16-letter words containing a, l, s, t, o
- on a trial basis — for the purpose of assessment
- on its last legs — about to fail
- online thesaurus — a thesaurus or dictionary of words with the same or nearly the same meanings, or synonyms, and their opposites, or antonyms, such as Thesaurus.com, available on the Internet or the World Wide Web, accessed through a web browser, and used by entering a query term into a search box on the site. An online thesaurus provides immediate electronic access to lists of alternate terms for the queried word, covering its various shades of meaning: This online thesaurus showed me that smart, as an adjective, not only means intelligent, but also stylish, or lively, and gave long lists of other words for each meaning.
- ophthalmologists — Plural form of ophthalmologist.
- ophthalmoparesis — (medicine) A partial or complete paralysis of the extraocular muscles which are responsible for eye movements.
- optical illusion — something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality.
- optical scanning — the process of interpreting data in printed, handwritten, bar-code, or other visual form by a device (optical scanner or reader) that scans and identifies the data.
- optical tweezers — a laser device used to study, manipulate, or trap a microscopic object, as a microorganism or cell, with nanometer precision.
- organ transplant — an operation in which an organ is transplanted from a donor
- osculating plane — the plane containing the circle of curvature of a point on a given curve.
- osteoarchaeology — the branch of archaeology that deals with the study of bones found at archaeological sites
- otolaryngologist — Otorhinolaryngologist.
- outsmart oneself — to have one's efforts at cunning or cleverness result in one's own disadvantage
- over-sentimental — expressive of or appealing to sentiment, especially the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia: a sentimental song.
- over-speculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- palmerston north — a city in New Zealand, in the S North Island on the Manawatu River. Pop: 78 100 (2004 est)
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- parts of lindsey — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- pascal's theorem — the theorem that the lines joining adjacent vertices of a hexagon intersect the same straight line if alternate vertices lie on two intersecting straight lines.
- passport control — identity check at airport, etc.
- pastoral epistle — any one of three New Testament books, I or II Timothy or Titus, that stress pastoral and ecclesiastical concerns.
- peasants' revolt — the first great popular rebellion in English history (1381), caused by the imposition of an unpopular poll tax: it lasted less than a month and failed as a social revolution
- pectoralis major — the larger of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pentatonic scale — a scale having five tones to an octave, as one having intervals that correspond to the five black keys of a piano octave.
- pentothal sodium — thiopental sodium
- people's charter — the principles or movement of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, in England from 1838 to 1848: so called from the document (People's Charter or National Charter) that contained a statement of their principles and demands.
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
- personal effects — belongings
- personal liberty — the liberty of an individual to do his or her will freely except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.
- personal stylist — a person employed by a rich or famous client to offer advice on clothes, hairstyles, and other aspects of personal appearance
- personal trainer — a person who works one-on-one with a client to plan or implement an exercise or fitness regimen.
- personal tuition — private tuition
- personality cult — deliberately cultivated adulation of a person, esp a political leader
- personality test — an instrument, as a questionnaire or series of standardized tasks, used to measure personality characteristics or to discover personality disorders.
- personality type — a cluster of personality traits commonly occurring together
- phantasmagorical — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- philanthropistic — a person who practices philanthropy.
- plainclothes man — a detective or police officer who wears civilian clothes while on duty
- plaster of paris — calcined gypsum in white, powdery form, used as a base for gypsum plasters, as an additive of lime plasters, and as a material for making fine and ornamental casts: characterized by its ability to set rapidly when mixed with water.
- platoon sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer in a platoon, equivalent to sergeant first class.
- play off against — If you play people off against each other, you make them compete or argue, so that you gain some advantage.
- play-action pass — a pass play designed to deceive the defense by appearing to be a running play, in which the quarterback fakes a hand-off to a back before throwing a forward pass.
- pocket billiards — pool2 (def 1).
- point of sailing — the bearing of a sailing vessel, considered with relation to the direction of the wind.
- polar opposition — the relation between a pair of antonyms that denote relatively higher and lower degrees of a quality with respect to an explicit or implicit norm rather than absolute values, as the relation between tall and short or light and dark, but not between true and false.
- police constable — police officer
- policy statement — a declaration of the plans and intentions of an organization or government