16-letter words containing s, e, m, a, i
- overcompensating — Present participle of overcompensate.
- overcompensation — a pronounced striving to neutralize and conceal a strong but unacceptable character trait by substituting for it an opposite trait.
- paint-by-numbers — formulaic; showing no original thought or creativity
- pairs tournament — an event in a sport such as tennis or darts open to pairs of competitors
- palmer peninsula — former name of Antarctic Peninsula.
- panoramic screen — a very wide screen, as of a television, etc
- papillary muscle — one of the small bundles of muscles attached to the ventricle walls and to the chordae tendineae that tighten these tendons during ventricular contraction.
- passive immunity — immunity resulting from the injection of antibodies or sensitized lymphocytes from another organism or, in infants, from the transfer of antibodies through the placenta or from colostrum.
- pearls of wisdom — good advice, wise words
- 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
- 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
- pentothal sodium — thiopental sodium
- permaculturalist — a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem.
- 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.
- pharmacogenomics — the study of human genetic variability in relation to drug action and its application to medical treatment
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- phase microscope — a microscope that utilizes the phase differences of light rays transmitted by different portions of an object to create an image in which the details of the object are distinct despite their near-uniformity of refractive index.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- pico de sao tome — an island in the Gulf of Guinea, off the W coast of Gabon, just N of the equator: the larger component of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. 318 sq. mi. (824 sq. km).
- plainclothes man — a detective or police officer who wears civilian clothes while on duty
- point estimation — the process of determining a single estimated value (point estimate) of a parameter of a given population.
- policy statement — a declaration of the plans and intentions of an organization or government
- political system — a coordinated set of principles, laws, ideas, and procedures relating to a particular form of government, or the form of government itself: Democracy is a political system in which citizens govern themselves.
- post-reformation — the act of reforming; state of being reformed.
- potassium iodide — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, KI, having a bitter saline taste: used chiefly in the manufacture of photographic emulsions, as a laboratory reagent, in the preparation of Gram's solution for biological staining, and in medicine as an expectorant and to treat thyroid conditions.
- premillennialism — the doctrine or belief that the Second Coming of Christ will precede the millennium.
- price comparison — Price comparison is comparing the price of the same product in different outlets.
- prima facie case — a case in which the evidence produced is sufficient to enable a decision or verdict to be made unless the evidence is rebutted.
- primary consumer — (in the food chain) an animal that feeds on plants; a herbivore.
- primary meristem — primary tissue derived from an apical meristem.
- primrose jasmine — an evergreen shrub, Jasminum mesnyi, of China, having thick, shiny leaflets and yellow flowers with a darker eye.
- professionalisms — professional character, spirit, or methods.
- proxime accessit — the person coming next after the winner in a competitive examination or an academic prize giving; runner-up
- pseudohemophilia — a clotting disorder caused by abnormal factor VIII activity, and characterized by a prolonged bleeding time but without the delayed coagulation time of hemophilia.
- ptolemaic system — a system elaborated by Ptolemy and subsequently modified by others, according to which the earth was the fixed center of the universe, with the heavenly bodies moving about it.
- pullorum disease — a highly contagious, frequently fatal disease of young poultry caused by the bacterium Salmonella gallinarum (pullorum), transmitted by the infected hen during egg production, and characterized by weakness, loss of appetite, and diarrhea.
- pulse modulation — a type of modulation in which a train of pulses is used as the carrier wave, one or more of its parameters, such as amplitude, being modulated or modified in order to carry information
- punitive damages — law: penalty payment
- quasi-commercial — of, relating to, or characteristic of commerce.
- quasi-democratic — pertaining to or of the nature of democracy or a democracy.
- quasi-legitimate — according to law; lawful: the property's legitimate owner.
- quasi-managerial — pertaining to management or a manager: managerial functions; the managerial class of society.
- queen's champion — a hereditary official at British coronations, representing the king (King's Champion) or the queen (Queen's Champion) who is being crowned, and having originally the function of challenging to mortal combat any person disputing the right of the new sovereign to rule.
- radiosymmetrical — radially symmetrical.
- rambunctiousness — difficult to control or handle; wildly boisterous: a rambunctious child.
- ramsden eyepiece — an eyepiece consisting of two plano-convex crown-glass lenses of equal focal length, placed with the convex sides facing each other and with a separation between the lenses of about two-thirds of the focal length of each.
- re-establishment — the act or an instance of establishing.
- real-time pascal — (language) A later name for Pascal-80 by RC International, Denmark.