18-letter words containing s, e, r, p
- permanent hardness — hardness of water that cannot be removed by boiling as it results mainly from the presence of calcium and magnesium chlorides and sulphates
- permanent resident — an immigrant who has been given official residential status, often prior to being granted citizenship
- pernicious anaemia — Pernicious anaemia is a very severe blood disease.
- persistent cruelty — conduct causing fear of danger to the life or health of a spouse (used in matrimonial proceedings before magistrates)
- personal allowance — the amount of money you are allowed to earn each year without paying tax
- personal assistant — aide
- personal bodyguard — a person employed to protect a particular person
- personal exemption — Your personal exemption is the amount of money that is deducted from your gross income before you have to start paying income tax.
- personal insurance — insurance on personal risk, such as car insurance, health insurance or loss of earnings insurance
- personal organizer — a small notebook with sections for personal information, as dates and addresses.
- pescadores-islands — (used with a plural verb) Penghu.
- peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
- peters' projection — a form of modified world map projection that attempts to reflect accurately the relative surface areas of landmasses, an approach which gives greater prominence (than do standard representations) to equatorial countries
- petite bourgeoisie — the portion of the bourgeoisie having the least wealth and lowest social status; the lower middle class.
- phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
- phosphatidylserine — any of a class of phospholipids occurring in biological membranes and fats
- photoisomerization — isomerization induced by light.
- photomorphogenesis — plant development that is controlled by light.
- physical chemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical composition and transformations.
- physical geography — the branch of geography concerned with natural features and phenomena of the earth's surface, as landforms, drainage features, climates, soils, and vegetation.
- physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
- physical therapist — sb who performs physiotherapy
- pilgrim's progress — an allegory (1678) by John Bunyan.
- pilotless aircraft — an aircraft equipped for operation by radio or by robot control, without a human pilot aboard; drone.
- pine tree shilling — a silver coin minted in Massachusetts in the mid to late 17th century, named for the pine tree within a circle shown on the obverse side.
- pitt-rivers museum — a museum in Oxford that houses a major anthropological collection of tools and weapons assembled by Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers
- plains grasshopper — a large, destructive short-horned grasshopper, Brachystola magna, of the western U.S., marked by pinkish hind wings.
- play silly buggers — to fool around and waste time
- pleasure principle — an automatic mental drive or instinct seeking to avoid pain and to obtain pleasure.
- plight one's troth — to make a promise of marriage
- plumber's merchant — a shop or business that sells things needed for the job of installing and repairing pipes, fixtures, etc, for water, drainage, and gas
- political prisoner — sb imprisoned for political dissidence
- polynesian tattler — a sandpiper, H. incanus, native to the Pacific coastal regions
- polystyrene cement — a purpose-made adhesive for fixing rigid polystyrene
- population figures — population totals; statistics relating to the size of populations
- porter-house steak — Also called porterhouse steak. a choice cut of beef from between the prime ribs and the sirloin.
- portuguese guinean — of or relating to Portuguese Guinea, a former name for Guinea-Bissau, or its inhabitants
- positively charged — having a positive charge
- possessive pronoun — See at possessive (def 4a).
- post-impressionism — a varied development of Impressionism by a group of painters chiefly between 1880 and 1900 stressing formal structure, as with Cézanne and Seurat, or the expressive possibilities of form and color, as with Van Gogh and Gauguin.
- post-revolutionary — of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
- postal storage car — a railroad car for transporting unsorted mail.
- postmaster general — the executive head of the postal system of a country.
- postmillenarianism — postmillennialism.
- postviral syndrome — debilitating condition occurring as a sequel to viral illness
- potassium chlorate — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous solid, KClO 3 , used chiefly as an oxidizing agent in the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, matches, bleaches, and disinfectants.
- potassium chloride — a white or colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of fertilizers and mineral water, and as a source of other potassium compounds.
- potassium fluoride — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, toxic powder, KF, used chiefly as an insecticide, a disinfectant, and in etching glass.
- potassium myronate — sinigrin.
- power-on self-test — (hardware, testing) (POST) A sequence of diagnostic tests that are run automatically by a device when the power is turned on. In a personal computer a typical POST sequence does the following: - checks that the system board is working - checks that the memory is working - compares the current system configuration with that recorded by the PC's configuration program to see if anything has been added or removed or broken - starts the video operation - checks that the diskette drive, hard disk drive, CD-ROM drive, and any other drives that may be installed are working. When POST is finished, typically it will beep, and then let your operating system start to boot. If POST finds an error, it may beep more than once (or possibly not at all if it is your PC speaker that is broken) and display a POST error message. These messages are often nothing more than a single ominous number. Some common numbers and their meanings are: 161 Dead battery (get a new battery for the system board) 162 Configuration changed (you added some memory or a new card to the PC) 301 Keyboard error (take the book off the corner of the keyboard) Because a successful POST indicates that the system is restored to known state, turning the power off and on is a standard way to reset a system whose software has hung. Compare 120 reset, Big Red Switch, power cycle.