15-letter words starting with p
- past participle — a participle with past, perfect, or passive meaning, as fallen, sung, defeated; perfect participle: used in English and other languages in forming the present perfect, pluperfect, and passive and as an adjective.
- pastel-coloured — pale-coloured; in a shade such as pink or pale blue
- pastoral letter — pastoral (defs 11, 12).
- pastoral prayer — the main prayer in a church service.
- pastoralization — to make pastoral or rural.
- pat on the back — to strike lightly or gently with something flat, as with a paddle or the palm of the hand, usually in order to flatten, smooth, or shape: to pat dough into flat pastry forms.
- patagonian hare — a burrowing, gray, long-eared and long-legged cavy of the genus Dolichotis, native to South America.
- patchwork quilt — cover sewn from patches of cloth
- patellar reflex — knee jerk.
- patent engineer — a person who draws up applications for patents
- patent medicine — a medicine sold without a prescription in drugstores or by sales representatives, and usually protected by a trademark.
- paternity leave — a leave of absence from a job for a father to care for a new baby.
- paternity order — a court order which declares a child's paternity
- pathophysiology — the physiology of abnormal or diseased organisms or their parts; the functional changes associated with a disease or syndrome.
- patio furniture — furniture in an area adjoining a house, esp one that is paved and used for outdoor activities
- patria potestas — the power vested in the paterfamilias or head of the Roman family with respect to his wife, natural or adopted children, and agnatic descendants: title to family property is vested exclusively in the paterfamilias. Property acquired by a family member becomes family property, and no family member can enter into a transaction in his or her own right.
- pattern bombing — aerial bombing in which bombs are dropped on a target in a predetermined pattern.
- pattypan squash — a flat, whitish variety of squash, Cucurbita pepo melopepo, having a scalloped edge.
- 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
- pavel petrovich — Paul I (def 2).
- pavement artist — sidewalk artist.
- pay as you earn — a method of paying tax in which the tax is taken off your wages before they are paid to you
- pay-and-display — denoting a car-parking system in which a motorist buys a permit to park for a specified period from a coin-operated machine and displays the permit on or near the windscreen of his or her car so that it can be seen by a parking attendant
- payment holiday — a break taken from paying ( a debt etc) back
- peace offensive — an active program, policy, propaganda campaign, etc., by a national government for the purpose of terminating a war or period of hostility, lessening international tensions, or promoting peaceful cooperation with other nations.
- peachblow glass — an American art glass made in various pale colors and sometimes having an underlayer of milk glass.
- peacock feather — a (distinctive and brightly coloured) feather from the peacock
- peak experience — a high point in the life of a self-actualizer, during which the person feels ecstatic and more alive and whole than is usual.
- peak production — the maximum production
- pearly nautilus — nautilus (def 1).
- pectoral girdle — (in vertebrates) a bony or cartilaginous arch supporting the forelimbs.
- pectoral muscle — muscle of the chest
- peculiar people — a small sect of faith healers founded in London in 1838, having no ministers or external organization
- pedagoguishness — the quality of being pedagoguish
- pedestrian mall — A pedestrian mall is the same as a pedestrian precinct.
- pedunculate oak — a large deciduous oak tree, Quercus robur, of Eurasia, having lobed leaves and stalked acorns
- pelargonic acid — a colorless, oily, water-immiscible liquid, C 9 H 1 8 O 2 , occurring as an ester in a volatile oil in species of pelargonium: used chiefly in organic synthesis and in the manufacture of lacquers and plastics.
- pellicle mirror — a fixed mirror in a single-lens reflex camera that reflects some of the light entering the lens to the ground-glass view screen while permitting most of the light to pass through to the film.
- peltier element — an electronic device consisting of metal strips between which alternate strips of n-type and p-type semiconductors are connected. Passage of a current causes heat to be absorbed from one set of metallic strips and emitted from the other by the Peltier effect
- pematangsiantar — a city on NE Sumatra, in Indonesia.
- penal servitude — imprisonment together with hard labor.
- pendulum effect — Also called pendulum law. Physics. a law, discovered by Galileo in 1602, that describes the regular, swinging motion of a pendulum by the action of gravity and acquired momentum.
- penetration aid — a device or tactic, as the use of chaff or decoys or the maintaining of a low flight level, that helps an aircraft or missile to enter hostile air space.
- penetrativeness — the quality or condition of being penetrative
- penshurst place — a 14th-century mansion near Tunbridge Wells in Kent: birthplace of Sir Philip Sidney; gardens laid out from 1560
- pentaerythritol — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 5 H 1 2 O 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of alkyd resins, varnishes, plasticizers, and explosives.
- pentium ii xeon — (processor) The successor to Intel Corporation's Pentium II processor. The Xeon has the same P6 core as existing Pentium Pro/Pentium II units, but it supports a 100 MHz system bus and offers as much as 2 MB of level 2 cache.
- pepin the short — ("Pepin the Short") died a.d. 768, king of the Franks 751–768 (father of Charlemagne).
- pepper-and-salt — composed of a fine mixture of black with white: pepper-and-salt hair.
- peppercorn rent — A peppercorn rent is an extremely low rent.