12-letter words containing p, i, s, t, l, a
- photoelastic — displaying photoelasticity; of or relating to photoelasticity
- photorealism — a style of painting flourishing in the 1970s, especially in the U.S., England, and France, and depicting commonplace scenes or ordinary people, with a meticulously detailed realism, flat images, and barely discernible brushwork that suggests and often is based on or incorporates an actual photograph.
- phylacteries — Judaism. either of two small, black, leather cubes containing a piece of parchment inscribed with verses 4–9 of Deut. 6, 13–21 of Deut. 11, and 1–16 of Ex. 13: one is attached with straps to the left arm and the other to the forehead during weekday morning prayers by Orthodox and Conservative Jewish men.
- pictorialism — Fine Arts. the creation or use of pictures or visual images, especially of recognizable or realistic representations.
- pictorialist — Fine Arts. the creation or use of pictures or visual images, especially of recognizable or realistic representations.
- pilot signal — a signal, as a flag or light, used to request a pilot.
- piss-elegant — displaying a contrived, often pretentious, sophistication, opulence, etc.
- plagiaristic — an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author: It is said that he plagiarized Thoreau's plagiarism of a line written by Montaigne. Synonyms: appropriation, infringement, piracy, counterfeiting; theft, borrowing, cribbing, passing off.
- plainclothes — Plainclothes police officers wear ordinary clothes instead of a police uniform.
- plane strain — Plane strain is a two-dimensional state of strain in which all the shape changes of a material happen on a single plane.
- planetesimal — one of the small celestial bodies that, according to one theory (planetesimal hypothesis) were fused together to form the planets of the solar system.
- plasteriness — the state of being made of or resembling plaster
- plastic arts — arts producing works or effects that are three-dimensional, as sculpture or ceramics
- plastic bomb — a bomb made of plastic explosive.
- plastic flow — deformation of a material that remains rigid under stresses of less than a certain intensity but that behaves under severer stresses approximately as a Newtonian fluid.
- plastic foam — expanded plastic.
- plastic wrap — a very thin, transparent sheet of plastic, usually packaged in rolls and often having the ability to cling to other substances, used especially to wrap and store food and for microwave cooking.
- plastination — a technique for embalming bodies by impregnating whole organs with silicon polymers
- plastocyanin — a blue protein found in green plants and in some bacteria
- plausibility — having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable: a plausible excuse; a plausible plot.
- play it safe — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- pleased with — satisfied or content with
- plug casting — bait casting in which a plug is used as the lure.
- poeticalness — the characteristic of being poetical
- polar lights — the aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere or the aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere.
- police state — a nation in which the police, especially a secret police, summarily suppresses any social, economic, or political act that conflicts with governmental policy.
- polish wheat — a wheat, Triticum polonicum, grown chiefly in S Europe, N Africa, and Turkestan.
- politicaster — an ill-suited or disliked politician
- polygamistic — a person who practices or favors polygamy.
- polygraphist — an instrument for receiving and recording simultaneously tracings of variations in certain body activities.
- polysynaptic — having or involving more than one synapse.
- porismatical — porismatic
- positionally — in terms of position, from a positional point of view
- positive law — customary law or law enacted by governmental authority (as distinguished from natural law).
- post-glacial — after a given glacial epoch, especially the Pleistocene.
- postal union — an international agreement on postal rates and services.
- 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.
- postcardlike — (of a scene) resembling a postcard
- postcolonial — of or relating to the period following a state of colonialism.
- postdeadline — the time by which something must be finished or submitted; the latest time for finishing something: a five o'clock deadline.
- postdiluvial — existing or occurring after the biblical Flood
- postdiluvian — existing or occurring after the Biblical Flood.
- posthospital — following treatment in a hospital
- postillation — the writing or preaching of postils
- postimperial — of, relating to, or designating the period after an empire
- postliminary — of or relating to postliminy
- postliterate — of or relating to a (hypothetical) time or stage in society when literacy is no longer necessary or valued
- postmedieval — occurring or existing after the Middle Ages, of or related to the period after the Middle Ages
- postprandial — after a meal, especially after dinner: postprandial oratory; a postprandial brandy.