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16-letter words containing p, o, r

  • passenger pigeon — an extinct pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, once found in great numbers in North America, noted for its sustained migratory flights.
  • passport control — identity check at airport, etc.
  • past progressive — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the past tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that an action or event was incomplete or in progress at a point of reference in the past, as was sleeping in I was sleeping when the phone rang.
  • pastoral epistle — any one of three New Testament books, I or II Timothy or Titus, that stress pastoral and ecclesiastical concerns.
  • patched-together — makeshift; roughly made from disparate elements
  • paterson's curse — a purple-flowered noxious plant, Echium plantagineum, a close relative of viper's bugloss, naturalized in Australia and NZ where its harmfulness to livestock has prompted attempts to limit its spread
  • pay-as-you-throw — denoting a system for waste collection in which households are charged according to the amount of refuse they leave
  • pays de la loire — a region of W France, on the Bay of Biscay: generally low-lying, drained by the River Loire and its tributaries; agricultural
  • peace conference — a conference where representatives of warring governments or countries sign a treaty to end conflict
  • peach tree borer — the larva of any of several clearwing moths, as Sanninoidea exitiosa, that bore into the wood of the peach and other drupaceous trees.
  • peano arithmetic — (mathematics)   Giuseppe Peano's system for representing natural numbers inductively using only two symbols, "0" (zero) and "S" (successor). This system could be expressed as a recursive data type with the following Haskell definition: data Peano = Zero | Succ Peano The number three, usually written "SSS0", would be Succ (Succ (Succ Zero)). Addition of Peano numbers can be expressed as a simple syntactic transformation: plus Zero n = n plus (Succ m) n = Succ (plus m n) (1995-03-28)
  • pearls of wisdom — good advice, wise words
  • pearly razorfish — See under razorfish.
  • peasants' revolt — the first great popular rebellion in English history (1381), caused by the imposition of an unpopular poll tax: it lasted less than a month and failed as a social revolution
  • pectoralis major — the larger of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
  • pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
  • pelican crossing — place to cross road
  • pension mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a pension fund and the interest to the mortgagee. The loan is repaid out of the tax-free lump sum proceeds of the pension plan on the borrower's retirement
  • pension provider — the company or organization that makes provision for a person's pension
  • people's charter — the principles or movement of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, in England from 1838 to 1848: so called from the document (People's Charter or National Charter) that contained a statement of their principles and demands.
  • percentage point — difference: one per cent
  • perchloromethane — carbon tetrachloride.
  • percussion drill — a drill that is operated by percussion
  • peregrine falcon — a globally distributed falcon, Falco peregrinus, much used in falconry because of its swift flight: several subspecies are endangered.
  • perforated ulcer — an ulcer that bursts through the stomach wall and leaks food and gastric juices into the abdominal cavity
  • performance bond — contract bond.
  • performance test — a test requiring little or no use of language, the test materials being designed to elicit manual or behavioral responses rather than verbal ones.
  • period furniture — furniture that was made during a particular period in time
  • periodic decimal — repeating decimal.
  • periodic tenancy — the letting of a dwelling for a repeated short term, as by the week, month, or quarter, with no end date
  • permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
  • perpetual motion — the motion of a theoretical mechanism that, without any losses due to friction or other forms of dissipation of energy, would continue to operate indefinitely at the same rate without any external energy being applied to it.
  • person of colour — a person who is not White
  • person-to-person — (of a long-distance telephone call) chargeable only upon speaking with a specified person at the number called: a person-to-person call to her brother in California. Compare station-to-station.
  • personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
  • personal effects — belongings
  • personal hygiene — bodily cleanliness
  • personal liberty — the liberty of an individual to do his or her will freely except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.
  • personal pension — a private pension scheme in which an individual contributes part of his or her salary to a financial institution, which invests it so that a lump sum is available on retirement; this is then used to purchase an annuity
  • personal pronoun — any one of the pronouns used to refer to the speaker, or to one or more to or about whom or which he or she is speaking, as, in English, I, we, you, he, she, it, they.
  • personal shopper — a person, often a store employee, whose job is to assist shoppers in selecting clothing or other merchandise.
  • personal stylist — a person employed by a rich or famous client to offer advice on clothes, hairstyles, and other aspects of personal appearance
  • personal trainer — a person who works one-on-one with a client to plan or implement an exercise or fitness regimen.
  • personal tuition — private tuition
  • personality cult — deliberately cultivated adulation of a person, esp a political leader
  • personality test — an instrument, as a questionnaire or series of standardized tasks, used to measure personality characteristics or to discover personality disorders.
  • personality type — a cluster of personality traits commonly occurring together
  • personnel agency — an agency for placing employable persons in jobs; employment agency.
  • peter pan collar — a close-fitting flat or rolled collar with rounded ends that meet in front of a high, round neckline.
  • petrified forest — a national park in E Arizona, containing petrified coniferous trees about 170 000 000 years old
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