📖 P — The English dictionary · page 17

pelage — Everyday, meaning 1: (science, formal) The fur, hair or wool covering a mammal's body.↗ Example: The Arctic fox changes its pelage with the seasons.↗ · A seal's thick pelage keeps it warm in icy water.↗ · The scientist described the colour of the bat's pelage.↗ · Polar bears have a dense pelage over black skin.↗ · The pelage of a stoat turns white in winter, and it is then called ermine.↗ · The new species has a reddish pelage.↗

pelican — Everyday, meaning 1: A pelican is a large water bird with a very long beak and a big stretchy pouch of skin under it, which it uses to scoop up fish.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (UK) A pelican crossing is a road crossing with traffic lights that people control by pressing a button.↗ Example: The pelican scooped up a fish in its pouch.↗ · Pelicans fly in long lines just above the waves.↗ · A pelican's beak can hold more than its stomach.↗ · We saw pelicans on the jetty at the beach.↗ · Press the button at the pelican crossing and wait for the green man.↗ · The Australian pelican has the longest beak of any bird.↗ · Brown pelicans dive into the sea from high up.↗ · The pelican shook the water out of its pouch.↗ · Storks and pelicans flew after him in feathery bands, to accompany him to the boundaries of the garden.↗ · and the pelican, and the carrion-vulture, and the cormorant; (Torah DEU.14.17, JPS 1917)↗ · and the horned owl, and the pelican, and the carrion-vulture; (Torah LEV.11.18, JPS 1917)↗ · I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as an owl of the waste places.↗ (Writings PSA.102.7, JPS 1917)↗ · But the pelican and the bittern shall possess it, and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein; and He shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness.↗ (Prophets ISA.34.11, JPS 1917)↗

pellet — Everyday, meaning 1: A small hard ball or piece of something, such as food for animals, ice or metal.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: An owl pellet is a small lump of fur and bones that an owl brings up after eating.↗ Example: We found mouse bones in the owl pellet.↗ · Give the rabbit a handful of pellets.↗ · Ice pellets bounced on the car roof.↗ · The fish ate the tiny pellets.↗ · Owls swallow small animals whole.↗ · Some stoves burn wood pellets.↗

pelt — Everyday, meaning 1: noun.↗ e.g. The skin of an animal with the fur or hair still on it.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: verb: To throw many things at someone or something quickly.↗ e.g. "pelt with snowballs".↗ Everyday, meaning 3: verb: (of rain or hail) To fall very hard.↗ e.g. "It's pelting down."↗ Everyday, meaning 4: verb: (informal) To run very fast.↗ e.g. "He pelted down the road."↗ Everyday, meaning 5: (at full pelt) As fast as possible.↗ Example: They pelted each other with snowballs.↗ · It was pelting down with rain all day.↗ · Fur traders sold beaver pelts.↗ · He pelted down the hill at full pelt.↗ · The crowd pelted the stage with flowers.↗ · Hail pelted against the windows.↗ · The fox had a thick red pelt.↗ · The giant came full pelt, but past the rock he could not go.↗

pelvic — Everyday, meaning 1: Of or near the pelvis, the bowl-shaped group of bones at the bottom of your body that joins your spine to your legs.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (pelvic fin) One of a pair of fins on the underside of a fish.↗ Example: The pelvic bones hold up the top half of your body.↗ · Your thigh bone fits into a socket in the pelvic bone.↗ · The fish has small pelvic fins underneath.↗ · X-rays showed a pelvic injury after the fall.↗ · The skeleton's pelvic bones look like a butterfly.↗ · Some snakes still have tiny pelvic bones from their ancestors.↗

pelvis — Everyday, meaning 1: The pelvis is the large ring of bones at the bottom of your spine that joins your legs to your body; your hips are part of it.↗ Example: The pelvis connects the spine to the legs.↗ · Your hip bones are part of your pelvis.↗ · She broke her pelvis in a fall.↗ · The femur fits into the pelvis at the hip joint.↗ · We labelled the pelvis on the skeleton diagram.↗ · The pelvis protects organs like the bladder.↗

pen — Everyday, meaning 1: A pen is a tool for writing or drawing with ink.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A pen is also a small fenced place for animals, like a sheep pen or pig pen.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To pen is to write: «she penned a letter».↗ Everyday, meaning 4: To pen in animals is to shut them in a pen.↗ Example: She has 8 pens.↗ · Each pen costs 2 dollars.↗ · The pigs are in a pen.↗ · The pen has 4 sheep in it.↗ · Please write your name in blue pen.↗ · My pen ran out of ink.↗ · The farmer built a pen for the lambs.↗ · I have a pen pal in New Zealand.↗ · She penned a short poem.↗ · The tongue is, as it were, the descriptive pen of all the spiritual issues, and the genital parts are the originators of the corporeal substances.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗ · Lo, certainly in vain hath wrought the vain pen of the scribes.↗ (Prophets JER.8.8, JPS 1917)↗ · That with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!↗ (Writings JOB.19.24, JPS 1917)↗ · My heart overfloweth with a goodly matter; I say: 'My work is concerning a king'; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.↗ (Writings PSA.45.2, JPS 1917)↗

penalise — Everyday, meaning 1: To penalise someone is to punish them for breaking a rule or law, for example with a penalty, a fine or lost points.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To penalise can also mean to put someone at an unfair disadvantage.↗ Example: The referee penalised the team for a high tackle.↗ · You will be penalised if you hand in your project late.↗ · Drivers are penalised for speeding.↗ · The judges penalised the dancer for stepping off the stage.↗ · (formal) The new rule penalises families who live far from school.↗ · In the quiz, wrong answers are penalised with minus one point.↗ · He was penalised two points for poor spelling.↗

penalty — Everyday, meaning 1: A penalty is a punishment for breaking a rule or a law, such as paying money (a fine).↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In sports like football (soccer), rugby or hockey, a penalty is a free chance given to one team because the other team broke a rule; in football it is a shot at goal from a spot near the goal.↗ Example: The referee gave our team a penalty.↗ · She scored the penalty and we won 2–1.↗ · The match ended in a penalty shoot-out.↗ · There is a penalty for returning library books late.↗ · Dropping litter can bring a penalty of fifty dollars.↗ · In hockey a player who trips someone goes to the penalty box.↗ · The penalty for cheating on the test was a zero.↗ · And if he failed, his head would pay the penalty.↗

penance — Everyday, meaning 1: (church) Penance is something a person does to show they are sorry for a sin, such as saying prayers or doing a good deed, especially after confession in the Catholic Church.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (church) Penance is also the name of the sacrament of confession (also called reconciliation).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Something unpleasant you have to put up with, as if as a punishment: «Waiting in the queue was a penance».↗ Example: After confession the priest gave her a penance of three prayers.↗ · He cleaned the kitchen as a penance for breaking the cup.↗ · In the Middle Ages, some people walked to holy places to do penance.↗ · Catholics also call confession the sacrament of penance.↗ · Listening to my brother's music was a real penance.↗ · Lent is a time of prayer and penance for many Christians.↗ · She did penance by giving her pocket money to charity.↗ · Psyche had to undergo a long and severe penance before she became worthy to regain the happiness, which she had so foolishly trifled away.↗

pencil — Everyday, meaning 1: A pencil is a thin stick of wood with grey graphite (called «lead») or colour inside, for writing and drawing.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A coloured pencil is a pencil for drawing in colours.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To pencil something in is to write it down for now, maybe to change later.↗ Example: Lily had 9 pencils and lost 5.↗ · Anna has 18 pencils and shares them equally among 2 friends.↗ · A box has 10 pencils.↗ · Sharpen your pencil before the test.↗ · Write your answers in pencil, so you can rub them out.↗ · I keep my pencils in a pencil case.↗ · She drew a horse with coloured pencils.↗ · Don't run with a sharp pencil.↗ · The pencil would not go quite as it ought,--he had found that out; but the next day he tried again.↗

pendant — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: An ornament that hangs down, like a jewel on a chain or an earring.↗ Example: the pendants, and the bracelets, and the veils; (Prophets ISA.3.19, JPS 1917)↗ · girded with girdles upon their loins, with pendant turbans upon their heads, all of them captains to look upon, the likeness of the sons of Babylon, even of Chaldea, the land of their nativity.↗ (Prophets EZK.23.15, JPS 1917)↗

pendent — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: Hanging down, or depending on something else.↗ Example: § 12 The five vowels stand each one by itself, but the twenty- seven consonants are all de- pendent on tlie vowels.↗ (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

pending — Everyday, meaning 1: Pending means waiting to be decided, done or finished.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (formal) As a preposition, pending means until something happens: «pending further notice».↗ Example: My order is still pending.↗ · The match is postponed pending a pitch inspection.↗ · Your application is pending.↗ · The decision is pending until Monday.↗ · The download shows «pending».↗ · (formal) The library is closed pending repairs.↗ · The payment is pending, so it hasn't arrived yet.↗ · We have three pending tasks on the list.↗ · "Your honor," he said, "the case has now been pending for six weeks.↗

pendulum — Everyday, meaning 1: A pendulum is a weight hanging from a fixed point on a string or rod, which swings backwards and forwards.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The swinging part of some old clocks, like a grandfather clock, which keeps the clock on time.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: The idea of something changing from one extreme to the other and back again, like the «pendulum of opinion».↗ Example: The pendulum of the grandfather clock swung slowly.↗ · We timed ten swings of the pendulum and divided by ten.↗ · A longer pendulum swings more slowly.↗ · Changing the weight did not change the pendulum's time much.↗ · Galileo noticed a lamp swinging like a pendulum in a church.↗ · The hypnotist swung a watch like a pendulum.↗ · The pendulum of fashion has swung back to wide trousers.↗ · A playground swing is a kind of pendulum.↗ · The pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and the hands turned, and everything in the room became still older; but they did not observe it.↗

penetrate — Everyday, meaning 1: To penetrate something is to go into it or through it, often with effort: the nail penetrated the wood.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To penetrate a group or market is to get into it successfully.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (formal) To penetrate an idea or mystery is to understand it.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: To penetrate can also mean to reach deep inside someone's feelings, so that they are touched.↗ Example: Sunlight cannot penetrate the deep ocean.↗ · The roots penetrated deep into the soil.↗ · The cold penetrated through his thin coat.↗ · X-rays penetrate skin but not bone.↗ · The torch could not penetrate the thick fog.↗ · Rain penetrated the old roof.↗ · These pitying words penetrated to Inge's inmost heart, and seemed to do her good.↗

penguin — Everyday, meaning 1: A black-and-white sea bird that cannot fly, swims very well using its wings as flippers, and lives mostly in the cold far south.↗ Example: Penguins cannot fly, but they are great swimmers.↗ · Emperor penguins huddle together to keep warm.↗ · The penguin waddled across the ice.↗ · Penguins live in the south, not at the North Pole with polar bears.↗ · Little penguins come ashore at night in Australia and New Zealand.↗ · A penguin's black back and white front help it hide in the sea.↗ · Penguins eat fish, squid and krill.↗ · The father penguin keeps the egg warm on his feet.↗

penicillin — Everyday, meaning 1: A medicine made from a mould that kills many bacteria; it is an antibiotic used to treat infections.↗ Example: The doctor gave me penicillin for my sore throat.↗ · Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by accident.↗ · Penicillin is made from a mould.↗ · My mum is allergic to penicillin.↗ · Penicillin kills bacteria but not viruses.↗ · Finish the whole course of penicillin.↗

peninsula — Everyday, meaning 1: A peninsula is a piece of land that is almost surrounded by water but joined to a larger piece of land on one side.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Famous peninsulas include Florida, Italy, Cape York in Australia and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal).↗ Example: Florida is a peninsula in the south-east of the USA.↗ · Italy is a peninsula shaped like a boot.↗ · We drove to the end of the peninsula to see the lighthouse.↗ · A peninsula has water on three sides.↗ · The Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand has lovely beaches.↗ · On the map, colour the peninsula green.↗ · In particular, the majority of the Drolls or comic tales and jingles can be traced, without much difficulty, back to the Indian peninsula.↗