15-letter words containing o, p, s, n, i
- 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)
- 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.
- phosphorylation — to introduce the phosphoryl group into (an organic compound).
- photo-secession — an association of photographers founded in New York City in 1902 by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen that advocated the development and public recognition of photography as a fine art.
- photojournalism — journalism in which photography dominates written copy, as in certain magazines.
- photosensitizer — a drug, food, or other chemical that increases sensitivity to light and other visible photons
- photosynthesize — to produce carbohydrates by photosynthesis: Plants with light green leaves don't photosynthesize as well as those with darker leaves.
- phototransistor — a transistor that amplifies current induced by photoconductivity.
- phrasemongering — the act of coining memorable phrases
- 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.
- pickling onions — small onions suitable for pickling
- pictorial janus — K. Kahn, Xerox. Visual extension of Janus. Requires Strand88 and a PostScript interpreter.
- pigeon shooting — the act of hunting and shooting live pigeons
- pink-shirt book — (publication) "The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC". The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt. See also book titles.
- pinkster flower — a wild azalea, Rhododendron periclymenoides, of the U.S., having pink or purplish flowers.
- pissing contest — Slang: Vulgar. a contentious argument; confrontation.
- 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.
- plain of sharon — a plain in W Israel, between the Mediterranean and the hills of Samaria, extending from Haifa to Tel Aviv
- 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 tennis — a variation of tennis played on a wooden platform enclosed with chicken wire in which the players hit a rubber ball with wooden paddles following the same basic rules as tennis except that only one serve is permitted and balls can be played off the back and side fences.
- platitudinously — in a platitudinal manner
- pleasure-loving — enjoying pleasure
- plumbaginaceous — belonging to the Plumbaginaceae, the leadwort family of plants.
- plunket society — the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children
- point-and-shoot — of or denoting a camera that does not require manual adjustment of shutter speed, focus, aperture, etc.
- poisson's ratio — the ratio, in an elastic body under longitudinal stress, of the transverse strain to the longitudinal strain.
- police marksman — a police officer skilled in precision shooting, esp with a sniper rifle
- police presence — attendance or proximity of police officers
- policy issuance — Policy issuance is the process of creating an insurance policy and providing it to the policyholder.
- polish notation — a logical notation that dispenses with the need for brackets by writing the logical constants as operators preceding their arguments
- polling station — voting venue
- polycrystalline — (of a rock or metal) composed of aggregates of individual crystals.
- polyisobutylene — a polymer of isobutylene, used chiefly in the manufacture of synthetic rubber.
- polyvinyl resin — any of the class of thermoplastic resins derived by the polymerization or copolymerization of a vinyl compound: used chiefly as adhesives, sizing agents, and coatings.
- pontifical mass — (sometimes lowercase) Roman Catholic Church. a High Mass celebrated by a bishop or other prelate.
- pontine marshes — an area of W Italy, southeast of Rome: formerly malarial swamps, drained in 1932–34 after numerous attempts since 160 bc had failed
- port washington — a town on NW Long Island, in SE New York.
- port wine stain — a large birthmark of purplish color, usually on the face or neck.
- port-wine stain — a large birthmark of purplish color, usually on the face or neck.
- position effect — the alteration in the expression of a gene or genetic region due to its relocation within the genome as a result of inversion or translocation.
- position isomer — any of two or more isomers that differ only in the position occupied by a substituent.
- positive column — the luminous region between the Faraday dark space and the anode glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
- post-conception — the act of conceiving; the state of being conceived.