This page gathers the 9,098 dictionary entries belonging to the domain “Engineering”, as labelled by Wiktionary. Each word leads to its full entry: definitions, etymology, pronunciation, examples. Page 57 of 91: from “parasite aircraft” to “permission”.
- parasite aircraft noun A component of a composite aircraft which is carried aloft and air-launched by a larger carrier aircraft or mother ship to support the…
- parasitic noun A component of a circuit that does not show up in a circuit's schematic but does show up in the circuit's behavior.
- parasitic element noun A circuit element or property that is present within an electrical component, and has a negative effect on the performance of the circuit.
- paraunitary adj Of or relating to a kind of matrix that occurs in the construction of filter banks used in multirate digital systems.
- paravirtualization noun An approximate virtualization in which the emulated operating system has been modified for convenience or efficiency.
- parent verb To provide a parent object for one or more other objects, which become the children.
- parentless adj Having no parent in a data structure.
- Pareto efficient adj Describing a situation in which the profit of one party cannot be increased without reducing the profit of another.
- Pareto improvement noun A change in the allocation of a resource to a set of individuals that is an improvement for at least one and no worse for any other.
- Pareto optimal adj Describing a situation in which the profit of one party cannot be increased without reducing the profit of another.
- parity noun The count of one bits in a value, reduced to even or odd or zero or one.
- parity bit noun A bit (binary digit) used to indicate whether the number of bits in a given set with value of one is even or odd. Parity bits are used as a…
- parrot noun A transponder.
- parse noun An act of parsing; a parsing.
- parselet noun A small modular parsing object or routine (particularly in a Pratt parser) that handles a particular syntactic construct.
- parser noun A computer program that parses.
- partial adj Describing a property that holds only when an algorithm terminates.
- partial application noun The process of fixing a number of arguments to a function, producing another function of smaller arity.
- partial dependency noun An attribute of a relation that depends on a key but also on a part of such key; this is a violation of second normal form.
- partial evaluation noun A technique for program optimization by specialization, so as to produce new programs which run faster than the originals while guaranteed…
- particle beam noun Ellipsis of particle-beam weapon and particle beamer; synonym of ray gun.
- parting sand noun Dry, non-adhesive sand sprinkled upon the partings of a mould to facilitate the separation by not allowing the mould to stick together.
- partition noun A section of a hard disk separately formatted.
- party line noun A single telephone line which is shared by two or more households. Formerly common from the inception of telephony (1880s) through the…
- pass noun A run through a document as part of a translation, compilation or reformatting process.
- pass transistor noun A transistor used as a switch to pass logic levels between nodes of a circuit, instead of as a switch connected directly to a supply…
- passive noun Any component that consumes but does not produce energy, or is incapable of power gain.
- passive attack noun An attack in which the cryptanalyst cannot interact with any of the parties involved, attempting to break the system solely based upon…
- passkey noun A cryptographic key that is tied to specific devices or cloud accounts and is meant to be used instead of a password.
- passthrough noun As of a signal through a device or network.
- password verb To protect with a password.
- password salting noun A technique employed to protect passwords stored in a database by attaching a string of 32 or more characters and then hashing them.
- paste verb To insert a piece of media (e.g. text, picture, audio, video) previously copied or cut from somewhere else.
- pasteboard noun A widget allowing multiple users to paste and share text or other items.
- paster noun A diagram of the circuitry of a telephone, glued inside the telephone itself.
- patch verb To fix or improve a computer program without a complete upgrade.
- patch box noun A lidded container fitted to a gun to hold the cloth patches used when shooting round shot.
- patcher noun A process or program that applies a software patch.
- path verb To navigate through a file system directory tree (to a desired file or folder).
- path length noun The number of text characters in a path (file or resource specifier).
- path tracing noun A Monte Carlo method of rendering images of three-dimensional scenes such that the global illumination is faithful to reality.
- pathfinding noun The plotting by a computer application of the best route between two points.
- pathname noun The full name of a computer file, including the names of any directories or subdirectories in the path needed to access it.
- pathological adj Having properties that cause unusually bad behaviour, especially regarding correctness or performance.
- Patricia tree noun A radix tree with radix of 2, meaning that each bit of the key is compared individually and each node is a two-way branch.
- pattern noun A full-sized model around which a mould of sand is made, to receive the melted metal. It is usually made of wood and in several parts, so…
- pavement noun A paved surface; a hard covering on the ground.
- payline noun The planned limit of an excavation, beyond which a contractor is not paid for any excavation work.
- payload noun The functional part of a computer virus or another type of malware program, rather than the part that spreads it.
- payload specialist noun an astronaut selected and trained for specific space flights, usually responsible for handling complex equipment onboard and conducting…
- paywall noun A system that restricts access to content with a purchase or a paid subscription.
- Pbps noun petabits per second, a measure of data transfer rate equal to 1000 terabits or 10¹⁵ bits per second.
- PC noun Initialism of program counter.
- PC Card noun A removable memory or I/O device that fits into an expansion slot on a notebook computer or a personal digital assistant (PDA). PC Cards…
- PC-compatible adj Of a computer, offering the compatibility of the IBM Personal Computer regarding software, and―to a lesser degree―hardware.
- PDLC noun polymer dispersed liquid crystal.
- Peabody action noun An early form of breechloading firearm action, where the heavy breechblock tilted downwards across a bolt mounted in the rear of the…
- peachblow adj Of a delicate purplish-pink colour suggesting peach blooms; applied especially to a style of Chinese porcelain.
- peak verb To exceed the maximum signal amplitude of (a piece of equipment), resulting in clipping of the signal.
- peak of eternal light noun A mountain peak, on a solid, non-luminous celestial body, which experiences continuous or near-continuous illumination due to a combination…
- peashooter noun Any small or ineffective gun or weapon.
- PEBCAK noun Chiefly used by technical support helpdesk staff: a problem experienced with a user's computer that is due to user error.
- pebibyte noun Strictly, 2⁵⁰ (1024⁵, 1,125,899,906,842,624) bytes or 2¹⁰ (1024) tebibytes, as opposed to a petabyte.
- pecker noun A kind of V-shaped telegraphic relay.
- Pedersen device noun An experimental weapon attachment for the M1903 Springfield bolt action rifle that allowed it to fire a .30 caliber (7.62 mm) pistol-type…
- pedestal noun A pillow block; a low housing.
- pedestal server noun A type of computer rack consisting of a box-like frame or a columnar support, and may include wheels for transportation.
- pedipulator noun A component mechanism which gives a robot the capability of walking; a robot having such a capability.
- Pedro noun The standard callsign for an aircraft participating in CSAR (“combat search and rescue”), typically a helicopter.
- peek verb To retrieve (a value) from a memory address.
- peekable adj Of a stream or other sequence: from which the next value can be retrieved without advancing the pointer from its current position.
- peekaboo card noun A kind of punch card that could be used to find records matching several categories by aligning cards for the records and retaining those…
- peer-to-peer adj Connected as equal partners and able to share processing, control and access to data and peripherals; decentralized.
- pellicle noun A thin plastic membrane used as a beam splitter or protective cover (for example, to protect a photomask).
- pen noun Penetration.
- pen drive noun A small electronic device used to store digital data, more portable and robust than a hard drive; a flash drive.
- pen test noun A penetration test.
- pencil noun An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
- pendulum noun A body suspended from a fixed support so that it swings freely back and forth under the influence of gravity, commonly used to regulate…
- penetration test noun Either a static or dynamic test of the relative density of sand, silt, etc. using a penetrometer.
- penny verb To circumvent the tripping of an electrical circuit breaker by the dangerous practice of inserting a coin in place of a fuse in a fuse…
- penny in the fusebox noun An improvised repair made with no regard for safety.
- pent noun A Pentium microprocessor or computer.
- pentadecathlon noun A particular oscillator that returns to its initial state after 15 generations.
- pentagraph noun A five-character sequence used to enter a single conceptual character.
- pentop noun An electronic pen-like device intended as an educational computer for use with attachable cartridges and special digital paper.
- pepper noun A randomly-generated value that is added to another value (such as a password) prior to hashing. Unlike a salt, a new one is generated for…
- pepperbox noun A repeating firearm with three or more barrels grouped around a central axis.
- percent-encode verb To convert special or reserved characters in a string (such as spaces, slashes or query symbols) into a safe format for use in URLs or…
- percent-encoding noun A method used to encode special or reserved characters in URIs and URLs by replacing them with a percent sign followed by two hexadecimal…
- percussion noun The repeated striking of an object to break or shape it, as in percussion drilling.
- percussion lock noun A kind of lock for a gun in which a hammer strikes upon a percussion cap on the nipple, igniting the charge.
- perfect information noun A hypothetical condition in which all players in a game or all participants in a market have knowledge of all relevant information in the…
- performant adj Characterized by a level of performance or efficiency that is adequate for or exceeds the expectations of end users.
- peripheral noun A peripheral device.
- peripheral brain noun Any hardware (i.e. handheld, computer, laptop) containing vast amounts of information, which is in constant flux and is important to the…
- peripheral device noun An electronic device that is outside the computer's system unit (external to the computer's enclosing case), but used by the computer to…
- Perlin noise noun Random-looking visual noise generated by a function, widely used in computer graphics to simulate effects such as fire and clouds.
- perm noun Permission
- permission noun Flags or access control lists pertaining to a file that dictate who can access it, and how.