14-letter words containing p, m
- approach march — a route followed when approaching a mountain
- approximations — Plural form of approximation.
- approximeeting — the practice of a group of people making indefinite plans to meet and then altering those plans regularly via mobile phones according to changing circumstances
- apsidal motion — the rotation of the major axis of an eccentric orbit in the plane of the orbit.
- archipterygium — (anatomy) A primitive fin, like that of Ceratodus.
- armor-piercing — (of bullets, artillery shells, etc.) designed especially for piercing armor.
- armour-plating — The armour-plating on a vehicle or building is the hard metal covering which is intended to protect it from gunfire and other missiles.
- arms inspector — a person who carries out an arms inspection
- aromatherapist — An aromatherapist is a person who is qualified to practise aromatherapy.
- assembly plant — An assembly plant is a factory where large items such as cars are put together, usually using parts which have been made in other factories.
- assembly point — a designated place where people have been told to wait after evacuating a building in the event of a fire or other emergency
- assemblyperson — a member of a legislative assembly, especially a member of the lower house of the legislature in certain states of the U.S.
- asthenospermia — (medicine) Loss or reduction in the strength or energy of sperm cells, hence infertility. Not always infertile many are subfertile.
- asthenospermic — (medicine) Characterised by or pertaining to asthenospermia, hence infertile.
- astigmatoscope — an instrument for determining the presence and severity of astigmatism.
- astigmatoscopy — examination by means of an astigmatoscope.
- astrocompasses — Plural form of astrocompass.
- asymptotically — of or relating to an asymptote.
- atomic physics — the branch of physics concerned with the structure and behaviour of atomic nuclei
- atomic-powered — powered by atomic energy
- attemptability — the capability of being attempted or condition of being attemptable
- backstrap loom — a simple horizontal loom, used especially in Central and South America, on which one of two beams holding the warp yarn is attached to a strap that passes across the weaver's back.
- backup pumpkin — pumpkin
- balsam of peru — an aromatic balsam that is obtained from the tropical South American leguminous tree Myroxylon pereirae and is similar to balsam of Tolu
- baltimore chop — a batted ball that takes a high bounce upon hitting the ground on or immediately in front of home plate, often enabling the batter to reach first base safely.
- banana problem — (programming, humour) From the story of the little girl who said "I know how to spell "banana", but I don't know when to stop". Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare fencepost error). One may say "there is a banana problem" of an algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect termination conditions, or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing to featuritis (see also creeping elegance, creeping featuritis).
- bandar lampung — a port in Indonesia, in S Sumatra on the Sunda Strait; formed by merging the cities of Tanjungkarang and Telukbetung, and sometimes still referred to as Tanjungkarang-Telukbetung. Pop: 742 749 (2000)
- baptismal font — a large bowl for baptismal water, usually mounted on a pedestal
- baptismal name — Christian name (def 1).
- baptismal vows — the solemn promises made during baptism, either by the person baptized or by his or her sponsors
- barometrograph — barograph.
- base component — the system of rules in a transformational grammar that specify the deep structure of the language
- bay psalm book — a translation of the Psalms by John Eliot and others: the first book published (1640) in America.
- beyond compare — If you describe something as beyond compare, you mean that it is extremely good or extremely great.
- bible-thumping — an evangelist or other person who quotes the Bible frequently, especially as a means of exhortation or rebuke.
- biceps femoris — See under biceps.
- bishop's mitre — a European heteropterous bug, Aelia acuminata, whose larvae are a pest of cereal grasses: family Pentatomidae
- bitmap display — (hardware) A computer output device where each pixel displayed on the monitor screen corresponds directly to one or more bits in the computer's video memory. Such a display can be updated extremely rapidly since changing a pixel involves only a single processor write to memory compared with a terminal or VDU connected via a serial line where the speed of the serial line limits the speed at which the display can be changed. Most modern personal computers and workstations have bitmap displays, allowing the efficient use of graphical user interfaces, interactive graphics and a choice of on-screen fonts. Some more expensive systems still delegate graphics operations to dedicated hardware such as graphics accelerators. The bitmap display might be traced back to the earliest days of computing when the Manchester University Mark I(?) computer, developed by F.C. Williams and T. Kilburn shortly after the Second World War. This used a storage tube as its working memory. Phosphor dots were used to store single bits of data which could be read by the user and interpreted as binary numbers.
- blind stamping — an impression on a book cover without using colour or gold leaf
- block sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical literary analysis by random selection of a starting point and consideration of the continuous passage following it
- bomb explosion — an explosion caused by the detonation of a bomb
- boon companion — a close and constant friend
- bottomless pit — If you describe a supply of something as bottomless, you mean that it seems so large that it will never run out.
- bowstring hemp — a hemplike fibre obtained from the sansevieria
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- british empire — (formerly) the United Kingdom and the territories under its control, which reached its greatest extent at the end of World War I when it embraced over a quarter of the world's population and more than a quarter of the world's land surface
- broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms
- broom cupboard — a small cupboard or closet for storing brooms, mops, etc
- bubble company — a company whose shares are highly valued and then plummet
- bug-compatible — Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with fossils or misfeatures in other programs or (especially) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1.0."