12-letter words containing p, f
- pallet knife — a small, flat utensil for picking up and handling pastry paste.
- panification — the making of bread
- paper profit — an unrealized profit due to the appreciation of something owned but not yet sold.
- paraffin wax — paraffin in its solid state.
- paraffin-oil — a white or colorless, tasteless, odorless, water-insoluble, solid substance not easily acted upon by reagents, consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons chiefly of the alkane series, obtained from crude petroleum: used in candles, for forming preservative coatings and seals, for waterproofing paper, etc.
- parcel shelf — flat storage panel in a vehicle
- paring knife — a short-bladed kitchen knife for paring fruits and vegetables.
- parking fine — penalty fee for an offence
- parrot fever — psittacosis.
- parsley fern — a small bright green tufted European fern, Cryptogramma crispa, that grows on acid scree and rock in uplands
- parvifoliate — (of plants) having small leaves in comparison with the size of the stem
- pasch flower — pasqueflower
- pasqueflower — an Old World plant, Anemone pulsatilla, of the buttercup family, having purple, crocuslike flowers blooming about Easter.
- passionfruit — any edible fruit of a passionflower, as the maypop.
- past perfect — pluperfect.
- patent cliff — a potential sharp drop in sales and revenue for a company when one of its patents expires: the looming patent cliffs faced by pharmaceutical firms.
- patent flour — a fine grade of flour, consisting chiefly of the inner part of the endosperm.
- peacefulness — characterized by peace; free from war, strife, commotion, violence, or disorder: a peaceful reign; a peaceful demonstration.
- peak traffic — traffic at the time it is most busy
- pecksniffery — hypocritically and unctuously affecting benevolence or high moral principles.
- pecksniffian — hypocritically and unctuously affecting benevolence or high moral principles.
- pectoral fin — (in fishes) either of a pair of fins usually situated behind the head, one on each side, and corresponding to the forelimbs of higher vertebrates.
- pelecaniform — of, or having the nature of, an order (Pelecaniformes) of swimming birds having all four toes connected in a webbed foot, including pelicans and cormorants
- pelvic floor — muscles beneath the pelvis
- penny loafer — a loafer with a slot on the vamp that can hold a coin, usually a penny.
- pension fund — a fund created and maintained, as by a corporation, to provide benefits under a pension plan.
- perfect game — a baseball game in which the same player pitches throughout the full game without allowing any player of the opposing team to reach first base by a base hit, base on balls, error, or any other means. Compare no-hitter.
- perfect ream — a standard quantity of paper, consisting of 20 quires or 500 sheets (formerly 480 sheets), or 516 sheets (printer's ream or perfect ream)
- perfect year — the lunisolar calendar used by Jews, as for determining religious holidays, that is reckoned from 3761 b.c. and was established by Hillel II in the 4th century a.d., the calendar year consisting of 353 days (defective year) 354 days (regular year) or 355 days (perfect year or abundant year) and containing 12 months: Tishri, Heshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, and Elul, with the 29-day intercalary month of Adar Sheni added after Adar seven times in every 19-year cycle in order to adjust the calendar to the solar cycle. The Jewish ecclesiastical year begins with Nisan and the civil year with Tishri.
- perfectation — the action or process of becoming or causing to become perfect or complete
- perfectively — in a perfective manner; thoroughly
- perfectivity — the state or quality of being (a) perfective
- perfectivize — to make perfective.
- perfidiously — deliberately faithless; treacherous; deceitful: a perfidious lover.
- perforations — the holes punched that allow individual stamps, coupons, etc to be easily separated
- performative — (of an expression or statement) performing an act by the very fact of being uttered, as with the expression “I promise,” that performs the act of promising.
- perfusionist — a medical technician or nurse who monitors and operates equipment that oxygenates the blood, as during open-heart surgery
- persian gulf — strait in the Indian Ocean
- personifying — to attribute human nature or character to (an inanimate object or an abstraction), as in speech or writing.
- petaliferous — bearing or having petals.
- petrifaction — the act or process of petrifying; the state of being petrified.
- petrifactive — having the ability to turn substances into stone
- pettifogging — You can describe an action or situation as pettifogging when you think that unnecessary attention is being paid to unimportant, boring details.
- pfund series — a series of lines in the infrared spectrum of hydrogen.
- phi-function — Euler's phi-function.
- phlox family — the plant family Polemoniaceae, characterized by herbaceous or sometimes shrubby plants having simple or compound leaves, flowers with a five-lobed corolla, and capsular fruit, and including gilia, Jacob's-ladder, moss pink, and phlox.
- photo finish — a finish of a race in which two or more contestants are so close to the finish line that reference to a photograph of the finish is necessary to determine the winner.
- photo relief — a method of showing the configuration of the relief of an area by photographing a model of it that is illuminated by a lamp in the northwest corner
- photo-finish — If the end of a race is a photo-finish, two or more of the competitors cross the finishing line so close together that a photograph of the finish has to be examined to decide who has won.
- photo-offset — a method of printing, based on photolithography, in which the inked image is transferred from the metal plate to a rubber surface and then to the paper.