15-letter words containing p, e, k, a
- perpetual check — a continuing series of checks resulting in a drawn game because they cannot be halted or evaded without resulting in checkmate or a serious disadvantage.
- phenakistoscope — an early form of a zoetrope in which figures are depicted in different poses around the edge of a disc. When the disc is spun, and the figures observed through the apertures around the edge of the disc, they appear to be moving
- phenylketonuria — an inherited disease due to faulty metabolism of phenylalanine, characterized by phenylketones in the urine and usually first noted by signs of mental retardation in infancy.
- pick and choose — to choose or select from among a group: to pick a contestant from the audience.
- pick up the tab — If you pick up the tab, you pay a bill on behalf of a group of people or provide the money that is needed for something.
- pick-and-shovel — marked by drudgery; laborious: the pick-and-shovel work necessary to get a political campaign underway.
- pickaback plane — a powered airplane designed to be carried aloft by another airplane and released in flight.
- pickwick papers — (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club) a novel (1837) by Charles Dickens.
- pig, run like a — To run very slowly on given hardware, said of software. Distinct from hog.
- pitch blackness — extreme darkness; lack of light
- planet-stricken — believed to be adversely affected mentally or physically by the planets
- platform rocker — a rocking chair supported on a stationary base
- platform ticket — a pass allowing a visitor to enter upon a railroad platform from which those not traveling are ordinarily excluded.
- play kissy-face — to engage in kissing, caressing, etc., esp. overtly or publicly
- play the market — to speculate on a stock exchange
- pleasure-seeker — someone who always wants to have pleasure
- plumber's snake — snake (def 3a).
- poke mullock at — to ridicule
- police marksman — a police officer skilled in precision shooting, esp with a sniper rifle
- power breakfast — If business people have a power breakfast, they go to a restaurant early in the morning so that they can have a meeting while they eat breakfast.
- prairie breaker — breaker1 (def 6).
- prairie chicken — either of two North American gallinaceous birds of western prairies, Tympanuchus cupido (greater prairie chicken) or T. pallidicinctus (lesser prairie chicken) having rufous, brown, black, and white plumage.
- prekindergarten — a school or class for young children between the ages of four and six years.
- programme-maker — someone who creates programmes for television and radio
- property market — business or trade in land and houses
- public speaking — the act of delivering speeches in public.
- pullman kitchen — a kitchenette, often recessed into a wall and concealed by double doors or a screen.
- put the make on — to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a channel; to make a work of art.
- quadruple bucky — Obsolete. 1. On an MIT space-cadet keyboard, use of all four of the shifting keys (control, meta, hyper, and super) while typing a character key. 2. On a Stanford or MIT keyboard in raw mode, use of four shift keys while typing a fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control and meta keys on *both* sides of the keyboard. This was very difficult to do! One accepted technique was to press the left-control and left-meta keys with your left hand, the right-control and right-meta keys with your right hand, and the fifth key with your nose. Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice, because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to some character that was easier to type. If you want to imply that a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say something like: "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes while whistling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is quadruple-bucky-cokebottle." See double bucky, bucky bits, cokebottle.
- rake's progress — a series of paintings and engravings by William Hogarth.
- raw-pack method — cold pack (def 2).
- red-back spider — a venomous spider, Latrodectus hasselti, of Australia and New Zealand, related to the black widow spider and having a bright red stripe on the back.
- ridgefield park — a town in NE New Jersey.
- riverbank grape — a high-climbing vine, Vitis riparia, of eastern North America, having fragrant flowers and nearly black fruit.
- rocket airplane — an airplane propelled wholly or mainly by a rocket engine.
- shark repellent — any tactic used by a corporation to prevent a takeover by a corporate raider.
- shopping basket — a metal or plastic container with one or two handles, used to carry shopping in a shop
- slap and tickle — sexual play
- spark generator — an alternating-current power source with a condenser discharging across a spark gap.
- sparkling water — soda water (def 1).
- speaking as sth — You can say 'speaking as a parent' or 'speaking as a teacher', for example, to indicate that the opinion you are giving is based on your experience as a parent or as a teacher.
- speaking of sth — You can say speaking of something that has just been mentioned as a way of introducing a new topic which has some connection with that thing.
- speckle pattern — the visual appearance of a star as viewed through a large telescope, with irregularities caused by the distorting effect of local turbulence in the earth's atmosphere.
- spell a paddock — to give a field a rest period by letting it lie fallow
- spiral notebook — a notebook held together by a coil of wire passed through small holes punched at the back edge of the covers and individual pages
- sport one's oak — to shut this door as a sign one does not want visitors
- sprinkler dance — a celebratory dance in which participants extend one arm and shake it to imitate the action of a rotating water sprinkler
- steak au poivre — pepper steak (def 2).
- stephen hawking — Stephen William, born 1942, English mathematician and theoretical physicist.
- strike pay dirt — to achieve one's objective