13-letter words starting with pl
- play catch-up — an effort to reach or pass a norm, especially after a period of delay: After the slowdown there was a catch-up in production.
- play for time — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- play hardball — baseball, as distinguished from softball.
- play hob with — to make trouble for; interfere with and make disordered
- play on words — a pun or the act of punning.
- play politics — the science or art of political government.
- play the fool — behave in a silly way
- play the game — an amusement or pastime: children's games.
- play-the-ball — a method for bringing the ball back into play after a tackle, in which the tackled player is allowed to stand up and kick or heel the ball behind him or her to a team-mate
- playback head — the part of a tape recorder that is used to pick up the magnetic pattern on tape in order to play back material previously recorded.
- playing cards — cards used in playing various games, arranged in decks of four suits (spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs): a standard deck has 52 cards
- playing field — an expanse of level ground, as in a park or stadium, where athletic events are held.
- playing games — If you say that someone is playing games or playing silly games, you mean that they are not treating a situation seriously and you are annoyed with them.
- playing trick — a card in a hand considered as likely to take a trick, assuming that the player who holds the hand or that player's partner is the declarer.
- playwrighting — the writing of plays
- pleasant hill — a city in W California, near San Francisco Bay.
- pleasantville — a city in SE New Jersey.
- pleasure boat — recreational vessel
- pleasure dome — a large building, facility, or place used for recreation.
- pleasure trip — holiday, vacation
- plebification — the act of making popular or vulgar
- plectopterous — of or relating to the order Plectoptera, containing mayflies
- plenitudinous — characterized or marked by plenitude.
- plenum system — a type of air-conditioning system in which air is passed into a room at a pressure greater than atmospheric pressure
- plesiosaurian — a member of the reptile order Plesiosauria
- plethysmogram — the recording of a plethysmograph.
- pleurisy root — a North American milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa, whose root was used as a remedy for pleurisy.
- pleurocarpous — (of certain mosses) bearing the fructifications along the main stem or lateral branches.
- plimsoll line — load line (def 1).
- plimsoll mark — load-line mark.
- plique-a-jour — an enameling technique in which the colored enamels are fused into the spaces of a wire framework on a temporary backing; the backing is then removed, producing a translucent effect
- plough monday — the first Monday after Epiphany, which in N and E England used to be celebrated with a procession of ploughmen drawing a plough from house to house
- plug and play — (sometimes lowercase) a standard for the production of compatible computers, peripherals, and software that facilitates device installation and enables automatic configuration of the system.
- plug and pray — (humour) The Windows 95 equivalent of the Macintosh's plug and play, referring to difficulties encountered when setting up new hardware under Windows 95.
- plug-and-play — Plug-and-play is used to describe computer equipment, for example a printer, that is ready to use immediately when you connect it to a computer.
- plum curculio — See under curculio.
- plumbosolvent — able to dissolve lead
- plunging fire — artillery or other fire that strikes the ground at a steep angle, as from high ground overlooking the target or from a weapon fired at a high angle of elevation.
- plunket nurse — a child-care nurse appointed by the Plunket Society
- plural eulisp — EuLisp with parallel extensions. "Collections and Garbage Collection", S.C. Merall et al, in Memory Management - IWMM92, Springer 1992, pp.473-489.
- plural voting — right to vote more than once
- pluralization — to receive or take a plural form.
- pluripresence — presence in more than one place at the same time
- plus juncture — open juncture.
- plus or minus — You use plus or minus to give the amount by which a particular number may vary.
- plymouth rock — a rock at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on which the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower are said to have stepped ashore when they landed in America in 1620.