12-letter words containing w, p, c
- 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.)
- 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.
- power factor — (in an electrical circuit) the ratio of the power dissipated to the product of the input volts times amps
- power vacuum — a situation when a government has no identifiable central authority
- provincetown — a town at the tip of Cape Cod, in SE Massachusetts: resort.
- provincewide — covering or available to the whole of a province
- public works — government-funded construction
- scapegallows — a criminal who escapes death by hanging or the gallows
- school prawn — a common olive-green prawn, Metapenaeus macleayi
- screen-wiper — windshield wiper.
- scriptwriter — a person who writes scripts, as for movies, radio, or television.
- shadow price — the calculated price of a good or service for which no market price exists
- space writer — a journalist or copywriter paid according to a space rate. Also called space man. Compare stringer (def 6).
- speechwriter — a person who writes speeches for others, usually for pay.
- swamp locust — water locust.
- sweep-second — (on a timepiece) a second hand that is a sweep hand.
- swimming cap — A swimming cap is a rubber cap which you wear to keep your hair dry when you are swimming.
- switch plate — a plate, usually of metal, ceramic, or plastic, covering a switch so that the knob or toggle protrudes.
- tapioca snow — snow pellets.
- triple crown — an unofficial title held by a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes in a single season.
- wackyparsing — (Internet, slang) present participle of wackyparse.
- wages policy — a government policy setting wages and wage increases for workers, for example, setting minimum wage requirements
- wake-up call — an act or instance of waking up.
- walking pace — the speed at which someone walks
- wall creeper — a small, gray and crimson Old World bird, Tichodroma muraria, that inhabits cliffs in mountainous areas.
- wapsipinicon — a river in E Iowa, flowing SE to the Mississippi River. 255 miles (410 km) long.
- watch pocket — a small pocket in a garment, as in a vest or trousers, for holding a pocket watch, change, etc. Compare fob1 (def 1).
- water pocket — a cavity at the foot of a cliff formed by the falling action of an intermittent stream.
- web scraping — the extraction and copying of data from a website into a structured format using a computer program: Hackers pose a threat with techniques like web scraping. Our search engine uses web scraping to index sites.
- western cape — a province of W South Africa, created in 1994 from the SW part of Cape Province: agriculture (esp fruit), wine making, fishing, various industries in Cape Town. Capital: Cape Town. Pop: 5 822 734 (2011 est). Area: 129 370 sq km (49 950 sq miles)
- whelping ice — the ice on which a seal lies while giving birth in the spring.
- whip-cracker — a person who cracks a whip.
- whipscorpion — any of numerous arachnids of the order Uropygi, of tropical and warm temperate regions, resembling a scorpion but having an abdomen that ends in a slender, nonvenomous whip.
- whipstitched — Simple past tense and past participle of whipstitch.
- whipstitches — Plural form of whipstitch.
- white spruce — a spruce, Picea glauca, of northern North America, having bluish-green needles and silvery-brown bark.
- wicketkeeper — the player on the fielding side who stands immediately behind the wicket to stop balls that pass it.
- wild apricot — apricot (def 4).
- wild spinach — any of various plants of the genus Chenopodium, sometimes used in place of spinach.
- woodchippers — Plural form of woodchipper.
- woodchoppers — Plural form of woodchopper.
- word picture — a description in words, especially one that is unusually vivid: She drew a word picture of a South Pacific sunset.
- word-perfect — correct in every detail
- wrap account — a personally managed investment account where charges are levied on the basis of the account's total assets.
- yellow perch — See under perch2 (def 1).