14-letter words containing s, p, e, y
- paternity suit — legal dispute over identity of father
- paternity test — an assessment of possible paternity based on a comparison of the genetic markers of the offspring and those of the putative father.
- pay for itself — If something that you buy or invest in pays for itself after a period of time, the money you gain from it, or save because you have it, is greater than the amount you originally spent or invested.
- pay one's dues — owed at present; having reached the date for payment: This bill is due.
- pay television — a commercial service that broadcasts or provides television programs to viewers who pay a monthly charge or a per-program fee.
- payment system — a system used to pay or settle financial transactions
- peck's bad boy — the mischievous boy in a series of newspaper stories and collected volumes by the American newspaperman and humorist George Wilbur Peck (1840–1916).
- penalty clause — part of contract specifying a forfeit
- penalty stroke — a stroke added to a score for a rule infraction.
- pentadactylism — the state of having five digits on each limb
- people's party — a political party (1891–1904), advocating expansion of currency, state control of railroads, the placing of restrictions upon ownership of land, etc.; Populist party.
- percutaneously — through the skin
- peritoneoscopy — an endoscopy examining the peritoneal cavity
- peritrichously — in a peritrichous manner; in a fashion characteristic of a peritrichous organism
- permissibility — that can be permitted; allowable: a permissible amount of sentimentality under the circumstances; Such behavior is not permissible!
- pertinaciously — holding tenaciously to a purpose, course of action, or opinion; resolute.
- petrochemistry — the branch of chemistry dealing with petroleum or its products.
- petrophysicist — a person who studies, or is an expert in, petrophysics
- petty expenses — small expenses incurred in the course of your work or studies
- phase velocity — the velocity with which a simple harmonic wave is propagated, equal to the wavelength divided by the period of vibration.
- pheasant's eye — an annual ranunculaceous plant, Adonis annua (or autumnalis), with scarlet flowers and finely divided leaves: native to S Europe but naturalized elsewhere
- phonochemistry — the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of sound and ultrasonic waves
- photochemistry — the branch of chemistry that deals with the chemical action of light.
- photosynthesis — the complex process by which carbon dioxide, water, and certain inorganic salts are converted into carbohydrates by green plants, algae, and certain bacteria, using energy from the sun and chlorophyll.
- photosynthetic — the complex process by which carbon dioxide, water, and certain inorganic salts are converted into carbohydrates by green plants, algae, and certain bacteria, using energy from the sun and chlorophyll.
- phyllosilicate — any silicate mineral having the tetrahedral silicate groups linked in sheets, each group containing four oxygen atoms, three of which are shared with other groups so that the ratio of silicon atoms to oxygen atoms is two to five.
- physical layer — (networking) Layer one, the lowest layer in the OSI seven layer model. The physical layer encompasses details such as electrical and mechanical connections to the network, transmission of binary data as changing voltage levels on wires or similar concepts on other connectors, and data rates. The physical layer is used by the data link layer. Example physical layer protocols are CSMA/CD, token ring and bus.
- phytochemistry — the branch of biochemistry dealing with plants and plant processes.
- pick one's way — to choose or select from among a group: to pick a contestant from the audience.
- pie in the sky — pie1 (def 8).
- piezochemistry — the study of chemical reactions at high pressures
- plastic memory — the tendency of certain plastics after being deformed to resume their original form when heated
- platycephalous — flat-headed
- play for keeps — to do something seriously and without showing any mercy
- play one's ace — to use one's best weapon or resource
- pleasurability — the characteristic of being pleasurable
- plethysmograph — a device for measuring and recording changes in the volume of the body or of a body part or organ.
- pleurapophysis — one of the lateral processes of a vertebra forming the ribs
- plumbosolvency — the ability to dissolve lead
- pneumodynamics — Physics. pneumatics.
- police custody — If somebody or something is in police custody, they are kept somewhere secure, under the supervision of police officers, for example in a police station.
- policy adviser — a person who provides ideas or plans that are used by an organization or government as a basis for making decisions
- policy science — a branch of the social sciences concerned with the formulation and implementation of policy in bureaucracies, etc
- polite society — sophisticated company
- polydispersity — the state of being polydisperse
- polygon pusher — (Or "rectangle slinger"). A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of multi-coloured polygons).
- polygraph test — a test carried out using a polygraph, esp used by the police to try to find out whether somebody is telling the truth
- polysaccharide — a carbohydrate, as starch, inulin, or cellulose, containing more than three monosaccharide units per molecule, the units being attached to each other in the manner of acetals, and therefore capable of hydrolysis by acids or enzymes to monosaccharides.
- polysuspensoid — a suspensoid in which the solid particles are polydisperse.
- polysynthesism — the synthesis of various elements.