18-letter words containing ve
- progressive dinner — a dinner party in which each successive course is prepared and eaten at the residence of a different participant.
- property developer — person: deals in real estate
- protective colloid — a lyophilic colloid added to a lyophobic sol to lessen its sensitivity to the precipitating effect of an electrolyte.
- protective custody — detention of a person by the police solely as protection against a possible attack or reprisal by someone.
- protocol converter — (networking) A device or program to translate between different protocols which serve similar functions (e.g. TCP and TP4). Some call this a "gateway", though others use that term for other kinds of internetworking device.
- pseudo-competitive — of, pertaining to, involving, or decided by competition: competitive sports; a competitive examination.
- public convenience — a rest room, especially at a large public place, as at a railroad station.
- quantity surveying — the action or profession of a person who estimates the cost of the materials and labour necessary for a construction job
- quarter-wave plate — a crystal thin enough to cause a phase difference of 90° between the ordinary and extraordinary rays of polarized light, thereby converting circularly polarized light into plane polarized light.
- queen's university — A Canadian University. Source of GVL, NIAL, Pasqual, Q'NIAL and TXL.
- quevedo y villegas — Francisco Gómez de. 1580–1645, Spanish poet and writer, noted for his satires and the picaresque novel La historia de la vida del Buscón (1626)
- rabbit-foot clover — a plant, Trifolium arvense, having trifoliate leaves with narrow leaflets and fuzzy, cylindrical, grayish-pink flower heads.
- radioactive dating — any method of determining the age of earth materials or objects of organic origin based on measurement of either short-lived radioactive elements or the amount of a long-lived radioactive element plus its decay product.
- radioactive series — a succession of elements initiated in the radioactive decay of a parent, as thorium or uranium, each of which decays into the next until a stable element, usually lead, is produced.
- raffinate recovery — Raffinate recovery is the use of a substance which is left after a process is complete and the desired substances have been removed.
- rapid eye movement — rapidly shifting, continuous movements of the eyes beneath closed lids during the stage of sleep characterized by dreaming.
- reactive component — the component in an alternating-current circuit that does not contribute power because it is 90° out of phase with the voltage or current.
- recovery operation — the process of locating and retrieving bodies, esp following an explosion or natural disaster
- recursive function — a function defined in terms of the repeated application of a number of simpler functions to their own values, by specifying a base clause and a recursion formula
- redevelopment area — an urban area in which all or most of the buildings are demolished and rebuilt
- reinvent the wheel — (jargon) To design or implement a tool equivalent to an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid criticism. On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times before you get them right. On the third hand, people reinventing the wheel do tend to come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset axle.
- relative frequency — the ratio of the number of times an event occurs to the number of occasions on which it might occur in the same period.
- relative major key — a major key that has the same key signature as a minor key, but a different tonic
- relative minor key — a minor key that has the same key signature as a major key, but a different tonic
- representativeness — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- research-intensive — focusing financial and other resources on research and development as opposed to capital and labor; noting or pertaining to a high ratio of expenditure on research in relation to the value of net output.
- restrictive clause — a relative clause that identifies the antecedent and that is usually not set off by commas in English. In The year that just ended was bad for crops, the clause that just ended is a restrictive clause.
- reverberation time — the time it takes for a sound made in a room to diminish by 60 decibels.
- reverse angle shot — Movies. reverse shot.
- reverse psychology — (in nontechnical use) a method of getting another person to do what one wants by pretending not to want it or to want something else or something more.
- reverse the charge — to make a telephone call at the recipient's expense
- reversionary bonus — a bonus added to the sum payable on death or at the maturity of a with-profits assurance policy
- ribbon development — housing or commercial buildings built along a stretch of road.
- run one's eye over — to glance at hurriedly
- sea-level pressure — the atmospheric pressure, at any elevation, reduced by formula to a value approximating the pressure at sea level.
- secondary recovery — extraction of oil or natural gas under artificially induced pressure after the natural flow has ceased.
- selective abortion — the aborting of particular embryos for medical or social reasons
- selective breeding — the raising of animals with particular genetic traits through careful choice of parents
- self-advertisement — a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc.
- set priority level — (SPL) The way traditional Unix kernels implement mutual exclusion by running code at high interrupt priority levels and thus blocking lower level interrupts.
- seven-league boots — mythical boots that allowed the wearer to travel seven leagues (a former unit of measurement), ie a great length, at each step
- significance level — (in the statistical test of a hypothesis) the maximum probability of a Type I error for all distributions consistent with the null hypothesis.
- silver certificate — a former paper currency first issued in 1878 by the U.S. federal government for circulation, equal to and redeemable for silver to a stated value.
- silvery cinquefoil — any of several plants belonging to the genus Potentilla, of the rose family, having yellow, red, or white five-petaled flowers, as P. reptans (creeping cinquefoil) of the Old World, or P. argentea (silvery cinquefoil) of North America.
- silvery spleenwort — a fern, Diplazium pycnocarpon, of eastern North America, having fronds from 20 to 30 inches (50.8 to 76.2 cm) long on yellowish-green stalks.
- solvent extraction — Solvent extraction is the separation of a particular substance from a mixture by dissolving that substance in a solvent that will dissolve it, but which will not dissolve any other substance in the mixture.
- split-level cooker — a cooker that is designed with a separate oven and hob so that they can be fitted wherever is most convenient in the kitchen
- st. lawrence river — a river in SE Canada, flowing NE from Lake Ontario, forming part of the boundary between New York and Ontario, and emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 760 miles (1225 km) long.
- stick-to-itiveness — persistence, tenacity
- store launch event — A store launch event is a special event, which publicizes the opening of a new store and at which discounts and free samples may be offered.