12-letter words containing p, a, b
- phlebography — venography.
- photolyzable — able to undergo photolysis
- phrasal verb — a combination of verb and one or more adverbial or prepositional particles, as catch on, take off, bring up, or put up with, functioning as a single semantic unit and often having an idiomatic meaning that could not be predicted from the meanings of the individual parts.
- piano nobile — the principal story of a large building, as of a palace or villa.
- picnic table — table-and-bench structure used outdoors
- pidyon haben — the rite of relieving the first male child born to parents not descended from Aaron or Levi of certain religious obligations by redeeming him from a member of the priestly class, celebrated 30 days after the child's birth.
- piggybacking — on the back or shoulders: The little girl rode piggyback on her father.
- pine warbler — a warbler, Dendroica pinus, inhabiting pine forests of the southeastern U.S.
- pipe tobacco — tobacco suitable for use in a tobacco pipe
- plasterboard — a material used for insulating or covering walls, or as a lath, consisting of paper-covered sheets of gypsum and felt.
- plastic bomb — a bomb made of plastic explosive.
- platform bed — a bed, originating in Scandinavia in the 1930s, consisting of a simple shallow box for holding a mattress situated on a slightly recessed pedestal.
- plausibility — having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable: a plausible excuse; a plausible plot.
- play-by-play — pertaining to or being a detailed account of each incident or act of an event, as in sports: a play-by-play broadcast of a baseball game.
- plea bargain — to engage in plea bargaining.
- plea-bargain — to engage in plea bargaining.
- plenum cable — (hardware) Cable that can be (legally) installed in the plenum (the space between a ceiling and the floor above it). Such cable is (usually) teflon-coated so that it will not give off toxic fumes when burned. In some parts of the world such cable is required by law.
- plumbaginous — containing graphite.
- plunge basin — a cavity at the base of a falls or cataract, formed by the action of the falling water.
- plunket baby — a baby brought up in infancy under the dietary recommendations of the Plunket Society
- plymouth bay — a small, well-protected bay on the coast of Massachusetts; the first permanent European settlement in New England; founded by the Pilgrim Fathers.
- polysaprobic — flourishing in a body of water having a heavy load of decomposed organic matter and almost no free oxygen
- polysyllabic — consisting of several, especially four or more, syllables, as a word.
- polysyllable — a polysyllabic word.
- poplar bluff — a city in SE Missouri.
- port alberni — a port in SW British Columbia, in SW Canada, on the E central part of Vancouver Island, on an inlet of the Pacific Ocean.
- port de bras — (used with a singular verb) the technique of moving the arms properly.
- postabortion — Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
- postbiblical — occurring after the events written about in the Bible, occurring after the Bible was written
- postbrachial — belonging to the arm, foreleg, wing, pectoral fin, or other forelimb of a vertebrate.
- poster board — a thick, fairly stiff cardboard composed of layers of paper or paper pulp compressed together and typically used to support displays.
- powerboating — a boat propelled by mechanical power.
- prayer beads — the beads of the rosary
- pre-assembly — an assembling or coming together of a number of persons, usually for a particular purpose: The principal will speak to all the students at Friday's assembly.
- preassembled — assembled prior to purchase
- prebreakfast — occurring before breakfast, of or pertaining to the period before breakfast
- precipitable — capable of being precipitated.
- preestablish — to establish beforehand.
- prefabricate — to fabricate or construct beforehand.
- presbyacusis — an age-related, progressive loss of hearing in both ears
- presbyterate — the office of a presbyter or elder.
- presbyterial — of or relating to a presbytery.
- presbyterian — pertaining to or based on the principle of ecclesiastical government by presbyters or presbyteries.
- prescribable — to lay down, in writing or otherwise, as a rule or a course of action to be followed; appoint, ordain, or enjoin.
- preset board — a control board for setting up theatrical lighting switches and dimmer readings in advance so that during a performance the lights can be automatically operated for one or several scenes.
- press bureau — an organization or a department whose function is press-agentry.
- primary beam — a beam of particles of one kind selected from the group of particles produced when a beam of particles from an accelerator (primary beam) strikes a target.
- primary verb — one of the three verbs, be, do, and have, that can function both as a main verb and an auxiliary verb.
- private bill — a congressional or parliamentary bill involving the private interests of a particular individual, corporation, or local unit.
- probationary — the act of testing.