-hypothesis — a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.
  • counter-productive — Something that is counter-productive achieves the opposite result from the one that you want to achieve.
  • counterprogramming — the practice of scheduling a program opposite another program, esp. a popular one, that appeals to a different kind of audience, as in placing a romantic film directed at women opposite a sports program mainly watched by men
  • counterproposition — a proposition made in place of or in opposition to a preceding one.
  • countertherapeutic — Working against a therapy.
  • coupling capacitor — A coupling capacitor is a capacitor that is used to transmit an alternating current signal from one node to another.
  • cranial osteopathy — osteopathy that focuses on the cranium and the spine
  • creatine phosphate — phosphocreatine.
  • creeping featurism — (jargon)   /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism." More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for anything to become more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to help someone, and then another, and another, .... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping elegance.
  • creeping paralysis — any slow process that causes a system, government, etc, to stop working efficiently
  • criminal profiling — the analysis of a person's psychological and behavioural characteristics, so as to assess whether they are likely to have committed a crime under investigation
  • critical apparatus — the variant readings, footnotes, etc found in a scholarly work or a critical edition of a text
  • crookes dark space — the dark space between the cathode glow and the negative glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
  • cross-disciplinary — linking two or more fields of study
  • crown-jewel option — an option given by a company subjected to an unwelcome takeover bid to a friendly firm, allowing this firm to buy one or more of its best businesses if the bid succeeds
  • crystal microphone — a microphone that uses a piezoelectric crystal to convert sound energy into electrical energy
  • cultural pluralism — a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences.
  • cumberland plateau — division of the W Appalachians, extending from S W.Va. to N Ala.
  • currency principle — the principle that banks should be permitted to issue notes only against bullion or coin.
  • cursor dipped in x — (jargon)   The metaphorical source of the electronic equivalent of a poisoned-pen letter. Derived from English metaphors of the form "pen dipped in X" (where X = e.g. "acid", "bile", "vitriol"). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
  • curvature of space — (in relativity) a property of space near massive bodies in which their gravitational field causes light to travel along curved paths.
  • customs inspection — an inspection carried out by a customs department
  • cyclic pitch lever — a lever in a helicopter to change the angle of attack of individual rotor blades, causing the helicopter to move forwards, backwards, or sideways
  • cyclopean concrete — concrete containing stones larger than 6 inches (15 cm).
  • dafydd ap gruffudd — died 1283, Welsh leader. Claiming the title Prince of Wales (1282), he led an unsuccessful revolt against Edward I: executed
  • daisywheel printer — (printer)   A kind of impact printer where the characters are arranged on the ends of the spokes of a wheel (resembling the petals on a daisy). The wheel (usually made of plastic) is rotated to select the character to print and then an electrically operated hammer mechanism bends the selected spoke forward slightly, sandwiching an ink ribbon between the character and the paper, as in a typewriter. One advantage of this arrangement over that of a typewriter is that different wheels may be inserted to produce different typefaces.
  • deanthropomorphism — the ridding of philosophy or religion of anthropomorphic beliefs and doctrines.
  • decachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) The fully chlorinated polychlorinated biphenyl containing ten chlorine atoms.
  • decision procedure — a procedure, as an algorithm, for determining in a finite number of steps the validity of any of a certain class of propositions.
  • decompartmentalize — to remove excessive compartmentalization from (an organization)
  • deep-discount bond — a fixed-interest security that pays little or no interest but is issued at a substantial discount to its redemption value, thus largely substituting capital gain for income
  • deep-sea fisherman — a person who takes part in deep-sea fishing
  • deficiency payment — a payment made to a commodity producer that represents the difference between the market price and the guaranteed price
  • definitive plumage — the plumage of a bird that, once attained, does not change significantly in color or pattern for the rest of the bird's life.
  • delaware water gap — a gorge on the boundary between E Pennsylvania and NW New Jersey.
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