English Words: P

4,417 words · Page 30 of 89

pesonoun

A former unit of currency in Spain and Spain's colonies, worth 8 reales; the Spanish dollar.

pessimismnoun

A general belief that bad things will happen.

pessimistnoun

Someone who habitually expects the worst outcome; one who looks on the dark side of things.

pessimisticadj

Marked by pessimism and little hopefulness; expecting the worst.

Pessoaname

A surname from Portuguese.

pestnoun

A pestilence, i.e. a deadly epidemic, a deadly plague.

pesterverb

To bother, harass, or annoy persistently.

pesteringnoun

An act or instance of annoying somebody.

pesticidenoun

Anything, especially a synthetic substance but also any substance (e.g. sulfur), or virus, bacterium, or other organism, which kills or suppresses the activities of pests.

pestilencenoun

Any epidemic disease that is highly contagious, infectious, virulent and devastating.

pestisnoun

Plague.

pestlenoun

A club-shaped, round-headed stick used in a mortar to pound, crush, rub or grind things.

pestonoun

A sauce, especially for pasta, originating from the Genoa region in Italy, made from basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and cheese (usually pecorino).

petnoun

An animal kept as a companion or otherwise for pleasure, rather than for some practical benefit or use.

petalnoun

One of the component parts of the corolla of a flower. It applies particularly, but not necessarily only, when the corolla consists of separate parts, that is when the petals are not connately fused. Petals are often brightly colored.

Petalumaname

A city in Sonoma County, California, United States.

petarnoun

Obsolete form of petard.

petardnoun

A small, hat-shaped explosive device, used to breach a door or wall.

Petename

A diminutive of the male given name Peter.

Peternoun

radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter P.

Peterboroughname

A cathedral city, unitary authority, and borough of Cambridgeshire, England.

petermannoun

A safecracker.

Petersburgname

An independent city in Virginia, United States.

Petersenname

A surname from Danish.

petershamnoun

A rough, knotted woollen cloth, used chiefly for men's overcoats.

Petersonname

A patrilineal surname transferred from the given name.

Peteyname

A diminutive of the male given name Peter.

petiolenoun

The stalk of a leaf, attaching the blade to the stem.

petitadj

Petite: small, little.

petiteadj

Fairly short and of slim build.

petitionnoun

A formal written request made by an individual or a group of people to a sovereign or political authority, often containing many signatures, soliciting some grace, right, mercy, or the redress of some wrong or grievance.

petitionernoun

Someone who presents a petition to a court.

petitioningnoun

The act of making a petition or appeal.

Petoname

A surname.

Petoskeyname

A city and coastal resort, the county seat of Emmet County, Michigan, United States.

Petrname

Alternative form of Pyotr.

petranoun

stone, a weight equal to 14 pounds.

Petrarchname

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), Italian scholar and poet.

Petrename

A surname transferred from the given name.

petrelnoun

Any of various species of black, grey, or white seabirds in the order Procellariiformes.

Petrenkoname

A surname from Ukrainian.

petrinoun

Ellipsis of petri dish.

Petriename

A surname transferred from the given name.

petrifiedadj

Having undergone the process of petrification (transformation into a stony substance); turned to stone.

petrochemicalnoun

Any chemical derived from petroleum.

Petrogradname

Former name of Saint Petersburg, from 1914 (when Russia entered World War I) to 1924 (when Lenin died), a major city in Russia.

petrolnoun

A fluid consisting of a mixture of refined petroleum hydrocarbons, primarily consisting of octane, commonly used as a motor fuel.

petroleumnoun

A flammable liquid ranging in color from clear to very dark brown and black, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring naturally in deposits under the Earth's surface.

petrologynoun

The study of the origin, composition and structure of rock.

Petroniusname

A male given name from Latin, of historical usage, notably borne by a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero and the patron saint of Bologna

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English alphabetical index for the letter P contains 4,417 headwords drawn from our Wiktionary-derived dictionary table. At 50 entries per page the browse splits into 89 pages, and you are currently viewing page 30. Every row above is a dictionary-backed entry with a canonical slug, and each links through to a full definition page with pronunciation, senses, etymology, and related-word data where available.

On this page 50 of 50 entries carry a part-of-speech tag and 50 carry at least one stored definition. Coverage varies across letters because Wiktionary volunteers build entries at different speeds for different parts of the alphabet, letters with common starting sounds (S, C, T, P) usually have the densest coverage, while less frequent starters (X, Q, Z) tend to have shorter but more specialised lists. PlainSpell surfaces whatever data is present and links back to the source when a definition is not yet recorded.

For readers using this index as a spelling reference, the guarantee is that every form you see on the list is a documented English headword, not a guess, not a derived inflection lacking a lemma row. If a word you expected to find is absent from the "P" list, it usually means the form exists only as an inflection of another lemma (e.g. a past participle stored under the infinitive) or the entry has not yet been imported from Wiktionary. Use the search bar or the misspelling lookup to resolve these cases.