15-letter words containing s, p, i, n, a
- petit serjeanty — serjeanty in which the tenant renders services of an impersonal nature to the king, as providing him annually with an implement of war, as a lance or bow.
- 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.
- 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
- physical change — a usually reversible change in the physical properties of a substance, as size or shape: Freezing a liquid is a physical change.
- 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.
- pilsner glass's — a pale, light lager beer.
- pine tree state — Maine (used as a nickname).
- 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.
- plain of sharon — a plain in W Israel, between the Mediterranean and the hills of Samaria, extending from Haifa to Tel Aviv
- plainclothesman — a police officer, especially a detective, who wears ordinary civilian clothes while on duty.
- plane surveying — the surveying of areas of limited size, making no corrections for the earth's curvature
- 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
- 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.
- platform tennis — a variation of tennis played on a wooden platform enclosed with chicken wire in which the players hit a rubber ball with wooden paddles following the same basic rules as tennis except that only one serve is permitted and balls can be played off the back and side fences.
- platitudinously — in a platitudinal manner
- platyhelminthes — a phylum of worms having bilateral symmetry and a soft, usually flattened body, comprising the flatworms.
- pleasant island — former name of Nauru.
- pleasure-loving — enjoying pleasure
- plumbaginaceous — belonging to the Plumbaginaceae, the leadwort family of plants.
- point-and-shoot — of or denoting a camera that does not require manual adjustment of shutter speed, focus, aperture, etc.
- poisson's ratio — the ratio, in an elastic body under longitudinal stress, of the transverse strain to the longitudinal strain.
- police marksman — a police officer skilled in precision shooting, esp with a sniper rifle
- policy issuance — Policy issuance is the process of creating an insurance policy and providing it to the policyholder.
- polish notation — a logical notation that dispenses with the need for brackets by writing the logical constants as operators preceding their arguments
- polling station — voting venue
- polycrystalline — (of a rock or metal) composed of aggregates of individual crystals.
- pontifical mass — (sometimes lowercase) Roman Catholic Church. a High Mass celebrated by a bishop or other prelate.
- pontine marshes — an area of W Italy, southeast of Rome: formerly malarial swamps, drained in 1932–34 after numerous attempts since 160 bc had failed
- port washington — a town on NW Long Island, in SE New York.
- port wine stain — a large birthmark of purplish color, usually on the face or neck.
- port-wine stain — a large birthmark of purplish color, usually on the face or neck.
- post-industrial — of, relating to, or characteristic of an era following industrialization: The economy of the postindustrial society is based on the provision of services rather than on the manufacture of goods.
- post-liberation — the act of liberating or the state of being liberated.
- post-millennial — of or relating to the period following the millennium.
- post-parturient — bearing or about to bear young; travailing.