12-letter words containing n, o, s, a, c
- onomastician — the study of the origin, history, and use of proper names.
- opalescently — In an opalescent manner.
- oracle bones — animal bones used for divination
- oracularness — the state of being oracular
- orange stick — a slender, rounded stick, originally of orangewood, having tapered ends and used in manicuring, especially to push back the cuticles or clean the fingernails.
- organ screen — an ornamental screen closing off an organ chamber in a church.
- oscillations — Plural form of oscillation.
- osco-umbrian — a group of languages, usually classified as Italic, that contains Oscan and Umbrian.
- ossification — the act or process of ossifying.
- otacousticon — (now rare) An instrument to aid hearing, such as an ear trumpet or hearing aid.
- outdistanced — Simple past tense and past participle of outdistance.
- outdistances — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of outdistance.
- overbalances — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of overbalance.
- overissuance — the act of issuing in excessive amounts
- packinghouse — a building where foodstuffs are packed
- paedodontics — the branch of dentistry that focuses on the care of children's teeth
- pandanaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Pandanaceae, an Old World tropical family of monocotyledonous plants including the screw pines
- pantisocracy — a community, social group, etc, in which all have rule and everyone is equal
- parachronism — a chronological error in which a person, event, etc., is assigned a date later than the actual one.
- paronomastic — the use of a word in different senses or the use of words similar in sound to achieve a specific effect, as humor or a dual meaning; punning.
- pas d'action — a dramatic, pantomimic dance sequence serving to advance the plot.
- patroclinous — inheritance in which the traits of the offspring are derived primarily from the paternal parent (opposed to matrocliny).
- percussional — of or relating to percussion
- percutaneous — administered, removed, or absorbed by way of the skin, as an injection, needle biopsy, or transdermal drug.
- pertinacious — holding tenaciously to a purpose, course of action, or opinion; resolute.
- phonotactics — the patterns in which the phonemes of a language may combine to form sequences.
- picornavirus — any of a group of small, RNA-containing viruses of the family Picornaviridae, infectious to humans and other animals, and including the poliovirus and the rhinoviruses that cause the common cold.
- plainclothes — Plainclothes police officers wear ordinary clothes instead of a police uniform.
- plastocyanin — a blue protein found in green plants and in some bacteria
- platanaceous — relating to the family Platanaceae
- pneumatocyst — the cavity of a pneumatophore.
- poeticalness — the characteristic of being poetical
- poison sumac — a shrub or small tree, Rhus vernix (or Toxicodendron vernix), of swampy areas of the eastern U.S., having pinnate leaves and causing severe dermatitis when touched by persons sensitive to it.
- polysynaptic — having or involving more than one synapse.
- pontificates — the office or term of office of a pontiff.
- porcelainous — made of or resembling porcelain
- porcelaneous — a strong, vitreous, translucent ceramic material, biscuit-fired at a low temperature, the glaze then fired at a very high temperature.
- porcellanise — to bake into porcelain
- port jackson — an inlet of the Pacific in SE Australia: the harbor of Sydney.
- post captain — (formerly) a naval officer holding a commission as a captain, as distinct from an officer with the courtesy title of captain
- post-nuclear — pertaining to or involving atomic weapons: nuclear war.
- postaccident — occurring after an accident
- postcolonial — of or relating to the period following a state of colonialism.
- postcoronary — of, relating to, or occurring after a heart attack
- postromantic — of or relating to the period after Romanticism
- postsynaptic — being or occurring on the receiving end of a discharge across the synapse.
- postvaccinal — occurring after a vaccine
- pratincolous — living in a meadow.
- praxinoscope — a toy in which a sequence of images, depicted on the inner surface of a cylinder and reflected in a series of mirrors, gives the illusion of motion as the cylinder rotates
- precancerous — showing pathological changes that may be preliminary to malignancy.