16-letter words containing e, p, s, o
- pelagic division — the biogeographic realm or zone that comprises the open seas and oceans, including water of all depths.
- pelican crossing — place to cross road
- pension benefits — the benefits that are paid to a person in accordance with his pension scheme
- pension mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a pension fund and the interest to the mortgagee. The loan is repaid out of the tax-free lump sum proceeds of the pension plan on the borrower's retirement
- pension provider — the company or organization that makes provision for a person's pension
- 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 smuggling — People smuggling or people trafficking is the practice of bringing immigrants into a country illegally.
- 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.
- people's commune — a usually rural, Communist Chinese social and administrative unit of from 2000 to 4000 families combined for collective farming, fishing, mining, or industrial projects.
- percussion drill — a drill that is operated by percussion
- performance test — a test requiring little or no use of language, the test materials being designed to elicit manual or behavioral responses rather than verbal ones.
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- person of colour — a person who is not White
- person-to-person — (of a long-distance telephone call) chargeable only upon speaking with a specified person at the number called: a person-to-person call to her brother in California. Compare station-to-station.
- personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
- personal effects — belongings
- personal hygiene — bodily cleanliness
- 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 pension — a private pension scheme in which an individual contributes part of his or her salary to a financial institution, which invests it so that a lump sum is available on retirement; this is then used to purchase an annuity
- personal pronoun — any one of the pronouns used to refer to the speaker, or to one or more to or about whom or which he or she is speaking, as, in English, I, we, you, he, she, it, they.
- personal shopper — a person, often a store employee, whose job is to assist shoppers in selecting clothing or other merchandise.
- 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
- personnel agency — an agency for placing employable persons in jobs; employment agency.
- petrified forest — a national park in E Arizona, containing petrified coniferous trees about 170 000 000 years old
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacogenomics — the study of human genetic variability in relation to drug action and its application to medical treatment
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- phase microscope — a microscope that utilizes the phase differences of light rays transmitted by different portions of an object to create an image in which the details of the object are distinct despite their near-uniformity of refractive index.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- philosopher king — the Platonic ideal of a ruler, philosophically trained and enlightened.
- philosopher-king — the Platonic ideal of a ruler, philosophically trained and enlightened.
- phlebothrombosis — the presence of a thrombus in a vein.
- phosphor fatigue — screen saver
- photoluminescent — luminescence induced by the absorption of infrared radiation, visible light, or ultraviolet radiation.
- photorespiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
- photosensitivity — the quality of being photosensitive.
- phototypesetting — Printing. photocomposition.
- pick up stompies — to come late to a conversation and so misunderstand what is being discussed
- pico de sao tome — an island in the Gulf of Guinea, off the W coast of Gabon, just N of the equator: the larger component of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. 318 sq. mi. (824 sq. km).
- picture postcard — postcard (def 1).
- piece d'occasion — something prepared or used for a special occasion.
- pincers movement — a military maneuver in which both flanks of an enemy force are attacked with the aim of attaining complete encirclement.
- pique oneself on — to be proud of
- pitch inspection — in inclement weather, a pre-match inspection of the playing surface in order to determine whether it is in good enough condition for the match to go ahead