16-letter words starting with p
- people's charter — the principles or movement of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, in England from 1838 to 1848: so called from the document (People's Charter or National Charter) that contained a statement of their principles and demands.
- people's commune — a usually rural, Communist Chinese social and administrative unit of from 2000 to 4000 families combined for collective farming, fishing, mining, or industrial projects.
- percentage point — difference: one per cent
- perchloromethane — carbon tetrachloride.
- percussion drill — a drill that is operated by percussion
- peregrine falcon — a globally distributed falcon, Falco peregrinus, much used in falconry because of its swift flight: several subspecies are endangered.
- perez de cuellar — Javier [hah-vyer] /hɑˈvyɛr/ (Show IPA), born 1920, Peruvian diplomat: secretary-general of the United Nations 1982–91; prime minister of Peru 2000–2001.
- perfecting press — a rotary press for printing both sides of a sheet or web in one operation.
- perforated ulcer — an ulcer that bursts through the stomach wall and leaks food and gastric juices into the abdominal cavity
- performance bond — contract bond.
- performance test — a test requiring little or no use of language, the test materials being designed to elicit manual or behavioral responses rather than verbal ones.
- period furniture — furniture that was made during a particular period in time
- periodic decimal — repeating decimal.
- periodic tenancy — the letting of a dwelling for a repeated short term, as by the week, month, or quarter, with no end date
- permaculturalist — a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem.
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- permanent magnet — a magnet that retains its magnetism after being removed from an external magnetic field.
- permanganic acid — an acid, HMnO 4 , known only in solution.
- perpendicularity — vertical; straight up and down; upright.
- perpetual motion — the motion of a theoretical mechanism that, without any losses due to friction or other forms of dissipation of energy, would continue to operate indefinitely at the same rate without any external energy being applied to it.
- person of colour — a person who is not White
- person-to-person — (of a long-distance telephone call) chargeable only upon speaking with a specified person at the number called: a person-to-person call to her brother in California. Compare station-to-station.
- personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
- personal effects — belongings
- personal hygiene — bodily cleanliness
- personal liberty — the liberty of an individual to do his or her will freely except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.
- personal pension — a private pension scheme in which an individual contributes part of his or her salary to a financial institution, which invests it so that a lump sum is available on retirement; this is then used to purchase an annuity
- personal pronoun — any one of the pronouns used to refer to the speaker, or to one or more to or about whom or which he or she is speaking, as, in English, I, we, you, he, she, it, they.
- personal shopper — a person, often a store employee, whose job is to assist shoppers in selecting clothing or other merchandise.
- personal stylist — a person employed by a rich or famous client to offer advice on clothes, hairstyles, and other aspects of personal appearance
- personal trainer — a person who works one-on-one with a client to plan or implement an exercise or fitness regimen.
- personal tuition — private tuition
- personality cult — deliberately cultivated adulation of a person, esp a political leader
- personality test — an instrument, as a questionnaire or series of standardized tasks, used to measure personality characteristics or to discover personality disorders.
- personality type — a cluster of personality traits commonly occurring together
- personnel agency — an agency for placing employable persons in jobs; employment agency.
- persulfuric acid — Also called Caro's acid, permonosulfuric acid, peroxymonosulfuric acid, peroxysulfuric acid. a white, crystalline solid, H 2 SO 5 , used as an oxidizing agent for certain organic compounds.
- peruvian rhatany — See under rhatany (def 1).
- peter pan collar — a close-fitting flat or rolled collar with rounded ends that meet in front of a high, round neckline.
- peter stuyvesant — Peter, 1592–1672, Dutch colonial administrator in the Americas: last governor of New Netherlands 1646–64.
- peter the hermit — c1050–1115, French monk: preacher of the first Crusade 1095–99.
- petrified forest — a national park in E Arizona, containing petrified coniferous trees about 170 000 000 years old
- petrol rationing — a scheme rationing the amount of petrol that an individual is allowed to purchase
- phagocytic index — the average number of bacteria ingested per phagocyte in an incubated mixture of bacteria, phagocytes, and blood serum: used in determining the opsonic index.
- phalansterianism — a system by which society would be reorganized into units comprising their own social and industrial elements; Fourierism.
- phantasmagorical — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- pharmacodynamics — the branch of pharmacology dealing with the course of action, effect, and breakdown of drugs within the body.
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacogenomics — the study of human genetic variability in relation to drug action and its application to medical treatment
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.