15-letter words starting with p
- perchloric acid — a colorless, syrupy hygroscopic liquid, HClO 4 , an acid of chlorine containing one more oxygen atom than chloric acid: used chiefly as a reagent in analytical chemistry.
- perchloroethane — hexachloroethane.
- percussion lock — a gunlock on a firearm that fires by striking a percussion cap.
- percussion tool — a power driven tool which operates by striking rapid blows: the power may be electricity or compressed air
- perfect binding — a technique for binding books by a machine that cuts off the backs of the sections and glues the leaves to a cloth or paper backing.
- perfect cadence — a cadence in which the tonic chord has its root in both bass and soprano.
- perfectionistic — a person who adheres to or believes in perfectionism.
- perfector press — a flatbed press for printing both sides of a sheet in one operation.
- perfluorocarbon — a fluorocarbon consisting only of fluorine and carbon atoms
- perforating gun — A perforating gun is a device used to make holes in oil and gas wells in preparation for production.
- performance art — a collaborative art form originating in the 1970s as a fusion of several artistic media, as painting, film, video, music, drama, and dance, and deriving in part from the 1960s performance happenings.
- performance car — a car that can go very fast and can increase its speed very quickly
- performing arts — dance, drama, music
- perfunctoriness — performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial: perfunctory courtesy.
- pergamentaceous — (esp of plants) resembling parchment, whether in texture or composition
- perimeter fence — fence surrounding an area
- period-rotation — a rather large interval of time that is meaningful in the life of a person, in history, etc., because of its particular characteristics: a period of illness; a period of great profitability for a company; a period of social unrest in Germany.
- periodic motion — any motion that recurs in identical forms at equal intervals of time.
- periodic system — a system of classification of the elements based on the periodic law.
- perissosyllabic — (of a line of verse) containing more syllables than expected for the metre being used
- permanent press — a process in which a fabric is chemically treated to make it wrinkle-resistant so as to require little or no ironing after washing.
- permanent tooth — any of the 32 adult teeth that replace the 20 milk teeth.
- peroxide blonde — You can refer to a woman whose hair has been artificially been made lighter in colour as a peroxide blonde, especially when you want to show that you disapprove of this, or that you think her hair looks unnatural or unattractive.
- peroxysulphuric — as in peroxysulphuric acid
- perpendicularly — vertical; straight up and down; upright.
- perpetual check — a continuing series of checks resulting in a drawn game because they cannot be halted or evaded without resulting in checkmate or a serious disadvantage.
- perseus cluster — a cluster of about 500 galaxies in the direction of the constellation Perseus, grouped around a particular Seyfert galaxy that is an intense radio source (Perseus A)
- person of color — the quality of an object or substance with respect to light reflected by the object, usually determined visually by measurement of hue, saturation, and brightness of the reflected light; saturation or chroma; hue.
- personal column — The personal column in a newspaper or magazine contains messages for individual people and advertisements of a private nature.
- personal estate — movable property
- personal friend — a person who is a friend, rather than a colleague or acquaintance
- personal growth — development as an individual
- personal injury — injury to an individual
- personal stereo — A personal stereo is a small cassette or CD player with very light headphones, which people carry round so that they can listen to music while doing something else.
- personalization — to have marked with one's initials, name, or monogram: to personalize stationery.
- personification — the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
- peruvian balsam — Peru balsam.
- pessimistically — pertaining to or characterized by pessimism or the tendency to expect only bad outcomes; gloomy; joyless; unhopeful: His pessimistic outlook kept him from applying for jobs for which he was perfectly qualified.
- peter of amiens — c1050–1115, French monk: preacher of the first Crusade 1095–99.
- peter principle — any of several satirical “laws” concerning organizational structure, especially one that holds that people tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.
- peter the great — ("the Great") 1672–1725, czar of Russia 1682–1725.
- petit bourgeois — a person who belongs to the petite bourgeoisie.
- petit serjeanty — serjeanty in which the tenant renders services of an impersonal nature to the king, as providing him annually with an implement of war, as a lance or bow.
- petroleum ether — a volatile mixture of the higher alkane hydrocarbons, obtained as a fraction of petroleum and used as a solvent
- petroleum jelly — sticky substance used as lubricant
- petty bourgeois — petit bourgeois
- phantom circuit — a circuit derived from two suitably arranged pairs of wires, each pair being a circuit (side circuit) and also acting as one half of an additional derived circuit, the entire system providing the capabilities of three circuits while requiring wires for only two.
- pharmacological — the science dealing with the preparation, uses, and especially the effects of drugs.
- pharmacotherapy — the treatment of disease through the administration of drugs.
- phase-switching — a technique used in radio interferometry in which the signal from one of the two antennae is periodically reversed in phase before being multiplied by the signal from the other antenna