18-letter words containing p, h, o, n
- polyvinyl chloride — a white, water-insoluble, thermoplastic resin, derived by the polymerization of vinyl chloride: used chiefly for thin coatings, insulation, and pipings.
- pound the pavement — a paved road, highway, etc.
- prepare the ground — make conditions ready
- prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
- price on sb's head — If there is a price on someone 's head, an amount of money has been offered for the capture or killing of that person.
- prison authorities — the people in charge of running a prison
- process scheduling — multitasking
- processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
- projection machine — an apparatus that projects motion pictures; projector.
- prometheus unbound — a drama in verse (1820) by Shelley.
- propaganda machine — the group of people, publications, etc, such as of a government, country etc, responsible for the organized dissemination of information, allegations, etc, to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement, etc
- protease inhibitor — 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 synchrotron — a synchrotron used for accelerating protons.
- provision merchant — a person or company in the business of retailing food and other provisions
- pseudo-anarchistic — a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
- psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
- psychotechnologist — a specialist in psychotechnology
- publishing company — a firm which publishes books
- puerto rico trench — a depression in the ocean floor, N of Puerto Rico: includes deepest part of Atlantic Ocean, 28,374 feet (8648 meters).
- pull one's head in — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- pull one's punches — to restrain the force of one's criticisms or actions
- purchasing officer — the member of staff in an organization who is responsible for buying goods or products
- puss in the corner — a parlor game for children in which one player in the middle of a room tries to occupy any of the positions along the walls that become vacant as other players dash across to exchange places at a signal.
- put one's shirt on — to bet all one has on (a horse, etc)
- put the mockers on — stop, thwart
- root canal therapy — endodontics.
- secondary syphilis — the second stage of syphilis, characterized by eruptions of the skin and mucous membrane.
- segmental phonemes — phonemes consisting of sound segments; hence, the vowel, consonant, and semivowel sounds of a language
- self-comprehending — to understand the nature or meaning of; grasp with the mind; perceive: He did not comprehend the significance of the ambassador's remark.
- shape-note singing — a traditional style of a capella singing using shape-note notation.
- shipping container — a large, strong container, usually of metal, used to store goods in during shipment
- shipping documents — documents relating to the sending of a shipment of goods, for example containing details of contents, weight, value etc.
- shotgun microphone — a directional microphone with a narrow-angle range of sensitivity.
- shunting operation — an operation in which rail coaches are manoeuvred
- sling psychrometer — a psychrometer so designed that the wet-bulb thermometer can be ventilated, to expedite evaporation, by whirling in the air.
- slip of the tongue — If you describe something you said as a slip of the tongue, you mean that you said it by mistake.
- slow on the uptake — slow to understand or learn
- something to spare — a surplus of something
- sonic depth finder — a sonar instrument that uses echolocation to measure depths under water.
- sound spectrograph — an electronic device for recording a sound spectogram.
- southampton island — an island in N Canada, in the Northwest Territories at the entrance to Hudson Bay. 19,100 sq. mi. (49,470 sq. km).
- spaghetti junction — an interchange, usually between motorways, in which there are a large number of underpasses and overpasses and intersecting roads used by a large volume of high-speed traffic
- spanish succession — War of thea war (1701-14) between European powers disputing the succession to the Spanish throne
- speech recognition — Computers. the computerized analysis of spoken words in order to identify the speaker, as in security systems, or to respond to voiced commands: the analysis is performed by finding patterns in the spectrum of the incoming sound and comparing them with stored patterns of elements of sound, as phones, or of complete words.
- spur-of-the-moment — occurring or done without advance preparation or deliberation; extemporaneous; unplanned: a spur-of-the-moment decision.
- superstring theory — any supersymmetric string theory in which each type of elementary particle is treated as a vibration of a single fundamental string (superstring) at a particular frequency.
- symphony orchestra — a large orchestra composed of wind, string, and percussion instruments and organized to perform symphonic compositions.
- systematic phoneme — a phonological unit in generative phonology representing an underlying form that takes into account the relationship between phonological patterns and morphological variation, as the unit underlying the second vowel in both derive and derivative.
- telephone exchange — a telecommunications facility to which subscribers' telephones connect, that switches calls among subscribers or to other exchanges for further routing.
- telephone receiver — a device, as in a telephone, that converts changes in an electric current into sound.