15-letter words containing s, n, a, p, o
- overcompensates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of overcompensate.
- overemphasizing — Present participle of overemphasize.
- overspeculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- pack one's bags — If you pack your bags, you leave a place where you have been staying or living.
- painter's colic — Pathology. lead poisoning causing intense intestinal pain.
- pairs champions — competitors in or winners of a pairs championship
- palaeomagnetism — the study of the fossil magnetism in rocks, used to determine the past configurations of the continents and to investigate the past shape and magnitude of the earth's magnetic field
- palaeomagnetist — a student of or expert in palaeomagnetism
- panophthalmitis — the inflammation of all eye tissue
- panoramic sight — an artillery sight that can be rotated horizontally in a full circle.
- pantopragmatics — universal intervention in the affairs of others
- panzer division — an armored division of the German army, especially in World War II, consisting chiefly of tanks and organized for making rapid attacks.
- paphian goddess — Aphrodite, worshiped in Cyprus as the goddess of sexual love.
- paralation lisp — Embeds the paralation model in Common LISP. Available from MIT Press, (800)356-0343.
- parallel cousin — a cousin who is the child either of one's mother's sister or of one's father's brother.
- parkinson's law — the statement, expressed facetiously as if a law of physics, that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
- parthenogenesis — development of an egg without fertilization.
- passenger coach — a carriage in which passengers sit
- passive smoking — the inhaling of cigarette, cigar, and pipe smoke of others, especially by a nonsmoker in an enclosed area.
- past continuous — past progressive.
- pastoralization — to make pastoral or rural.
- pay as you earn — a method of paying tax in which the tax is taken off your wages before they are paid to you
- 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.
- pedagoguishness — the quality of being pedagoguish
- performing arts — dance, drama, music
- pergamentaceous — (esp of plants) resembling parchment, whether in texture or composition
- personal column — The personal column in a newspaper or magazine contains messages for individual people and advertisements of a private nature.
- personal estate — movable property
- personal friend — a person who is a friend, rather than a colleague or acquaintance
- personal growth — development as an individual
- personal injury — injury to an individual
- personal stereo — A personal stereo is a small cassette or CD player with very light headphones, which people carry round so that they can listen to music while doing something else.
- personalization — to have marked with one's initials, name, or monogram: to personalize stationery.
- personification — the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
- peter of amiens — c1050–1115, French monk: preacher of the first Crusade 1095–99.
- pheasant coucal — a brown and black, red-eyed Australian bird, Centropus phasianinus, with a pheasantlike tail.
- 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.
- phoenix islands — a group of eight coral islands in the central Pacific: administratively part of Kiribati. Area: 28 sq km (11 sq miles). The islands and surrounding waters form the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, the world's largest marine protected area. Area: 410 500 sq km (158 500 sq miles)
- 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.
- phosphorylation — to introduce the phosphoryl group into (an organic compound).
- photojournalism — journalism in which photography dominates written copy, as in certain magazines.
- phototransistor — a transistor that amplifies current induced by photoconductivity.
- phrasemongering — the act of coining memorable phrases
- physicalization — to express in physical terms; give form or shape to: The dancers physicalized the mood of the music.
- 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.
- 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.
- pithecanthropus — a former genus of extinct hominids whose members have now been assigned to the proposed species Homo erectus.