15-letter words containing l, e, p, s
- 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
- palais de danse — a dance hall
- paleogeophysics — (used with a plural verb) inferred geophysical conditions or processes of designated periods of the geologic past.
- panhandle state — West Virginia (used as a nickname).
- paracel islands — a group of uninhabited islets and reefs in the N South China Sea, the subject of territorial claims by China and Vietnam
- paradise flower — a prickly vine, Solanum wendlandii, of the nightshade family, native to Costa Rica, having branched clusters of showy lilac-blue flowers.
- paradise valley — a town in SW Arizona.
- parallel cousin — a cousin who is the child either of one's mother's sister or of one's father's brother.
- parallel pascal — (language) A data-parallel language, similar to Actus and Glypnir.
- parasiticalness — the condition or characteristic of being parasitic
- partial eclipse — astronomy
- pass-the-parcel — a children's game in which a parcel with lots of wrappings is passed round while music plays; each time the music stops the person holding the parcel takes a layer of wrapping off
- 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
- passport holder — a person who has a passport
- past participle — a participle with past, perfect, or passive meaning, as fallen, sung, defeated; perfect participle: used in English and other languages in forming the present perfect, pluperfect, and passive and as an adjective.
- 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.
- 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
- peachblow glass — an American art glass made in various pale colors and sometimes having an underlayer of milk glass.
- pearly nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
- pectoral muscle — muscle of the chest
- pedestrian mall — A pedestrian mall is the same as a pedestrian precinct.
- penal servitude — imprisonment together with hard labor.
- penshurst place — a 14th-century mansion near Tunbridge Wells in Kent: birthplace of Sir Philip Sidney; gardens laid out from 1560
- pepper-and-salt — composed of a fine mixture of black with white: pepper-and-salt hair.
- percussion lock — a gunlock on a firearm that fires by striking a percussion cap.
- percussion tool — a power driven tool which operates by striking rapid blows: the power may be electricity or compressed air
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- peroxysulphuric — as in peroxysulphuric acid
- perseus cluster — a cluster of about 500 galaxies in the direction of the constellation Perseus, grouped around a particular Seyfert galaxy that is an intense radio source (Perseus A)
- person of color — the quality of an object or substance with respect to light reflected by the object, usually determined visually by measurement of hue, saturation, and brightness of the reflected light; saturation or chroma; hue.
- 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.
- peruvian balsam — Peru balsam.
- pessimistically — pertaining to or characterized by pessimism or the tendency to expect only bad outcomes; gloomy; joyless; unhopeful: His pessimistic outlook kept him from applying for jobs for which he was perfectly qualified.
- pheasant coucal — a brown and black, red-eyed Australian bird, Centropus phasianinus, with a pheasantlike tail.
- phenomenalistic — the doctrine that phenomena are the only objects of knowledge or the only form of reality.
- phenomenologies — the study of phenomena.
- phenomenologist — the study of phenomena.
- phlebosclerosis — sclerosis, or hardening, of the walls of veins.
- phloem necrosis — a disease of the American elm caused by a mycoplasmalike organism, characterized by yellowing and necrosis of the foliage and yellowish-brown discoloration of the phloem.
- 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)
- phosphorylative — of or relating to phosphorylation