12-letter words containing t, e, f
- past perfect — pluperfect.
- patent cliff — a potential sharp drop in sales and revenue for a company when one of its patents expires: the looming patent cliffs faced by pharmaceutical firms.
- patent flour — a fine grade of flour, consisting chiefly of the inner part of the endosperm.
- peak traffic — traffic at the time it is most busy
- pectoral fin — (in fishes) either of a pair of fins usually situated behind the head, one on each side, and corresponding to the forelimbs of higher vertebrates.
- perfect game — a baseball game in which the same player pitches throughout the full game without allowing any player of the opposing team to reach first base by a base hit, base on balls, error, or any other means. Compare no-hitter.
- perfect ream — a standard quantity of paper, consisting of 20 quires or 500 sheets (formerly 480 sheets), or 516 sheets (printer's ream or perfect ream)
- perfect year — the lunisolar calendar used by Jews, as for determining religious holidays, that is reckoned from 3761 b.c. and was established by Hillel II in the 4th century a.d., the calendar year consisting of 353 days (defective year) 354 days (regular year) or 355 days (perfect year or abundant year) and containing 12 months: Tishri, Heshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, and Elul, with the 29-day intercalary month of Adar Sheni added after Adar seven times in every 19-year cycle in order to adjust the calendar to the solar cycle. The Jewish ecclesiastical year begins with Nisan and the civil year with Tishri.
- perfectation — the action or process of becoming or causing to become perfect or complete
- perfectively — in a perfective manner; thoroughly
- perfectivity — the state or quality of being (a) perfective
- perfectivize — to make perfective.
- perforations — the holes punched that allow individual stamps, coupons, etc to be easily separated
- performative — (of an expression or statement) performing an act by the very fact of being uttered, as with the expression “I promise,” that performs the act of promising.
- perfusionist — a medical technician or nurse who monitors and operates equipment that oxygenates the blood, as during open-heart surgery
- petaliferous — bearing or having petals.
- petrifaction — the act or process of petrifying; the state of being petrified.
- petrifactive — having the ability to turn substances into stone
- pettifogging — You can describe an action or situation as pettifogging when you think that unnecessary attention is being paid to unimportant, boring details.
- photo relief — a method of showing the configuration of the relief of an area by photographing a model of it that is illuminated by a lamp in the northwest corner
- photo-offset — a method of printing, based on photolithography, in which the inked image is transferred from the metal plate to a rubber surface and then to the paper.
- picket fence — a fence consisting of pickets or pales nailed to horizontal stringers between upright posts.
- pinch effect — the tendency of an electric conductor or stream of charged particles to constrict, caused by the action of a magnetic field that is produced by a flow of electricity.
- pipe fitting — a joint or connector, as an elbow, union, or tee, used in a pipe system.
- pitched-roof — a roof sloping downward in two parts at an angle from a central ridge, so as to leave a gable at each end.
- placentiform — shaped like a placenta, with a flat rounded form
- platform bed — a bed, originating in Scandinavia in the 1930s, consisting of a simple shallow box for holding a mattress situated on a slightly recessed pedestal.
- play it safe — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- pocket knife — A pocket knife is a small knife with several blades which fold into the handle so that you can carry it around with you safely.
- point defect — an imperfection in a crystal's lattice structure, either a missing atom or ion creating a vacancy in the lattice or an extra atom or ion between two normal lattice points creating an interstitial.
- pontificates — the office or term of office of a pontiff.
- portal frame — a frame, usually of steel, consisting of two uprights and a cross beam at the top: the simplest structural unit in a framed building or a doorway
- postfeminist — relating to or occurring in the period after the feminist movement of the 1970s.
- postfracture — taking place after a fracture
- power factor — (in an electrical circuit) the ratio of the power dissipated to the product of the input volts times amps
- powerlifting — a competition or sport involving three tests of strength: the bench press, squat, and two-handed dead lift.
- prebreakfast — occurring before breakfast, of or pertaining to the period before breakfast
- prefabricate — to fabricate or construct beforehand.
- prefectorial — of, relating to, or characteristic of a prefect: prefectorial powers.
- preferential — of, relating to, or of the nature of preference: preferential policies.
- prefloration — the internal arrangement of a flower-bud's petals and sepals before it opens
- prefoliation — the arrangement of leaves within a vegetative bud
- preformation — previous formation.
- preformative — a prefixture in Semitic languages
- preformatted — the shape and size of a book as determined by the number of times the original sheet has been folded to form the leaves. Compare duodecimo, folio (def 2), octavo, quarto.
- preformulate — to describe an active pharmaceutical ingredient chemically
- pressed felt — Pressed felt is a material made from compressed fibers and used as a filter.
- presser foot — a forked, metal device on a sewing machine used for holding the fabric in place while stitching.
- prime factor — any number in the set of prime numbers that is also a factor of a given integer
- private life — the social or family life or personal relationships of an individual, esp of a person in the public eye, such as a politician or celebrity