12-letter words containing w, e, r, p
- mine-sweeper — a specially equipped ship used for dragging a body of water in order to remove or destroy enemy mines.
- minesweepers — Plural form of minesweeper.
- motive power — any power used to impart motion; any source of mechanical energy.
- new paradigm — a set of beliefs that replaces another set which is believed no longer to apply
- newport east — a town in SE Rhode Island.
- newport news — a seaport in SE Virginia: shipbuilding and ship-repair center.
- newspaperdom — The realm or sphere of newspaper publishing or journalism.
- newspapering — Present participle of newspaper.
- newspaperism — anything characteristic of newspapers, esp a word or phrase used only by journalists
- newspaperman — a person employed by a newspaper or wire service as a reporter, writer, editor, etc.
- newspapermen — a person employed by a newspaper or wire service as a reporter, writer, editor, etc.
- norway maple — a European maple, Acer platanoides, having bright-green leaves, grown as a shade tree in the U.S.
- on the prowl — to rove or go about stealthily, as in search of prey, something to steal, etc.
- opera window — a narrow, fixed window on each side of the rear passenger compartment of an automobile.
- overflow pdl — (jargon) The place where you put things when your pdl is full. If you don't have one and too many things get pushed, you forget something. The overflow pdl for a person's memory might be a memo pad. This usage inspired the following doggerel:
- overpowering — that overpowers; overwhelming: an overpowering conviction of the truth.
- packed tower — A packed tower is a tall distillation vessel which uses packing.
- palm warbler — a North American wood warbler, Dendroica palmarum, brown above and whitish or yellowish below.
- paper-weight — a small, heavy object of glass, metal, etc., placed on papers to keep them from scattering.
- parallelwise — in a parallel manner
- pasch flower — pasqueflower
- pasqueflower — an Old World plant, Anemone pulsatilla, of the buttercup family, having purple, crocuslike flowers blooming about Easter.
- passage work — writing that is often extraneous to the thematic material of a work and is typically of a virtuosic or decorative character: passagework consisting of scales, arpeggios, trills, and double octaves.
- pastures new — If someone leaves for greener pastures, or in British English pastures new, they leave their job, their home, or the situation they are in for something they think will be much better.
- pay-per-view — a system requiring that a subscriber pay for each program viewed: championship games seen only on pay-per-view.
- peacock worm — feather-duster worm.
- pearly white — white and lustrous as a pearl.
- people power — community action
- periodic law — the law that the properties of the elements are periodic functions of their atomic numbers.
- pester power — the ability possessed by a child to nag a parent relentlessly until the parent succumbs and agrees to the child's request
- pickerelweed — any American plant of the genus Pontederia, especially P. cordata, having spikes of blue flowers, common in shallow fresh water.
- picture show — motion picture.
- piercing saw — a small, fine-gauge saw blade with uniformly spaced, angled teeth, inserted in a jeweler's saw frame and used to cut precious metal and such soft materials as ivory and shell.
- pine warbler — a warbler, Dendroica pinus, inhabiting pine forests of the southeastern U.S.
- pioneer work — pioneer work does something that has not been done before, for example by developing or using new methods or techniques
- pkware, inc. — (company, compression) The company, founded by Phil Katz in 1986, which produces the PKZIP and PKUNZIP compression tools and libraries for many platforms. Address: 201 E. Pittsburgh Ave., Suite 400, Milwaukee, WI 53204 USA
- plate warmer — a device for warming plates
- polar wander — the movement of the earth's magnetic poles with respect to the geographic poles
- police power — the power of a nation, within the limits of its constitution, to regulate the conduct of its citizens in the interest of the common good.
- poll watcher — a representative of a political party or of an organization running a candidate who is assigned to the polls on an election day to watch for violations of the laws that regulate voting, campaigning, etc.
- postcardware — Shareware that borders on freeware, in that the author requests only that satisfied users send a postcard of their home town or something. (This practice, silly as it might seem, serves to remind users that they are otherwise getting something for nothing, and may also be psychologically related to real estate "sales" in which $1 changes hands just to keep the transaction from being a gift.)
- pot-walloper — (in some boroughs before the Reform Bill of 1832) a man who qualified as a householder, and therefore a voter, by virtue of ownership of his own fireplace at which to boil pots.
- powder chest — a small wooden box containing a charge of powder, old nails, scrap iron, etc., formerly secured over the side of a ship and exploded on the attempt of an enemy to board.
- powder flask — a small flask of gunpowder formerly carried by soldiers and hunters.
- powder paper — Pharmacology. charta (def 2).
- power assist — a procedure for supplementing or replacing the manual effort needed to operate a device or system, often by hydraulic, electrical, or mechanical means.
- power broker — a person who wields great political, governmental, or financial power.
- power factor — (in an electrical circuit) the ratio of the power dissipated to the product of the input volts times amps
- power hammer — a type of mechanical hammer operated by compressed air and used by blacksmiths, metalworkers, and manufacturers
- power kiting — an activity in which a person, sitting in a small buggy or wearing skis, etc, is propelled by the wind power generated by a large kite to which he or she is attached by ropes