12-letter words containing p, l, i, e, s
- piano lesson — music class in playing the piano
- pig islander — a New Zealander
- pink-slipped — (of an employee) given notice of redundancy
- pisciculture — the breeding, rearing, and transplantation of fish by artificial means.
- piss-elegant — displaying a contrived, often pretentious, sophistication, opulence, etc.
- pitch chisel — a broad-edged chisel for cutting plane surfaces on stones.
- plaid screen — [XEROX PARC] A "special effect" that occurs when certain kinds of memory smashes overwrite the control blocks or image memory of a bit-mapped display. The term "salt and pepper" may refer to a different pattern of similar origin. Though the term as coined at PARC refers to the result of an error, some of the X demos induce plaid-screen effects deliberately as a display hack.
- plain-spoken — candid; frank; blunt.
- 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
- play it safe — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- pleased with — satisfied or content with
- pleiochasium — a flowering system in which several buds come out at the same time
- pleiotropism — the condition of a gene affecting more than one characteristic of the phenotype
- pleomorphism — existence of an organism in two or more distinct forms during the life cycle; polymorphism.
- plumbiferous — yielding or containing lead.
- plunge basin — a cavity at the base of a falls or cataract, formed by the action of the falling water.
- poeticalness — the characteristic of being poetical
- 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.
- policeperson — a member of a police force.
- policymakers — a person responsible for making policy, especially in government.
- poliorcetics — the science of siegecraft
- polish wheat — a wheat, Triticum polonicum, grown chiefly in S Europe, N Africa, and Turkestan.
- politicaster — an ill-suited or disliked politician
- polycentrism — the doctrine that a plurality of independent centers of leadership, power, or ideology may exist within a single political system, especially Communism.
- polydisperse — of or noting a sol that contains particles of different sizes.
- polyhedrosis — an often fatal disease of certain insect larvae or decapod crustaceans, caused by viruses containing DNA.
- polyisoprene — a thermoplastic polymer, (C 5 H 8) n , the major constituent of natural rubber and also obtained synthetically.
- polyneuritis — inflammation of several nerves at the same time; multiple neuritis.
- polyribosome — polysome.
- polysiloxane — a polymer composed of silicon and oxygen atoms
- polysulphide — any sulphide of a metal containing divalent anions in which there are chains of sulphur atoms, as in the polysulphides of sodium, Na2S2, Na2S3, Na2S4, etc
- polytheistic — pertaining to, characterized by, or adhering to polytheism, the doctrine that there is more than one god or many gods: Science thrived in the polytheistic culture of ancient Greece.
- poodle skirt — 1950s-style woman's circular skirt
- porcelainous — made of or resembling porcelain
- porcellanise — to bake into porcelain
- positive law — customary law or law enacted by governmental authority (as distinguished from natural law).
- possessional — of, relating to, or characterized by possession
- possessively — jealously opposed to the personal independence of, or to any influence other than one's own upon, a child, spouse, etc.
- postcardlike — (of a scene) resembling a postcard
- postdeadline — the time by which something must be finished or submitted; the latest time for finishing something: a five o'clock deadline.
- postdelivery — of, relating to, or occurring after a delivery
- postelection — the selection of a person or persons for office by vote.
- poster child — a child appearing on a poster for a charitable organization.
- postimperial — of, relating to, or designating the period after an empire
- 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
- prairie soil — a soil that forms in subhumid, temperate regions with tall grass as native vegetation.