14-letter words containing p, e, r, f
- performability — the quality of being performable
- personal staff — the aides of a general officer or a flag officer.
- phenosafranine — safranine (def 2).
- picture-framer — a person or company whose job is to frame photographs, paintings etc
- pigeon fancier — sb who breeds pigeons
- pinafore dress — a sleeveless dress worn over a blouse or sweater
- pinxter flower — a variety of azalea (Rhododendron nudiflorum) with pink, sweet-smelling flowers, purplish-red at the base
- plantar reflex — a normal reflex flexion of the toes, especially in persons above one year of age, resulting from stroking the sole of the foot.
- platform frame — a building frame having studs only one story high, regardless of the number of stories built, each story having a box sill.
- platform scale — a scale with a platform for holding the items to be weighed.
- platform shoes — shoes: thick sole
- platform soles — very thick soles on a pair of shoes
- play for keeps — to do something seriously and without showing any mercy
- play with fire — a state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame.
- pleasure craft — A pleasure craft is the same as a pleasure boat.
- point of order — a question raised as to whether proceedings are in order, or in conformity with parliamentary law.
- police officer — any policeman or policewoman; patrolman or patrolwoman.
- popcorn flower — a plant, Plagiobothrys nothofulvus, of the borage family, native to the western U.S., having coiled clusters of small white flowers.
- porcupine fish — any of several fishes of the family Diodontidae, especially Diodon hystrix, of tropical seas, capable of inflating the body with water or air until it resembles a globe, with erection of the long spines covering the skin.
- post-breakfast — the first meal of the day; morning meal: A hearty breakfast was served at 7 a.m.
- potter's field — a piece of ground reserved as a burial place for strangers and the friendless poor. Matt. 27:7.
- potts-fracture — a fracture of the lower fibula and of the malleolus of the tibia, resulting in outward displacement of the foot.
- poultry farmer — a person who rears domestic fowls, esp chickens, for their eggs or meat
- prairie falcon — a North American falcon, Falco mexicanus, grayish-brown above and white barred with brown below.
- pre-conference — a meeting for consultation or discussion: a conference between a student and his adviser.
- prefabrication — to fabricate or construct beforehand.
- preferentially — of, relating to, or of the nature of preference: preferential policies.
- preformulation — to express in precise form; state definitely or systematically: He finds it extremely difficult to formulate his new theory.
- premanufacture — to manufacture in advance
- preperformance — occurring before a performance
- press briefing — a meeting called by an organization, government, etc, to inform the press of something
- press fastener — snap fastener.
- prettification — to make pretty, especially in a small, petty way: to prettify a natural beauty.
- preunification — of the period before unification
- pride of china — the chinaberry, Melia azedarach.
- pride of place — the highest or most outstanding position; first place.
- pride-of-india — chinaberry (sense 1)
- primacy effect — the process whereby the first few items on a list are learnt more rapidly than the middle items
- printing frame — a shallow, boxlike device with a glass plate on one side and an opaque, removable back, for holding a negative firmly against printing paper in contact printing.
- prison officer — an officer in charge of prisoners in a jail
- processor farm — (computer, parallel) A parallel processor where tasks are distributed, or "farmed out", by one "farmer" processor to several "worker" processors, and results are sent back to the farmer. This arrangement is suitable for applications which can be partitioned into many separate, independent tasks, the canonical examples being ray tracing and the Mandelbrot set. In order to be efficient, the extra time spent on communications must be small compared to the time spent processing each task.
- professionally — following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.
- profit squeeze — a sharp narrowing of the gap between cost and revenue.
- profit-seeking — attempting to make a profit or financial gains
- proof positive — To be proof positive of a particular fact or quality means to be evidence that it is true or that it exists.
- proximity fuse — an electronically triggered device designed to detonate an explosive charge in a missile, etc, at a predetermined distance from the target
- proximity fuze — a design for detonating a charge, as in a projectile, within a predesignated radius of a target.
- public officer — a person appointed or elected to a governmental post.
- public welfare — state aid to the poor
- purkinje fiber — any of the specialized cardiac muscle fibers forming a network in the ventricular walls that conduct electric impulses responsible for the contractions of the ventricles.