21-letter words containing s, p, r
- phenarsazine chloride — adamsite.
- philadelphia scrapple — a superior variety of scrapple made with pork shoulder and other cuts of pork rather than with pork scraps.
- phillips screw-driver — a screw head having two partial slots crossed at right angles, driven by a special screwdriver (Phillips screwdriver)
- phrase structure tree — Linguistics. a structural representation of a sentence in the form of an inverted tree, with each node of the tree labeled according to the phrasal constituent it represents.
- phrase-structure rule — a rule that generates a sentence or other syntactic construction from words and phrases and identifies its constituent structure.
- physical anthropology — the branch of anthropology dealing with the evolutionary changes in human anatomy and physiology, using mensurational and descriptive techniques.
- pick someone's brains — to obtain information or ideas from someone
- picture quality scale — (graphics) (PQS) A system for rating image quality based upon features of images that affect their perception by the human eye, rather than the traditional signal-to-noise ratio which examines differences for every single pixel.
- piero della francesca — Piero della [pee-air-oh del-uh;; Italian pye-raw del-lah] /piˈɛər oʊ ˈdɛl ə;; Italian ˈpyɛ rɔ ˈdɛl lɑ/ (Show IPA), (Piero dei Franceschi) c1420–92, Italian painter.
- piezoelectric crystal — a crystal, such as quartz, that produces a potential difference across its opposite faces when under mechanical stress
- pincushion distortion — a distortion produced by a lens in which the magnification increases toward the edge of the field.
- pipelined burst cache — Pipeline Burst Cache
- place of safety order — (in Britain) under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, an order granted by a justice to a person or agency granting authority to detain a child or young person and take him or her to a place of safety for not more than 28 days, because of the child's actual or likely ill-treatment or neglect, etc
- plate glass insurance — Plate glass insurance is insurance coverage against damage to or breakage of large panes of glass such as shop windows.
- play one's cards well — to use one's resources in the most effective manner
- play russian roulette — take a foolish risk
- ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
- poke borak at someone — to jeer at someone
- polarizing microscope — a microscope that utilizes polarized light to reveal detail in an object, used especially to study crystalline and fibrous structures.
- political correctness — Political correctness is the attitude or policy of being extremely careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage, or who have been treated differently because of their sex, race, or disability.
- pomp and circumstance — ceremony
- poor robin's plantain — the rattlesnake weed, Hieracium venosum.
- populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
- portable common loops — (PCL) A language which started out as an implementation of CommonLoops and turned into a portable CLOS implementation. Version 1992-08-28. It runs under Lucid Common LISP 4.0.1 and CMU Common LISP 16e.
- portuguese man-of-war — any of several large, oceanic hydrozoans of the genus Physalia, having a large, bladderlike structure with a saillike crest by which they are buoyed up and from which dangle tentacles with stinging cells.
- positive prescription — the uninterrupted possession of property over a stated period of time, after which a right or title is acquired
- posterior probability — the probability assigned to some parameter or to an event on the basis of its observed frequency in a sample, and calculated from a prior probability by Bayes' theorem
- postpartum depression — Postpartum depression is a mental state involving feelings of anxiety and sudden mood swings which some women experience after they have given birth.
- potassium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, slightly alkaline, salty-tasting, water-soluble powder, KHCO 3 , produced by the passage of carbon dioxide through an aqueous potassium carbonate solution: used in cookery as a leavening agent and in medicine as an antacid.
- poweropen association — An independent body established to promote, and test conformance with, the PowerOpen Environment (POE).
- powersoft corporation — (company) A leading vendor of client/server application development tools. In February 1994, Watcom became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Powersoft Corporation which merged with Sybase on 13 February 1995. In April 1995, the new company is the fastest growing top-ten software company and the seventh largest software company in the world. Headquarters: Concord, Massachusetts, USA.
- prader-willi syndrome — a congenital condition characterized by obsessive eating, obesity, learning difficulties, and small genitalia
- pre-sales support rep — (job) A person who supports sales by analysing customer requirements, proposing and demonstrating technical solutions, ensuring acceptable product installations, training users and providing initial technical support.
- preacquisition profit — the retained profit of a company earned before a takeover and therefore not eligible for distribution as a dividend to the shareholders of the acquiring company
- precision engineering — design of complex and specialized machines
- preexisting condition — A preexisting condition is a medical condition already suffered by a proposer before the starting date of an insurance policy.
- prefect of discipline — a senior master in a Jesuit school or college
- premenstrual syndrome — a complex of physical and emotional changes, including depression, irritability, appetite changes, bloating and water retention, breast soreness, and changes in muscular coordination, one or more of which may be experienced in the several days before the onset of menstrual flow. Abbreviation: PMS.
- premium savings bonds — (in Britain) bonds issued by the Treasury since 1956 for purchase by the public. No interest is paid but there is a monthly draw for cash prizes of various sums
- president pro tempore — a senator, usually a senior member of the majority party, who is chosen to preside over the Senate in the absence of the vice president.
- pressure-vacuum valve — a valve for relieving a sealed tank of any pressure or vacuum exceeding acceptable limits.
- price competitiveness — pricing goods or services so that they are competitive with the prices of other companies
- primary sex character — any of the body structures directly concerned in reproduction, as the testes, ovaries, and external genitalia.
- prince rupert's metal — a brass composed of from about 60 to 85 percent copper and about 15 to 40 percent zinc, used to imitate gold.
- private member's bill — In Britain, a Private Member's Bill is a law that is proposed by a Member of Parliament acting as an individual rather than as a member of his or her political party.
- pro-industrialization — the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity into an area, society, country, etc.
- probable maximum loss — Probable maximum loss is the maximum amount of loss that can be expected under normal circumstances.
- processor direct slot — (hardware) (PDS) Apple Computer's name for a local bus connection. Most Macintoshes have only one PDS connector. Different Apple computers have different PDS specifications.
- professional services — (job) A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products.
- profit-sharing scheme — a scheme employing profit-sharing; a system in which a portion of the net profit of a business is distributed to its employees, usually in proportion to their wages or their length of service