16-letter words containing p, a, n, s
- asiatic elephant — Indian elephant. See under elephant.
- asparaginic acid — aspartic acid.
- assistant priest — a person who assists a priest in their work or who is not yet fully qualified as a priest
- assurnasirpal ii — Ashurnasirpal II.
- aston dark space — the dark region between the cathode and the cathode glow in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
- at the sharp end — If you say that someone is at the sharp end of a particular activity or type of work, you mean that they are involved in the most difficult or dangerous aspects of it.
- avalon peninsula — a large peninsula of Newfoundland, between Trinity and Placentia Bays. Area: about 10 000 sq km (4000 sq miles)
- aversion therapy — a method of suppressing an undesirable habit, such as excessive smoking, by causing the subject to associate an unpleasant effect, such as an electric shock or nausea, with the habit
- axminster carpet — a type of patterned carpet with a cut pile
- azuero peninsula — a peninsula in SW Panama, bordered on the E by the Gulf of Panama.
- balkan peninsula — a large peninsula in SE Europe, between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas
- banana republics — any of the small countries in the tropics, especially in the Western Hemisphere, whose economies are largely dependent on fruit exports, tourism, and foreign investors.
- band-pass filter — a filter that transmits only those currents having a frequency lying within specified limits
- bargaining scope — the range of topics within the scope of a particular set of negotiations leading to a collective agreement
- basement complex — the undifferentiated assemblage of rock (basement rock) underlying the oldest stratified rocks in any region: usually crystalline, metamorphosed, and mostly, but not necessarily, Precambrian in age.
- basque provinces — an autonomous region of N Spain, comprising the provinces of Álava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya: inhabited mainly by Basques, who retained virtual autonomy from the 9th to the 19th century. Pop: 1 840 700 (2003 est). Area: about 7250 sq km (2800 sq miles)
- bastard pointing — an imitation of tuck pointing, having a fillet made from the mortar of the joint.
- batch processing — manufacturing products or treating materials in batches, by passing the output of one process to subsequent processes
- bearing pedestal — an independent support for a bearing, usually incorporating a bearing housing
- belgian sheepdog — any of a Belgian breed of large herding dog with a black coat, sometimes used as a guide dog
- bicapitalisation — The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare studlycaps.
- birthday present — a gift given to someone on their birthday
- blenheim spaniel — a variety of toy spaniel that is white with reddish-brown spots
- board of pardons — an agency that determines which prisoners are to be released on parole or discretionary mandatory supervision and recommends pardons
- boatswain's pipe — a whistle used formerly to give orders on board ship
- boston cream pie — a cake of two layers with icing and a creamy filling
- boston tea party — a raid in 1773 made by citizens of Boston (disguised as Indians) on three British ships in the harbour as a protest against taxes on tea and the monopoly given to the East India Company. The contents of several hundred chests of tea were dumped into the harbour
- boundary dispute — dispute between neighbours about the boundary between their properties
- bowman's capsule — a membranous, double-walled capsule surrounding a glomerulus of a nephron.
- branchiopneustic — breathing by means of gills, as certain aquatic insect larvae.
- brittany spaniel — a short-tailed French bird dog that typically has a smooth orange- or liver-and-white coat
- bypass operation — an operation involving redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery
- canine distemper — distemper1 (def 1a).
- cantor's paradox — the paradox derived from the supposition of an all-inclusive universal set, since every set has more subsets than members while every subset of such a universal set would be a member of it
- capital sentence — the punishment of death for a crime
- capsizing moment — the moment of an upsetting couple.
- carbonless paper — a sheet of paper impregnated with dye which transfers writing or typing onto the copying surface below without the necessity for carbon pigment
- cards and spades — a generous handicap
- castor-oil plant — a tall euphorbiaceous Indian plant, Ricinus communis, cultivated in tropical regions for ornament and for its poisonous seeds, from which castor oil is extracted
- catch sb napping — If someone is caught napping, something happens when they are not prepared for it, although they should have been.
- chattel personal — an item of movable personal property, such as furniture, domestic animals, etc
- chemical weapons — toxic chemicals used as weapons
- children's panel — (in Scotland) a group of representatives of relevant agencies, with the power to deal with a child under sixteen who is in criminal or family trouble. Its hearings are private and replace most of the functions of juvenile courts
- chinese fan palm — a fan palm, Livistona chinensis, of southern Japan, having very large, deeply cleft leaves and bluish-green, ovalish fruit.
- chinese pavilion — crescent (def 6).
- chinese shar-pei — Shar-Pei.
- chinese-pavilion — a shape resembling a segment of a ring tapering to points at the ends.
- chipping sparrow — a common North American sparrow, Spizella passerina, having brown-and-grey plumage and a white eye stripe
- chondrodysplasia — (medicine) A genetic disorder characterized by short-limbed dwarfism.
- chryselephantine — (of ancient Greek statues) made of or overlaid with gold and ivory