16-letter words containing t, a, s, i
- paratuberculosis — Johne's disease.
- parents' evening — an occasion when the parents of children at a school and their teachers come together (outside normal school hours, in the evening) in order to discuss the progress or work of the children
- partial pressure — the pressure that a gas in a mixture of gases would exert if it occupied the same volume as the mixture at the same temperature.
- particle physics — the branch of physics that deals with the properties and behavior of elementary particles.
- parts of lindsey — an area in E England constituting a former administrative division of Lincolnshire
- pass-band filter — band-pass filter
- passage to india — a novel (1924) by E. M. Forster.
- passive immunity — immunity resulting from the injection of antibodies or sensitized lymphocytes from another organism or, in infants, from the transfer of antibodies through the placenta or from colostrum.
- passive transfer — Immunology. injection of lymphocytes or antibody from an immune or sensitized donor to a nonimmune host in order to impart immunity or test for allergic reactions.
- past progressive — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the past tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that an action or event was incomplete or in progress at a point of reference in the past, as was sleeping in I was sleeping when the phone rang.
- pastoral epistle — any one of three New Testament books, I or II Timothy or Titus, that stress pastoral and ecclesiastical concerns.
- pectoralis major — the larger of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- peninsular state — Florida (used as a nickname).
- pension mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a pension fund and the interest to the mortgagee. The loan is repaid out of the tax-free lump sum proceeds of the pension plan on the borrower's retirement
- pentatonic scale — a scale having five tones to an octave, as one having intervals that correspond to the five black keys of a piano octave.
- pentothal sodium — thiopental sodium
- permaculturalist — a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem.
- personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
- personal liberty — the liberty of an individual to do his or her will freely except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.
- personal stylist — a person employed by a rich or famous client to offer advice on clothes, hairstyles, and other aspects of personal appearance
- personal trainer — a person who works one-on-one with a client to plan or implement an exercise or fitness regimen.
- personal tuition — private tuition
- personality cult — deliberately cultivated adulation of a person, esp a political leader
- personality test — an instrument, as a questionnaire or series of standardized tasks, used to measure personality characteristics or to discover personality disorders.
- personality type — a cluster of personality traits commonly occurring together
- phalansterianism — a system by which society would be reorganized into units comprising their own social and industrial elements; Fourierism.
- phantasmagorical — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- philanthropistic — a person who practices philanthropy.
- phillis wheatley — Phillis [fil-is] /ˈfɪl ɪs/ (Show IPA), 1753?–84, American poet, born in Africa; probably Senegal.
- phosphor fatigue — screen saver
- photorespiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
- physical fitness — good physical condition
- physical therapy — the treatment or management of physical disability, malfunction, or pain by exercise, massage, hydrotherapy, etc., without the use of medicines, surgery, or radiation.
- physical-capital — tools, machinery, computers, and other equipment that are needed for the production of goods and services: money spent by business firms on physical capital.
- pico de sao tome — an island in the Gulf of Guinea, off the W coast of Gabon, just N of the equator: the larger component of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. 318 sq. mi. (824 sq. km).
- picture postcard — postcard (def 1).
- pigs in blankets — small frankfurters wrapped in dough and baked, served as an appetizer
- pineal apparatus — a median outgrowth of the roof of the diencephalon in vertebrates that in some develops into the pineal eye and in others into the pineal gland.
- piscis austrinus — a small constellation in the S hemisphere lying between Aquarius and Grus and containing the first-magnitude star Fomalhaut
- place in the sun — (often initial capital letter) the star that is the central body of the solar system, around which the planets revolve and from which they receive light and heat: its mean distance from the earth is about 93 million miles (150 million km), its diameter about 864,000 miles (1.4 million km), and its mass about 330,000 times that of the earth; its period of surface rotation is about 26 days at its equator but longer at higher latitudes.
- plainclothes man — a detective or police officer who wears civilian clothes while on duty
- plaster of paris — calcined gypsum in white, powdery form, used as a base for gypsum plasters, as an additive of lime plasters, and as a material for making fine and ornamental casts: characterized by its ability to set rapidly when mixed with water.
- play off against — If you play people off against each other, you make them compete or argue, so that you gain some advantage.
- play-action pass — a pass play designed to deceive the defense by appearing to be a running play, in which the quarterback fakes a hand-off to a back before throwing a forward pass.
- plutarch's lives — (Parallel Lives) a collection (a.d. 105–15) by Plutarch of short biographies of the leading political figures of ancient Greece and Rome.
- pocket billiards — pool2 (def 1).