15-letter words containing s, a, c, i
- paleogeophysics — (used with a plural verb) inferred geophysical conditions or processes of designated periods of the geologic past.
- pan-americanism — the idea or advocacy of a political alliance or union of all the countries of North, Central, and South America.
- panoramic sight — an artillery sight that can be rotated horizontally in a full circle.
- pantopragmatics — universal intervention in the affairs of others
- paracel islands — a group of uninhabited islets and reefs in the N South China Sea, the subject of territorial claims by China and Vietnam
- paralinguistics — the study of paralanguage.
- parallel cousin — a cousin who is the child either of one's mother's sister or of one's father's brother.
- parasiticalness — the condition or characteristic of being parasitic
- parasympathetic — pertaining to that part of the autonomic nervous system consisting of nerves and ganglia that arise from the cranial and sacral regions and function in opposition to the sympathetic system, as in inhibiting heartbeat or contracting the pupil of the eye.
- parti québécois — (in Canada) a political party in Quebec, formed in 1968 and originally advocating the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country
- partial eclipse — astronomy
- particularistic — exclusive attention or devotion to one's own particular interests, party, etc.
- passifloraceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Passifloraceae, a tropical and subtropical family of climbing plants including the passionflowers: the flowers have five petals and threadlike parts forming a dense mass (corona) around the central disc
- passport office — an office which issues passports
- past continuous — past progressive.
- past participle — a participle with past, perfect, or passive meaning, as fallen, sung, defeated; perfect participle: used in English and other languages in forming the present perfect, pluperfect, and passive and as an adjective.
- peace offensive — an active program, policy, propaganda campaign, etc., by a national government for the purpose of terminating a war or period of hostility, lessening international tensions, or promoting peaceful cooperation with other nations.
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- personification — the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
- pessimistically — pertaining to or characterized by pessimism or the tendency to expect only bad outcomes; gloomy; joyless; unhopeful: His pessimistic outlook kept him from applying for jobs for which he was perfectly qualified.
- phase-switching — a technique used in radio interferometry in which the signal from one of the two antennae is periodically reversed in phase before being multiplied by the signal from the other antenna
- phenakistoscope — an early form of a zoetrope in which figures are depicted in different poses around the edge of a disc. When the disc is spun, and the figures observed through the apertures around the edge of the disc, they appear to be moving
- phenomenalistic — the doctrine that phenomena are the only objects of knowledge or the only form of reality.
- philosophically — of or relating to philosophy: philosophical studies.
- phosphocreatine — a compound, C 4 H 1 0 O 5 N 3 P, found chiefly in muscle, formed by the enzymatic interaction of an organic phosphate and creatine, the breakdown of which provides energy for muscle contraction.
- phosphoric acid — any of three acids, orthophosphoric acid, H 3 PO 4 , metaphosphoric acid, HPO 3 , or pyrophosphoric acid, H 4 P 2 O 7 , derived from phosphorus pentoxide, P 2 O 5 , and various amounts of water.
- photodissociate — to split or break up molecules as a result of the absorption of photons
- photoelasticity — the phenomenon of double refraction of polarized light by a transparent substance under elastic stress, used to measure strain in elastic, transparent materials.
- physical change — a usually reversible change in the physical properties of a substance, as size or shape: Freezing a liquid is a physical change.
- physical memory — (memory management) The memory hardware (normally RAM) installed in a computer. The term is only used in contrast to virtual memory.
- physical optics — the branch of optics concerned with the wave properties of light, the superposition of waves, the deviation of light from its rectilinear propagation in a manner other than that considered by geometrical optics, the interaction of light with matter, and the quantum, corpuscular aspects of light.
- physicalization — to express in physical terms; give form or shape to: The dancers physicalized the mood of the music.
- physicochemical — physical and chemical: the physicochemical properties of an isomer.
- physiologically — of or relating to physiology.
- pick and choose — to choose or select from among a group: to pick a contestant from the audience.
- pick-and-shovel — marked by drudgery; laborious: the pick-and-shovel work necessary to get a political campaign underway.
- pickwick papers — (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club) a novel (1837) by Charles Dickens.
- pictorial janus — K. Kahn, Xerox. Visual extension of Janus. Requires Strand88 and a PostScript interpreter.
- pistachio green — a light or medium shade of yellow green.
- pitcairn island — a small British island in the S Pacific, SE of Tuamotu Archipelago: settled 1790 by mutineers of the Bounty. 2 sq. mi. (5 sq. km).
- pitch blackness — extreme darkness; lack of light
- pithecanthropus — a former genus of extinct hominids whose members have now been assigned to the proposed species Homo erectus.
- plainclothesman — a police officer, especially a detective, who wears ordinary civilian clothes while on duty.
- planet-stricken — believed to be adversely affected mentally or physically by the planets
- plantaginaceous — relating to or belonging to the family Plantaginaceae
- plastic surgeon — doctor who performs cosmetic surgery
- plastic surgery — the branch of surgery dealing with the repair or replacement of malformed, injured, or lost organs or tissues of the body, chiefly by the transplant of living tissues.
- plate tectonics — a theory of global tectonics in which the lithosphere is divided into a number of crustal plates, each of which moves on the plastic asthenosphere more or less independently to collide with, slide under, or move past adjacent plates.
- play kissy-face — to engage in kissing, caressing, etc., esp. overtly or publicly
- pleasure cruise — a trip in a boat for recreational purposes