15-letter words containing n, a, s, c
- on o's haunches — If you get down on your haunches, you lower yourself towards the ground so that your legs are bent under you and you are balancing on your feet.
- on the decrease — decreasing
- on the increase — growing, increasing
- onomasiological — the study of the means of expressing a given concept.
- opencast mining — mining by excavating from the surface
- optical scanner — 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.
- opus anglicanum — fine embroidery, esp of church vestments, produced in England c.1200–c.1350; characterized by the rich materials used, esp silver gilt thread
- orchestrational — Of or pertaining to orchestration.
- ordnance survey — mapmaking agency
- organic disease — a disease in which there is a structural alteration (opposed to functional disease).
- organized chaos — a complex situation or process that appears chaotic while having enough order to achieve progress or goals
- organochlorines — Plural form of organochlorine.
- oscars ceremony — a formal annual event in the United States in which small gold statuettes are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievements in films
- oval of cassini — the locus of a point such that the product of the distances from the point to two fixed points is constant.
- over-compensate — to compensate or reward excessively; overpay: Some stockholders feel the executives are being overcompensated and that bonuses should be reduced.
- overcompensated — to compensate or reward excessively; overpay: Some stockholders feel the executives are being overcompensated and that bonuses should be reduced.
- overcompensates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of overcompensate.
- overspeculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- pac-man defense — a defensive tactic against a hostile takeover in which the targeted company makes its own bid to take over the hostile firm.
- pachymeningitis — inflammation of the dura mater of the brain and spinal cord
- pacific islands — a U.S. trust territory in the Pacific Ocean, comprising the Mariana, Marshall, and Caroline Islands: approved by the United Nations 1947; since 1976 constituents of the trusteeship have established or moved toward self-government. 717 sq. mi. (1857 sq. km).
- pack one's bags — If you pack your bags, you leave a place where you have been staying or living.
- packing density — a measure of the amount of data that can be held by unit length of a storage medium, such as magnetic tape
- painter's colic — Pathology. lead poisoning causing intense intestinal pain.
- pairs champions — competitors in or winners of a pairs championship
- pan-americanism — the idea or advocacy of a political alliance or union of all the countries of North, Central, and South America.
- panoramic sight — an artillery sight that can be rotated horizontally in a full circle.
- pantopragmatics — universal intervention in the affairs of others
- paracel islands — a group of uninhabited islets and reefs in the N South China Sea, the subject of territorial claims by China and Vietnam
- paralinguistics — the study of paralanguage.
- parallel cousin — a cousin who is the child either of one's mother's sister or of one's father's brother.
- parasiticalness — the condition or characteristic of being parasitic
- parmesan cheese — of or from Parma, in northern Italy.
- passenger coach — a carriage in which passengers sit
- past continuous — past progressive.
- 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.
- penshurst place — a 14th-century mansion near Tunbridge Wells in Kent: birthplace of Sir Philip Sidney; gardens laid out from 1560
- pergamentaceous — (esp of plants) resembling parchment, whether in texture or composition
- personal column — The personal column in a newspaper or magazine contains messages for individual people and advertisements of a private nature.
- personification — the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
- phase-switching — a technique used in radio interferometry in which the signal from one of the two antennae is periodically reversed in phase before being multiplied by the signal from the other antenna
- 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.
- 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.
- physical change — a usually reversible change in the physical properties of a substance, as size or shape: Freezing a liquid is a physical change.
- physicalization — to express in physical terms; give form or shape to: The dancers physicalized the mood of the music.
- 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.
- pictorial janus — K. Kahn, Xerox. Visual extension of Janus. Requires Strand88 and a PostScript interpreter.