16-letter words containing o, n, t, a, s
- over the transom — by unsolicited submission, as to a publisher
- over-sentimental — expressive of or appealing to sentiment, especially the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia: a sentimental song.
- over-speculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- overcautiousness — the quality or state of being too cautious, wary, or careful
- overcompensating — Present participle of overcompensate.
- overcompensation — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- overcompensatory — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- overenthusiastic — full of or characterized by enthusiasm; ardent: He seems very enthusiastic about his role in the play.
- pacific sturgeon — a dark gray sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus, inhabiting marine and fresh waters along the northwestern coast of North America, valued as a food and sport fish.
- pairs tournament — an event in a sport such as tennis or darts open to pairs of competitors
- palmerston north — a city in New Zealand, in the S North Island on the Manawatu River. Pop: 78 100 (2004 est)
- parser generator — A program which takes a formal description of a grammar (e.g. in BNF) and outputs source code for a parser which will recognise valid strings obeying that grammar and perform associated actions. Unix's yacc is a well known example.
- parts of lindsey — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- passage to india — a novel (1924) by E. M. Forster.
- passport control — identity check at airport, etc.
- paterson's curse — a purple-flowered noxious plant, Echium plantagineum, a close relative of viper's bugloss, naturalized in Australia and NZ where its harmfulness to livestock has prompted attempts to limit its spread
- peasants' revolt — the first great popular rebellion in English history (1381), caused by the imposition of an unpopular poll tax: it lasted less than a month and failed as a social revolution
- pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
- personal effects — belongings
- 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 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
- phantasmagorical — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- philanthropistic — a person who practices philanthropy.
- 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.
- plainclothes man — a detective or police officer who wears civilian clothes while on duty
- platoon sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer in a platoon, equivalent to sergeant first class.
- play off against — If you play people off against each other, you make them compete or argue, so that you gain some advantage.
- play-action pass — a pass play designed to deceive the defense by appearing to be a running play, in which the quarterback fakes a hand-off to a back before throwing a forward pass.
- pocono mountains — ridge of the Appalachians, in E Pa.: resort area: c. 2,000 ft (610 m) high
- point estimation — the process of determining a single estimated value (point estimate) of a parameter of a given population.
- point of sailing — the bearing of a sailing vessel, considered with relation to the direction of the wind.
- poitou-charentes — a region of W central France, on the Bay of Biscay: mainly low-lying
- polar opposition — the relation between a pair of antonyms that denote relatively higher and lower degrees of a quality with respect to an explicit or implicit norm rather than absolute values, as the relation between tall and short or light and dark, but not between true and false.
- police constable — police officer
- policy statement — a declaration of the plans and intentions of an organization or government
- polycondensation — formation of a polymer by chemical condensation with the elimination of a small molecule, such as water.
- pork scratchings — small pieces of crisply cooked pork crackling, eaten cold as an appetizer with drinks