📖 P — The English dictionary · page 4

pall — Everyday, meaning 1: (old use) A pall is a dark cloth or covering spread over something.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A pall is a dark feeling of gloom or sadness that spreads over things.↗ Example: The robins had collected a pall of leaves.↗ · A pall of smoke hung over the town.↗ · A sad pall fell over the house.↗

palladium — Everyday, meaning 1: A thing that is believed to keep a city or people safe from harm.↗ Example: The temple held the sacred Palladium of Troy.↗ · People believed the city was safe while the Palladium stood.↗ · Our old tree was a palladium for the village.↗

pallbearer — Everyday, meaning 1: One of the people who carry the coffin at a funeral.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A person who walks beside the coffin at a funeral as an honour.↗ Example: Six pallbearers carried the coffin into the church.↗ · Grandad's grandsons were his pallbearers.↗ · Being a pallbearer is an honour.↗ · The pallbearers walked slowly and carefully.↗ · At the soldier's funeral, the pallbearers wore uniforms.↗ · She asked her brothers to be pallbearers for their mum.↗

pallet — Everyday, meaning 1: A flat wooden or plastic platform on which goods are stacked so that a forklift truck can lift and move them.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A simple straw bed or thin mattress on the floor (old use, in stories).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A flat wooden tool used by potters (less common).↗ Example: The forklift lifted a pallet of bricks.↗ · The lorry was full of pallets of tinned beans.↗ · We built a bug hotel from an old pallet.↗ · The prisoner slept on a pallet of straw.↗ · Each pallet holds 40 boxes.↗ · Mind your fingers near the wooden pallets.↗

palliative — Everyday, meaning 1: (medicine) Palliative care is care that keeps a very ill person comfortable and free from pain when their illness cannot be cured.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (formal) Palliative means making a problem feel less bad for now without fixing its cause.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (noun, formal) A palliative is something that eases pain or a problem for a while.↗ Example: Grandad is now in palliative care at the hospice.↗ · The palliative care nurses made sure Nan was not in pain.↗ · Palliative care helps people stay comfortable and calm.↗ · The family could visit every day during his palliative care.↗ · (formal) Painting over the crack was only a palliative measure.↗ · (formal) Extra homework club is a palliative, not a cure, for the reading problem.↗ · A palliative doctor talks gently with the patient and the family.↗

pallor — Everyday, meaning 1: Unhealthy paleness of the face or skin, from illness, fear, shock or tiredness.↗ Example: His pallor showed he had not slept.↗ · The patient's pallor worried the doctor.↗ · A deathly pallor spread across her face when she saw the ghost.↗ · After the long winter, his pallor was gone.↗ · The vampire in the book had a strange pallor.↗ · Her pallor faded as she drank some sweet tea.↗

palm — Everyday, meaning 1: The palm is the inside of your hand, between your wrist and your fingers.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A palm, or palm tree, is a tall tree with no branches and a bunch of big leaves at the top; it grows in warm places.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To palm something is to hide it in your hand, as a magician does with a coin.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: To palm something off is to get rid of something unwanted by giving it to someone else.↗ Example: She held the baby bird in the palm of her hand.↗ · My palms get sweaty before a test.↗ · Coconuts grow on palm trees.↗ · We sat in the shade of a palm on the beach in Queensland.↗ · The magician palmed the coin and it seemed to vanish.↗ · He tried to palm off his old bike on his little brother.↗ · Wash the palms and the backs of your hands with soap.↗ · I know this park like the palm of my hand.↗ · "I flew beneath green palm-trees, and amidst the blooming almond-trees," sang the canary.↗ · And the priest shall pour of the oil into the palm of his own left hand.↗ (Torah LEV.14.26, JPS 1917)↗ · and the South, and the Plain, even the valley of Jericho the city of palm-trees, as far as Zoar.↗ (Torah DEU.34.3, JPS 1917)↗ · And the priest shall take of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand.↗ (Torah LEV.14.15, JPS 1917)↗ · The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.↗ (Writings PSA.92.13, JPS 1917)↗ · This thy stature is like to a palm-tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.↗ (Writings SNG.7.8, JPS 1917)↗ · then was the palm of the hand sent from before Him, and this writing was inscribed.↗ (Writings DAN.5.24, JPS 1917)↗

palpable — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: Able to be touched or felt, and so easy to see or notice.↗ Example: He endeavors to show how the ideal became, after numerous emanations, more condensed, palpable and concrete.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗

palpitation — Everyday, meaning 1: A feeling that your heart is beating very fast, very hard or unevenly.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal, joking) "Palpitations" can mean strong nervous excitement or shock.↗ e.g. "You nearly gave me palpitations!"↗ Example: Too much coffee gave Mum palpitations.↗ · She felt palpitations before going on stage.↗ · The doctor checked his heart because of the palpitations.↗ · "Don't jump out at me!↗ You'll give me palpitations!" said Gran.↗ · Palpitations after running usually settle when you rest.↗ · The scary film gave me palpitations.↗

paltry — Everyday, meaning 1: Paltry means very small, too little to be worth much: a paltry sum of money.↗ Example: The king offered a paltry reward for the lost cow.↗ · He gave her a paltry handful of coins.↗ · It was a paltry risk, not worth worrying about.↗

pamper — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: To treat someone too kindly and give them too much comfort or care.↗

pan — Everyday, meaning 1: A pan is a metal pot for cooking food, often with a long handle, like a frying pan or saucepan.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A pan is also one of the two dishes of a balance scale.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A baking pan or tin holds cakes in the oven.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: To pan for gold is to wash river sand in a pan to find gold.↗ Everyday, meaning 5: To pan a film is to say it is very bad.↗ Example: Each pan holds 12 cookies.↗ · She bakes 3 pans of muffins.↗ · Put 2 weights on the left pan.↗ · How many pans are needed for 50 rolls?↗ · Dad fried the eggs in a pan.↗ · Careful, the pan is very hot!↗ · Miners panned for gold in the river.↗ · Grease the cake pan before you pour in the mix.↗ · Out of the frying-pan into the fire.↗ · one golden pan of ten shekels, full of incense; (Torah NUM.7.14, JPS 1917)↗ · And if thy offering be a meal-offering of the stewing-pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.↗ (Torah LEV.2.7, JPS 1917)↗ · And Eleazar the priest took the brazen fire-pans, which they that were burnt had offered; and they beat them out for a covering of the altar, (Torah NUM.16.39, JPS 1917)↗ · and the snuffers, and the basins, and the pans, and the fire-pans, of pure gold.↗ (Writings 2CH.4.22, JPS 1917)↗ · And she took the pan, and poured them out before him; but he refused to eat.↗ (Prophets 2SA.13.9, JPS 1917)↗ · and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took therewith.↗ (Prophets 1SA.2.14, JPS 1917)↗

panama — Everyday, meaning 1: (a name) Panama is a country in Central America that joins North and South America; its capital is Panama City.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (a name) The Panama Canal is a famous canal across Panama that lets ships sail between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without going all the way around South America.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A panama (or Panama hat) is a light summer hat woven from straw-like leaves; it is actually made in Ecuador.↗ Example: Panama joins North America to South America.↗ · Ships use the Panama Canal to cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific.↗ · Locks lift the ships up and down in the Panama Canal.↗ · The canal saves ships a very long trip around South America.↗ · Grandad wore his panama hat at the cricket.↗ · Panama hats are really made in Ecuador.↗ · Panama City is the capital of Panama.↗ · Many workers died of malaria while building the Panama Canal.↗

panamanian — Everyday, meaning 1: Panamanian means coming from or belonging to Panama, a country in Central America that joins North and South America.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A Panamanian is a person from Panama.↗ Example: The Panamanian flag is red, white and blue with two stars.↗ · Many Panamanian people speak Spanish.↗ · A Panamanian boy joined our class this term.↗ · Panamanian workers run the locks on the canal.↗ · We tasted a Panamanian soup called sancocho.↗ · Panama City is the Panamanian capital.↗ · The ship sailed past the Panamanian coast.↗

pancake — Everyday, meaning 1: A pancake is a thin, flat, round cake made from a batter of flour, eggs and milk, cooked in a frying pan.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: "Flat as a pancake" means very flat.↗ Example: We had pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast.↗ · Dad flipped the pancake in the air.↗ · On Pancake Day we eat pancakes with lemon and sugar.↗ · Mix flour, eggs and milk to make pancake batter.↗ · The land here is flat as a pancake.↗ · I ran in a pancake race.↗ · Then good food was set before them, milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts.↗

pancreas — Everyday, meaning 1: The pancreas is an organ in the belly, behind the stomach, that makes digestive juices and the hormone insulin, which controls the amount of sugar in the blood.↗ Example: The pancreas sits behind the stomach.↗ · The pancreas makes insulin to control blood sugar.↗ · My friend has type 1 diabetes because her pancreas doesn't make insulin.↗ · Juices from the pancreas help digest fat.↗ · The pancreas is about as long as a banana.↗ · In science we labelled the pancreas on a body diagram.↗

panda — Everyday, meaning 1: A panda (giant panda) is a large black-and-white bear from the mountain forests of China that eats almost only bamboo.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A red panda is a smaller, reddish-brown, furry animal with a long ringed tail; it also eats bamboo but is not a close relative of the giant panda.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (UK, old-fashioned) A «panda car» was a small police car.↗ Example: The panda munched bamboo for most of the day.↗ · Giant pandas live in the mountains of China.↗ · A baby panda is tiny and pink when it is born.↗ · The red panda curled its bushy tail around itself to keep warm.↗ · Our class adopted a panda through a wildlife charity.↗ · Pandas have a special wrist bone that helps them hold bamboo.↗ · There were huge crowds at the zoo to see the new panda cub.↗ · The panda is the symbol of a famous nature charity.↗

pandemic — Everyday, meaning 1: A pandemic is an outbreak of an infectious disease that spreads across many countries or the whole world and makes very many people ill.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: As an adjective, pandemic means spreading everywhere.↗ Example: The COVID-19 pandemic closed schools around the world.↗ · During the pandemic we learnt at home.↗ · The Black Death was a terrible pandemic.↗ · Washing hands helps slow down a pandemic.↗ · Scientists made vaccines during the pandemic.↗ · A pandemic spreads to many countries.↗ · Grandma remembers the pandemic lockdowns.↗

pandemonium — Everyday, meaning 1: Pandemonium is a wild noise and confusion, when everyone shouts and runs about.↗ Example: When the bell rang, pandemonium broke out in the playground.↗ · The goblins made such pandemonium that the baker hid under the table.↗ · The news caused pandemonium in the town.↗

pane — Everyday, meaning 1: One sheet of glass in a window or door.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (computers) A separate part of a window on a screen.↗ Example: The ball smashed a pane in the greenhouse.↗ · Rain ran down the window pane.↗ · Our window has 6 panes in 2 rows of 3.↗ · Dad replaced the broken pane of glass.↗ · Frost made patterns on the pane.↗ · Click the left pane to see your files.↗ · The mountain-dweller saw them through the panes of his little window.↗

panel — Everyday, meaning 1: A flat piece of wood, glass, metal or other material that is part of a door, wall or other surface.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A board with switches, buttons or controls on it.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A small group of people chosen to give their opinion, answer questions or judge something.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: One picture box in a comic strip.↗ Example: Solar panels on the roof make electricity from sunlight.↗ · The door has four wooden panels.↗ · The pilot checked the control panel.↗ · A panel of judges chose the best poem.↗ · The wind blew down a fence panel.↗ · Draw your comic in six panels.↗ · The car had a dent in its side panel.↗ · A panel of experts answered our questions about space.↗ · She got up after midnight, passed through the panel, and found a Beautiful brown bear’s hide hanging in the corner.↗ · The beams of our houses are cedars, and our panels are cypresses.↗ (Writings SNG.1.17, JPS 1917)↗

panelling — Everyday, meaning 1: Panelling is wood or other material fixed in flat boards to cover the walls of a room.↗ Example: The hall had walls of dark oak panelling.↗ · She ran her hand over the gold panelling.↗ · The painting hung against the panelling in the gallery.↗

pang — Everyday, meaning 1: A sudden sharp pain or feeling.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A sudden strong feeling, like a pang of guilt or a pang of hunger.↗ Example: She felt a pang of guilt.↗ · Hunger pangs woke him up.↗ · Mole felt a pang when he smelled his old home.↗ · A pang of envy hit her when she saw the bike.↗ · He felt a pang of sadness at leaving.↗ · The pangs of hunger made him grumpy.↗ · And at this thought the pangs of hunger made him feel quite sick with fear.↗ · The peoples have heard, they tremble; pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia.↗ (Torah EXO.15.14, JPS 1917)↗ · Trembling took hold of them there, pangs, as of a woman in travail.↗ (Writings PSA.48.7, JPS 1917)↗ · For there are no pangs at their death, and their body is sound.↗ (Writings PSA.73.4, JPS 1917)↗ · Shall not pangs take hold of thee, as of a woman in travail?↗ (Prophets JER.13.21, JPS 1917)↗