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20-letter words containing y

  • physiological saline — a salt solution that has the same osmotic pressure as that found in the blood or tissues
  • pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
  • planetary precession — the small component of the precession of the equinoxes contributed by the motion of the ecliptic, the change in orientation of the plane of the earth's orbit being produced by the gravitational attraction of the planets.
  • play catch-up (ball) — to try to equal or surpass one's opponent in competition, as a ballgame, in which one is behind
  • play merry hell with — to disturb greatly; disrupt
  • play pass-the-parcel — to try to avoid a responsibility, or blame, by passing it on to someone else
  • polyanthus narcissus — a Eurasian amaryllidaceous plant, Narcissus tazetta, having clusters of small yellow or white fragrant flowers
  • polyconic projection — a conic projection in which the parallels are arcs of circles that are not concentric but are equally spaced along the central straight meridian, all other meridians being curves equally spaced along the parallels.
  • polymorphic function — a function in a computer program that can deal with a number of different types of data
  • polyvinylidene resin — any of the class of thermoplastic resins derived by the polymerization or copolymerization of a polyvinylidene compound, used similarly to the polyvinyl resins.
  • polyvinylpyrrolidone — a white, amorphous, water-soluble powder, (C 6 H 9 NO) n , used chiefly as a vehicle in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
  • portal-to-portal pay — payment, as to a miner or factory worker, that includes compensation for time spent on the employer's premises in preparation for a work shift, in travel from the entrance to the assigned work area and back, etc.: Because workers must change their clothes and pick up tools prior to the work shift, they are demanding portal-to-portal pay.
  • portfolio employment — the practice of working for several employers simultaneously rather than working full-time for a single employer
  • portrait photography — the activity or art of taking portrait photos
  • positive electricity — the electricity present in a body or substance that has a deficiency of electrons, as the electricity developed on glass when rubbed with silk.
  • post-synchronization — the recording of dialogue and sound effects in synchronization with the picture after the film has been shot.
  • postal delivery zone — zone (def 10).
  • powhatan confederacy — a network of Algonquian-speaking Indian settlements in Virginia that was ruled by Powhatan.
  • preservation society — a society dedicated to the preservation of something, especially a building, environment, or animal
  • presidential primary — a direct primary for the selection of state delegates to a national party convention and the expression of preference for a U.S. presidential nominee.
  • primary optical area — a point in or toward the upper left-hand corner of a printed page, advertisement, or the like, looked at first in reading. Abbreviation: POA.
  • primary spermatocyte — a male germ cell (primary spermatocyte) that gives rise by meiosis to a pair of haploid cells (secondary spermatocytes) that give rise in turn to spermatids.
  • primitive polynomial — a polynomial that has content equal to 1. Compare content1 (def 11a).
  • princeton university — (body, education)   Chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, Princeton was British North America's fourth college. First located in Elizabeth, then in Newark, the College moved to Princeton in 1756. The College was housed in Nassau Hall, newly built on land donated by Nathaniel and Rebeckah FitzRandolph. Nassau Hall contained the entire College for nearly half a century. The College was officially renamed Princeton University in 1896; five years later in 1900 the Graduate School was established. Fully coeducational since 1969, Princeton now enrolls approximately 6,400 students (4,535 undergraduates and 1,866 graduate students). The ratio of full-time students to faculty members (in full-time equivalents) is eight to one. Today Princeton's main campus in Princeton Borough and Princeton Township consists of more than 5.5 million square feet of space in 160 buildings on 600 acres. The University's James Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro consists of one million square feet of space in four complexes on 340 acres. As Mercer County's largest private employer and one of the largest in the Mercer/Middlesex/Somerset County region, with approximately 4,830 permanent employees - including more than 1,000 faculty members - the University plays a major role in the educational, cultural, and economic life of the region.
  • priority inheritance — (parallel)   A technique for avoiding priority inversion by temporarily raising the prioriry of all processes that want to access a shared resource to the highest priority level of any of them. Priority inversion occurs where a low priority process, L is holding a resource required by a high priority process, H, but L is not running because a medium priority process, M is running. Under priority inheritance, L temporarily inherits H's priority, allowing L to run and release the resource H is waiting for. For example, an ambulance (H) is stuck behind a lorry (L) waiting at a junction (the shared resource) for a gap in a line of cars (M) using the junction. Applying priority inheritance, the cars give way to the lorry as they would to the ambulance, thus allowing the lorry and then the ambulance to use the junction.
  • probability function — the function the values of which are probabilities of the distinct outcomes of a discrete random variable
  • property development — the business of buying land and buildings and then making improvements to them so that their selling price exceeds the price paid for them
  • property speculation — the buying or selling of property in the hope of deriving capital gains
  • proprietary medicine — a drug or agent manufactured and distributed under a trade name
  • propylphenyl acetate — phenylpropyl acetate.
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • prosthetic dentistry — prosthodontics.
  • prothonotary warbler — a wood warbler, Protonotaria citrea, of the eastern U.S., having an orange-yellow head and underparts, and bluish-gray wings and tail.
  • pseudo-psychological — of or relating to psychology.
  • pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
  • psychiatric hospital — institution treating mental disorders
  • psychological moment — the proper or critical time for achieving a desired result: She found the right psychological moment to make her request.
  • psychometric testing — the use of psychometric tests, often as a selection method
  • psychomotor epilepsy — temporal-lobe epilepsy.
  • pyrenees-atlantiques — a department in SW France. 2978 sq. mi. (7710 sq. km). Capital: Pau.
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
  • pythagoras's theorem — (mathematics)   The theorem of geometry, named after Pythagoras, of Samos, Ionia, stating that, for a right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. I.e. if the longest side has length A and the other sides have lengths B and C (in any units), A^2 = B^2 + C^2 (2004-02-12)
  • qualitative analysis — the analysis of a substance in order to ascertain the nature of its chemical constituents.
  • qualitative identity — the relation that holds between two relata that have properties in common. This term is used to distinguish many uses of the words identical or same in ordinary language from strict identity or numerical identity
  • quantum bogodynamics — /kwon'tm boh"goh-di:-nam"iks/ A theory that characterises the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and suits in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise mechanics of bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood. Quantum bogodynamics is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which the former absorb.
  • quantum cryptography — a method of coding information based on quantum mechanics, which is said to be unbreakable
  • quantum field theory — any theory in which fields are treated by the methods of quantum mechanics; each field can then be regarded as consisting of particles of a particular kind, which may be created and annihilated.
  • quaternary structure — the basic structural relationship of the components of a polypeptide, specifically, the type, number, and sequence of amino acids and nucleotides in the chain.
  • random access memory — RAM.
  • random-access memory — RAM.
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