| P |
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noun - The sixteenth letter of the Appendix:Roman script, English alphabet, preceded by O and followed by Q.
abbreviation - Park
- Phone
- Pager
- Passenger
| | | parataxis |
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noun
- (grammar) Speech or writing in which clauses or phrases are placed together without being separated by conjunctions, for example "I came; I saw; I conquered".
- (politics) In Greek political system: coalition, "partisan camp"
| | parenthesis |
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noun (parenthes, es)
- A clause, phrase or word inserted (usually for explanation or amplification) into a passage which is already grammatically complete, and usually marked off with brackets, commas or dashes.
- (Rhetoric) A digression; the use of such digressions.
- Either of a pair of brackets, especially round brackets, ( and ), used to enclose parenthetical material in a text.
- (context, Mathematics, Logic) Such brackets as used to clarify expressions by grouping those terms affected by a common operator, or to enclose the components of a vector or the elements of a matrix.
| | | participial |
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noun - (grammar) a participle
adjective - (grammar) of, relating to, or being a participle
| | participle |
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noun
- (context, grammar) A form of a verb that may function as an adjective or noun. When combined with a form of auxiliary verbs, such as have or be, they form certain tenses or moods of the verb.
- The past of "to love" is "loved".
- The present of "to go" is "going".
| | partitive |
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noun
- (grammar) a partitive word, phrase or case
adjective
- that divides something into parts
- (grammar) indicating a part rather than the whole of something; e.g. some
| | part of speech |
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noun
- (grammar) The function a word or phrase performs in a sentence or phrase.
| | past |
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noun
- The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
- (grammar) The past tense.
adjective
- Having already happened; in the past; finished.
- past glories
- Relating to the past.
- past tense
- (of a period of time) the one before this one
- during the past year
adverb
- in a direction that passes
- I watched him walk past
| | past perfect |
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noun
- A tense which represents actions that occured before other actions in the past; the pluperfect tense
| | perfective |
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noun - (grammar) a perfective verb form
adjective - (grammar) of, or relative to the perfect tense or perfective aspect.
| | period |
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noun
- (context, now mostly, North America) Punctuation mark ending a sentence or marking an abbreviation. <!-- What languages does this apply to? All? Or just most? Should it be
adjective
- appropriate, Appropriate for a given historical era.
- 2004, Mark Singer, Somewhere in America, Houghton Mifflin, page 70
- :As the guests arrived — there were about a hundred, a majority in attire — I began to feel out of place in my beige summer suit, white shirt, and red necktie. Then I got over it. I certainly didn't suffer from Confederate-uniform envy.
| | periphrastic |
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adjective
- expressed in more word, words than are necessary
- 1916 Martin Brown Ruudhttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/16416/16416-8.txt :
- :As poetry it does not measure up to Aasen; as translation it is , arbitrary, not at all faithful.
- (grammar) characterized by periphrase or circumlocution.
- : "The daughter of the man" may be used as a synonym for "the man's daughter"
- indirect in naming an entity; circumlocutory
- 1870 Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in Vril: The Power of the Coming Racehttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bulwer/1871/coming-race.htm :
- :In writing, they deem it irreverent to express the Supreme Being ... and in conversation they generally use a epithet, such as the All-Good.
| | person |
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noun (plural: persons, people (by suppletion))
- Human being; individual.
- Specific human being.
- Where is the ?
- The physical body of a specified individual.
- Meanwhile, the dazed Sullivan, dressed like a bum with no identification on his , is arrested and put to work on a brutal Southern chain gang. " New York Times, 2004
- Any individual or formal organization with standing before the courts.
- By common law a corporation or a trust is legally a .
- (grammar) A linguistic category used to distinguish between the speaker of an utterance and those to whom or about whom he is speaking. See grammatical person.
| | personal pronoun |
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noun
- A pronoun which, in English, refers to one or a combination of the following:
- The person or people speaking. (first person)
- The person or people spoken to. (second person)
- Another person or group of people. (third person)
- Any pronoun, with an antecedent, standing in as the subject or object of a verb.
| | phrasal |
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adjective - Referring to, or used in the manner of, a phrase.
| | plural |
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noun
- (grammar): a word in the form in which it potentially refers to something other than one person or thing; and other than two things if the language has a dual form.
adjective
- More than one of something.
| | positive |
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noun
- A thing capable of being affirmed; something real or actual.
- A favourable point or characteristic.
- Something having a value in physics, such as an electric charge.
- (grammar) An adjective or adverb in the degree.
- (context, photography) A image; one that displays true colors and shades, as opposed to a negative.
adjective
- Definitively laid down; explicitly stated; clearly expressed, precise, emphatic.
- Bacon:
- : Positive words, that he would not bear arms against King Edward"s son.
- Fully assured, confident; certain.
- I"m absolutely you've spelt that wrong.
- Overconfident, dogmatic.
- Pope:
- : Some , persisting fops we know, That, if once wrong, will needs be always so.
- (grammar) Describing the primary sense of an adjective or adverb; not comparative or superlative.
- "Better" is an irregular comparative of the form "good".
- Derived from an object by itself; not dependent on changing circumstances or relations; absolute.
- The idea of beauty is not , but depends on the different tastes of individuals.
- Wholly what is expressed; colloquially downright, entire, outright.
- Good lord, you've built up a arsenal of weaponry here.
- Characterised by the existence or presence of qualities or features, rather than by their absence.
- The box was not empty " I felt some substance within it.
- Characterised by the presence of features which support a hypothesis.
- The results of our experiment are .
- Characterised by affirmation, constructiveness, or influence for the better; favourable.
- He has a outlook on life.
- The first-night reviews were largely .
- Swift:
- : a voice in legislation.
- (context, chiefly, philosophy) actual, Actual, real, concrete.
- Bacon:
- : Positive good.
- (photography) Of a visual image, true to the original in light, shade and colour values.
- A photograph can be developed from a photographic negative.
- (physics) Having more protons than electrons.
- A cation is a positive ion as it has more protons than electrons.
- (slang) HIV positive.
| | poss. |
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abbreviation
- possessive (form)
| | postpositive |
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noun
- A postpositive modifier.
adjective
- (of an adjective or other modifier) Placed after the word modified, either immediately after, as in two men abreast, or as part of a complement, as in those two men are bad.
| | potential |
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noun (wikipedia, potential, Potential (physics))
- Anything that may be possible; a possibility; potentially.
- (physics) In the theory of gravitation, or of other forces acting in space, a function of the rectangular coordinates which determine the position of a point, such that its differential coefficients with respect to the coordinates are equal to the components of the force at the point considered; -- also called potential function, or force function. It is called also Newtonian potential when the force is directed to a fixed center and is inversely as the square of the distance from the center.
- (physics) The energy of an electrical charge measured by its power to do work; hence, the degree of electrification as referred to some standard, as that of the earth; electro-motive force.
- (grammar) A verbal construction or form stating something is possible or probable.
adjective
- Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result; efficacious; influential.
- Existing in possibility, not in actuality.
- (grammar) Referring to a verbal construction of form stating something is possible or probable.
| | | p.p. |
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abbreviation - (grammar): past participle
| | predicate |
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noun
- (grammar) The part of the sentence (or clause) which states something about the subject.
- In "The dog barked very loudly", the subject is "the dog" and the is "barked very loudly".
- (logic) A statement that may be true or false depending on the values of its variables.
- (computing) An operator or function that returns either true or false.
verb (predicat, ing)
- (transitive) To announce or assert publically.
- (context, transitive, logic) To state, assert.
- (transitive) To suppose, assume; to infer.
- 1859: There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. " Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
- 1881: Of anyone else it would have been said that she must be finding the afternoon rather dreary in the quaint halls not of her forefathers: but of Miss Power it was unsafe to so surely. " Thomas Hardy, A Laodicean
- (context, transitive, originally, US) To base (on); to assert on the grounds of.
- 1978: the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. " Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin 1998, p. 81)
| | prefix |
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noun (prefixes)
- That which is prefixed; especially one or more letters or syllables added to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning; as, pre- in prefix, con- in conjure.
verb (prefix, es)
- (transitive) put or fix before, or at the beginning of, another thing; as, to prefix a syllable to a word, or a condition to an agreement.
- (transitive) set or appoint beforehand; settle or establish antecedently. Obs.
- Prefixed bounds. --Locke.
- And now he hath to her prefixt a day. --Spenser.
| | prepositional phrase |
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noun
- (grammar) a phrase that has both a preposition and its object or complement; may be used as an adjunct or a modifier.
For example:
- The man in the story walked along the beach.
| | prepositive |
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noun
- A prepositive word.
adjective
- Put before; prefixed; as, a prepositive particle.
| | present perfect |
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noun
- (grammar) A tense that expresses action completed at the present time; in English it is formed by using the present tense of have with a past participle
- Example: I have finished this definition.
| | preterit |
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noun
- (alternative form of, preterite)
| | privative |
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noun - Something that causes privation or indicates an absence.
adjective - Causing privation.
- In grammar indicating the absence of something.
| | proclitic |
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noun
- (linguistics) A clitic which joins with the following word. In English, the dialectal form t' is an example.
| | Progressive |
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proper noun
- A member or supporter of a Progressive Party
| | pronominal |
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adjective
- Of, pertaining to, resembling, or functioning as of a pronoun.
| | pronoun |
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noun
- (grammar) A type of noun that refers anaphora, anaphorically to another noun or noun phrase, but which cannot ordinarily be preceded by a determiner and rarely takes an attributive adjective. English examples include I, you, him, who, my, each other.
| | protasis |
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noun (protas, es)
- the first part of a play, in which the setting and characters are introduced
- 1922: It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, , epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe. " James Joyce, Ulysses
- the antecedent in a conditional sentence
- example: In, "I will be coming if this weather holds up", "this weather holds up" is the
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