16-letter words containing p, r, e, t, n
- percentage point — difference: one per cent
- perchloromethane — carbon tetrachloride.
- perfecting press — a rotary press for printing both sides of a sheet or web in one operation.
- 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 tenancy — the letting of a dwelling for a repeated short term, as by the week, month, or quarter, with no end date
- permanent magnet — a magnet that retains its magnetism after being removed from an external magnetic field.
- perpendicularity — vertical; straight up and down; upright.
- 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-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 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 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
- peruvian rhatany — See under rhatany (def 1).
- peter pan collar — a close-fitting flat or rolled collar with rounded ends that meet in front of a high, round neckline.
- peter stuyvesant — Peter, 1592–1672, Dutch colonial administrator in the Americas: last governor of New Netherlands 1646–64.
- petrol rationing — a scheme rationing the amount of petrol that an individual is allowed to purchase
- phalansterianism — a system by which society would be reorganized into units comprising their own social and industrial elements; Fourierism.
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- philoprogenitive — producing offspring, especially abundantly; prolific.
- photorespiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
- phytoremediation — a process of decontaminating soil or water by using plants and trees to absorb or break down pollutants.
- picture moulding — the edge around a framed picture
- pincers movement — a military maneuver in which both flanks of an enemy force are attacked with the aim of attaining complete encirclement.
- pineal apparatus — a median outgrowth of the roof of the diencephalon in vertebrates that in some develops into the pineal eye and in others into the pineal gland.
- pithecanthropine — of, belonging to, or resembling a former genus (Pithecanthropus, now classified as Homo erectus) of extinct early humans, who lived in Java, China, Europe, and Africa
- pithecanthropoid — of, relating to, or resembling the former genus Pithecanthropus or one of its members.
- planetary nebula — an expanding shell of thin ionized gas that is ejected from and surrounds a hot, dying star of about the same mass as the sun; the gas absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the central star and reemits it as visible light by the process of fluorescence.
- platform-balance — a scale with a platform for holding the items to be weighed.
- platoon sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer in a platoon, equivalent to sergeant first class.
- pneumatic trough — a trough filled with liquid, especially water, for collecting gases in bell jars or the like by displacement.
- point de hongrie — flame stitch.
- poitou-charentes — a region of W central France, on the Bay of Biscay: mainly low-lying
- polar coordinate — Usually, polar coordinates. one of two coordinates used to locate a point in a plane by the length of its radius vector and the angle this vector makes with the polar axis (polar angle)
- police inspector — rank of police officer in the UK
- portmanteau word — a case or bag to carry clothing in while traveling, especially a leather trunk or suitcase that opens into two halves.
- portrait painter — artist: paints likenesses
- portuguese india — a former Portuguese overseas territory on the W coast of India, consisting of the districts of Gôa, Daman, and Diu: annexed by India December 1961. Capital: Gôa.
- post-reformation — the act of reforming; state of being reformed.
- post-renaissance — the activity, spirit, or time of the great revival of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world.
- postremogeniture — a system of inheritance under which the estate of a deceased person goes to his youngest son. Also called ultimogeniture. Compare primogeniture (def 2).
- potential energy — the energy of a body or a system with respect to the position of the body or the arrangement of the particles of the system.
- pourriture noble — noble rot.