15-letter words containing s, u, p, o
- nutty professor — a professor or academic person who is eccentric or slightly crazy or unusual
- oedipus complex — the unresolved desire of a child for sexual gratification through the parent of the opposite sex, especially the desire of a son for his mother. This involves, first, identification with and, later, hatred for the parent of the same sex, who is considered by the child as a rival.
- off one's chump — insane; crazy
- on one's uppers — higher, as in place, position, pitch, or in a scale: the upper stories of a house; the upper register of a singer's voice.
- open university — higher education by correspondence
- openmouthedness — the state or condition of being filled with amazement and wonder
- opisthognathous — having receding jaws.
- opposite number — counterpart; equivalent: New members with an interest in folk art will find their opposite numbers in the association's directory.
- opprobriousness — The state or condition of being opprobrious.
- opus anglicanum — fine embroidery, esp of church vestments, produced in England c.1200–c.1350; characterized by the rich materials used, esp silver gilt thread
- outdoorsmanship — a person devoted to outdoor sports and recreational activities, as hiking, hunting, fishing, or camping.
- outside caliper — a caliper whose legs turn inward so that it can measure outside dimensions, as the diameter of a rod.
- over-scrupulous — excessively scrupulous.
- overconsumption — the act of consuming, as by use, decay, or destruction.
- overspeculation — the contemplation or consideration of some subject: to engage in speculation on humanity's ultimate destiny.
- ovoviviparously — in an ovoviviparous manner
- pamprodactylous — having all four toes directed forward, as in swifts and colies.
- parallel cousin — a cousin who is the child either of one's mother's sister or of one's father's brother.
- parti québécois — (in Canada) a political party in Quebec, formed in 1968 and originally advocating the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country
- passifloraceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Passifloraceae, a tropical and subtropical family of climbing plants including the passionflowers: the flowers have five petals and threadlike parts forming a dense mass (corona) around the central disc
- past continuous — past progressive.
- pastel-coloured — pale-coloured; in a shade such as pink or pale blue
- paurometabolous — designating or of a group of insect orders, as orthopterans or hemipterans, in which metamorphosis to the adult state from the juvenile state is gradual and without any sudden, radical change of body form
- pay as you earn — a method of paying tax in which the tax is taken off your wages before they are paid to you
- pectoral muscle — muscle of the chest
- pedagoguishness — the quality of being pedagoguish
- percussion lock — a gunlock on a firearm that fires by striking a percussion cap.
- percussion tool — a power driven tool which operates by striking rapid blows: the power may be electricity or compressed air
- perfunctoriness — performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial: perfunctory courtesy.
- pergamentaceous — (esp of plants) resembling parchment, whether in texture or composition
- peroxysulphuric — as in peroxysulphuric acid
- personal column — The personal column in a newspaper or magazine contains messages for individual people and advertisements of a private nature.
- personal injury — injury to an individual
- petit bourgeois — a person who belongs to the petite bourgeoisie.
- petty bourgeois — petit bourgeois
- pheasant coucal — a brown and black, red-eyed Australian bird, Centropus phasianinus, with a pheasantlike tail.
- phosphate group — the group or radical obtained by removal of one or more hydrogen atoms from phosphoric acid.
- photojournalism — journalism in which photography dominates written copy, as in certain magazines.
- pictorial janus — K. Kahn, Xerox. Visual extension of Janus. Requires Strand88 and a PostScript interpreter.
- pithecanthropus — a former genus of extinct hominids whose members have now been assigned to the proposed species Homo erectus.
- plagiostomatous — plagiostome
- plantaginaceous — relating to or belonging to the family Plantaginaceae
- plastic surgeon — doctor who performs cosmetic surgery
- platitudinously — in a platitudinal manner
- play favourites — to display favouritism
- please yourself — You say 'please yourself' to indicate in a rather rude way that you do not mind or care whether the person you are talking to does a particular thing or not.
- pleasure-loving — enjoying pleasure
- plumbaginaceous — belonging to the Plumbaginaceae, the leadwort family of plants.
- plunket society — the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children
- policy issuance — Policy issuance is the process of creating an insurance policy and providing it to the policyholder.