15-letter words containing a, l, i, s, o
- overstimulation — to rouse to action or effort, as by encouragement or pressure; spur on; incite: to stimulate his interest in mathematics.
- ovoviviparously — in an ovoviviparous manner
- painter's colic — Pathology. lead poisoning causing intense intestinal pain.
- palaeomagnetism — the study of the fossil magnetism in rocks, used to determine the past configurations of the continents and to investigate the past shape and magnitude of the earth's magnetic field
- palaeomagnetist — a student of or expert in palaeomagnetism
- paleogeophysics — (used with a plural verb) inferred geophysical conditions or processes of designated periods of the geologic past.
- panophthalmitis — the inflammation of all eye tissue
- paradise flower — a prickly vine, Solanum wendlandii, of the nightshade family, native to Costa Rica, having branched clusters of showy lilac-blue flowers.
- paralation lisp — Embeds the paralation model in Common LISP. Available from MIT Press, (800)356-0343.
- parallel cousin — a cousin who is the child either of one's mother's sister or of one's father's brother.
- parkinson's law — the statement, expressed facetiously as if a law of physics, that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
- passifloraceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Passifloraceae, a tropical and subtropical family of climbing plants including the passionflowers: the flowers have five petals and threadlike parts forming a dense mass (corona) around the central disc
- pastoralization — to make pastoral or rural.
- pathophysiology — the physiology of abnormal or diseased organisms or their parts; the functional changes associated with a disease or syndrome.
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- personal friend — a person who is a friend, rather than a colleague or acquaintance
- personal injury — injury to an individual
- personalization — to have marked with one's initials, name, or monogram: to personalize stationery.
- phenomenalistic — the doctrine that phenomena are the only objects of knowledge or the only form of reality.
- philosophically — of or relating to philosophy: philosophical studies.
- phoenix islands — a group of eight coral islands in the central Pacific: administratively part of Kiribati. Area: 28 sq km (11 sq miles). The islands and surrounding waters form the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, the world's largest marine protected area. Area: 410 500 sq km (158 500 sq miles)
- phosphorylation — to introduce the phosphoryl group into (an organic compound).
- phosphorylative — of or relating to phosphorylation
- photoelasticity — the phenomenon of double refraction of polarized light by a transparent substance under elastic stress, used to measure strain in elastic, transparent materials.
- photojournalism — journalism in which photography dominates written copy, as in certain magazines.
- physical memory — (memory management) The memory hardware (normally RAM) installed in a computer. The term is only used in contrast to virtual memory.
- physical optics — the branch of optics concerned with the wave properties of light, the superposition of waves, the deviation of light from its rectilinear propagation in a manner other than that considered by geometrical optics, the interaction of light with matter, and the quantum, corpuscular aspects of light.
- physicalization — to express in physical terms; give form or shape to: The dancers physicalized the mood of the music.
- physicochemical — physical and chemical: the physicochemical properties of an isomer.
- physiologically — of or relating to physiology.
- physiopathology — pathophysiology.
- pick-and-shovel — marked by drudgery; laborious: the pick-and-shovel work necessary to get a political campaign underway.
- pictorial janus — K. Kahn, Xerox. Visual extension of Janus. Requires Strand88 and a PostScript interpreter.
- plagiostomatous — plagiostome
- plain of sharon — a plain in W Israel, between the Mediterranean and the hills of Samaria, extending from Haifa to Tel Aviv
- plainclothesman — a police officer, especially a detective, who wears ordinary civilian clothes while on duty.
- plantaginaceous — relating to or belonging to the family Plantaginaceae
- plastic surgeon — doctor who performs cosmetic surgery
- plate tectonics — a theory of global tectonics in which the lithosphere is divided into a number of crustal plates, each of which moves on the plastic asthenosphere more or less independently to collide with, slide under, or move past adjacent plates.
- platform tennis — a variation of tennis played on a wooden platform enclosed with chicken wire in which the players hit a rubber ball with wooden paddles following the same basic rules as tennis except that only one serve is permitted and balls can be played off the back and side fences.
- platitudinously — in a platitudinal manner
- play favourites — to display favouritism
- pleasure-loving — enjoying pleasure
- plumbaginaceous — belonging to the Plumbaginaceae, the leadwort family of plants.
- police marksman — a police officer skilled in precision shooting, esp with a sniper rifle
- policy issuance — Policy issuance is the process of creating an insurance policy and providing it to the policyholder.
- polish notation — a logical notation that dispenses with the need for brackets by writing the logical constants as operators preceding their arguments
- polling station — voting venue
- polycrystalline — (of a rock or metal) composed of aggregates of individual crystals.
- polysyllabicism — a polysyllabic style