15-letter words containing e, s, p, a, o
- parti québécois — (in Canada) a political party in Quebec, formed in 1968 and originally advocating the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country
- passenger coach — a carriage in which passengers sit
- 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
- passive smoking — the inhaling of cigarette, cigar, and pipe smoke of others, especially by a nonsmoker in an enclosed area.
- passport holder — a person who has a passport
- passport office — an office which issues passports
- pastel-coloured — pale-coloured; in a shade such as pink or pale blue
- pastoral letter — pastoral (defs 11, 12).
- pastoral prayer — the main prayer in a church service.
- patria potestas — the power vested in the paterfamilias or head of the Roman family with respect to his wife, natural or adopted children, and agnatic descendants: title to family property is vested exclusively in the paterfamilias. Property acquired by a family member becomes family property, and no family member can enter into a transaction in his or her own right.
- paurometabolous — designating or of a group of insect orders, as orthopterans or hemipterans, in which metamorphosis to the adult state from the juvenile state is gradual and without any sudden, radical change of body form
- pay as you earn — a method of paying tax in which the tax is taken off your wages before they are paid to you
- peace offensive — an active program, policy, propaganda campaign, etc., by a national government for the purpose of terminating a war or period of hostility, lessening international tensions, or promoting peaceful cooperation with other nations.
- peachblow glass — an American art glass made in various pale colors and sometimes having an underlayer of milk glass.
- pectoral muscle — muscle of the chest
- pedagoguishness — the quality of being pedagoguish
- performing arts — dance, drama, music
- pergamentaceous — (esp of plants) resembling parchment, whether in texture or composition
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- personal column — The personal column in a newspaper or magazine contains messages for individual people and advertisements of a private nature.
- personal estate — movable property
- personal friend — a person who is a friend, rather than a colleague or acquaintance
- personal growth — development as an individual
- personal injury — injury to an individual
- personal stereo — A personal stereo is a small cassette or CD player with very light headphones, which people carry round so that they can listen to music while doing something else.
- personalization — to have marked with one's initials, name, or monogram: to personalize stationery.
- personification — the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
- peter of amiens — c1050–1115, French monk: preacher of the first Crusade 1095–99.
- pheasant coucal — a brown and black, red-eyed Australian bird, Centropus phasianinus, with a pheasantlike tail.
- phenakistoscope — an early form of a zoetrope in which figures are depicted in different poses around the edge of a disc. When the disc is spun, and the figures observed through the apertures around the edge of the disc, they appear to be moving
- phenomenalistic — the doctrine that phenomena are the only objects of knowledge or the only form of reality.
- 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)
- phosphate group — the group or radical obtained by removal of one or more hydrogen atoms from phosphoric acid.
- phosphocreatine — a compound, C 4 H 1 0 O 5 N 3 P, found chiefly in muscle, formed by the enzymatic interaction of an organic phosphate and creatine, the breakdown of which provides energy for muscle contraction.
- phosphorylative — of or relating to phosphorylation
- photodissociate — to split or break up molecules as a result of the absorption of photons
- photoelasticity — the phenomenon of double refraction of polarized light by a transparent substance under elastic stress, used to measure strain in elastic, transparent materials.
- phrasemongering — the act of coining memorable phrases
- physical memory — (memory management) The memory hardware (normally RAM) installed in a computer. The term is only used in contrast to virtual memory.
- physicochemical — physical and chemical: the physicochemical properties of an isomer.
- physiotherapist — physical therapy.
- pick and choose — to choose or select from among a group: to pick a contestant from the audience.
- pick-and-shovel — marked by drudgery; laborious: the pick-and-shovel work necessary to get a political campaign underway.
- pistachio green — a light or medium shade of yellow green.
- pithecanthropus — a former genus of extinct hominids whose members have now been assigned to the proposed species Homo erectus.
- 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 scales — a weighing machine which has a platform that you put something on to be weighed