📖 P — The English dictionary · page 40

po — Everyday, meaning 1: (UK, old-fashioned, informal) A po is a chamber pot: a bowl kept under the bed to wee in at night in the days before indoor toilets.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (abbreviation) PO stands for Post Office, as in «PO Box», a box at the post office where letters can be collected; also «purchase order» in business and «petty officer» in the navy.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (a name) The Po is the longest river in Italy.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (Mandarin, pinyin) «pó» means grandmother on the mother's side in «pópo» (Cantonese and Mandarin speakers also say this), and «pō» means slope; it sounds like «paw».↗ Everyday, meaning 5: (a name) Po is a character's name, like the red Teletubby and the panda in «Kung Fu Panda».↗ Example: In Victorian times, people kept a po under the bed.↗ · Send your entry to PO Box 25.↗ · The River Po flows across northern Italy.↗ · Po is the panda in «Kung Fu Panda».↗ · Po was the smallest Teletubby.↗ · (UK, informal) The teacher looked po-faced when we laughed in assembly.↗ · The chamber pot was also called a po.↗ · The farmland around the Po is very flat and rich.↗

poacher — Everyday, meaning 1: A person who hunts or catches animals or fish illegally, often rare animals like elephants and rhinos.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A pan for poaching (gently cooking) eggs.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (sport) A player who scores by waiting near the goal.↗ Example: Poachers killed the rhino for its horn.↗ · Park rangers chase poachers away from the elephants.↗ · In the story, the poor man became a poacher to feed his children.↗ · An egg poacher cooks eggs in little cups over water.↗ · The striker is a goal poacher who always finds space.↗ · Dogs help sniff out poachers in Africa.↗

poaching — Everyday, meaning 1: Illegally hunting or catching animals, birds or fish, especially on someone else's land or protected animals like elephants and rhinos.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Cooking food, such as eggs or fish, gently in water or milk that is just below boiling.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Taking or tempting away someone else's workers, players or ideas: «poaching players».↗ Example: Poaching has made black rhinos very rare.↗ · Rangers patrol the park to stop poaching.↗ · Dad is poaching eggs for breakfast.↗ · Poaching fish in milk keeps it soft.↗ · The big club was accused of poaching young players.↗ · Poaching deer on the lord's land was once punished harshly.↗

pocket — Everyday, meaning 1: A pocket is a small bag sewn into clothes, where you keep small things.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A pocket is any small space or area: a pocket of air.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To pocket something is to put it in your pocket, or to keep it, sometimes unfairly.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: Pocket (adjective) means small enough for a pocket: a pocket torch.↗ Example: He has 5 coins in his pocket.↗ · She has 2 dollars in each pocket.↗ · His jacket has 4 pockets.↗ · How much money is in his pockets?↗ · I get 5 pounds of pocket money each week.↗ · A kangaroo carries her baby in a pocket called a pouch.↗ · Check your pockets before washing your jeans.↗ · He pocketed the change.↗ · The plane bumped through a pocket of air.↗ · He felt for it in his pocket.↗ · PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

pocketful — Everyday, meaning 1: As much as a pocket can hold.↗ Example: He had a pocketful of conkers.↗ · Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.↗ · She came home with a pocketful of shells.↗ · I found a pocketful of coins in my coat.↗ · Rat brought a pocketful of biscuits.↗ · The boy had a pocketful of marbles.↗ · When Donald was safe at home, he pulled out his pocketful of bright gold and began to weigh each piece in the scales.↗

pod — Everyday, meaning 1: A long case that holds the seeds of plants such as peas and beans.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A group of whales, dolphins or seals swimming together.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A small separate part or capsule, such as an escape pod or a coffee pod.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: In an old Russian log house, a pod is the raised space under the floor where someone could sleep.↗ Example: I opened the pod and found five peas.↗ · A pod of dolphins swam beside the boat.↗ · The seed pods burst open in the sun.↗ · The astronaut climbed into the escape pod.↗ · The twins are like two peas in a pod.↗ · Orcas hunt together in pods.↗ · Nothing was left of either of them except their bones, which rattled in the battered golden armour like dry peas in a pod.↗

podcast — Everyday, meaning 1: A podcast is a series of audio (sometimes video) shows on the internet that you can download or stream and listen to whenever you like.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: One episode of such a show is also called a podcast.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To podcast is to make and publish these shows.↗ Example: We listened to a science podcast in the car.↗ · Our class made a podcast about the Romans.↗ · The podcast comes out every Friday.↗ · My favourite podcast tells spooky stories for kids.↗ · She hosts a podcast about football.↗ · You can subscribe so new podcasts download automatically.↗ · Not everything said on a podcast is true, so check other sources.↗

podgy — Everyday, meaning 1: (informal, mainly UK) A little fat, short and soft-looking.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal) Soft and fleshy, of hands, fingers or a face.↗ Example: The baby grabbed my finger with her podgy hand.↗ · Our cat got podgy after the neighbours kept feeding her.↗ · He was a podgy boy with red cheeks and a big grin.↗ · The puppy's podgy tummy wobbled as it ran.↗ · Grandad patted his podgy belly after Christmas dinner.↗ · "Don't call him podgy, it's unkind," Mum said.↗ · The teddy had a podgy face and button eyes.↗

podium — Everyday, meaning 1: A podium is a small raised platform that a person stands on to speak, conduct an orchestra or receive a prize.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In sport, the podium is the three-step stand where the first, second and third winners stand; "to get on the podium" means to finish in the top three.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (US) A podium can also mean a lectern, the stand that holds a speaker's notes.↗ Example: The three winners stood on the podium to get their medals.↗ · She finished second and stood on the podium with a silver medal.↗ · Our team just missed the podium by coming fourth.↗ · The head teacher spoke from the podium in the hall.↗ · The conductor stepped onto the podium and raised his baton.↗ · The gold medal winner stands on the highest step of the podium.↗ · Making the podium at the swimming gala was her dream.↗

poem — Everyday, meaning 1: A poem is a piece of writing in lines, often with rhythm and sometimes rhyme, that expresses feelings or ideas in a special, beautiful way.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A poem can be funny, sad, short like a haiku or long like a ballad.↗ Example: We wrote a poem about the sea.↗ · She recited a poem in front of the whole school.↗ · A haiku is a short poem with three lines.↗ · This poem rhymes «cat» with «hat».↗ · The poet read her poems at the library.↗ · Learn the first verse of the poem by heart for Friday.↗ · His poem made everyone laugh.↗ · “I would make a poem,” Fionn cried.↗ · This particular phraseology is one of several hints that the SY may share a particular literary affiliation with the Sifre Emet, the poems of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

poesy — Everyday, meaning 1: (old use) Poesy means poetry, the art of writing poems.↗ Example: "Poesy!" cried the learned man.↗ · I have been in the antechamber at the court of Poesy.↗ · The old king loved poesy more than gold.↗

poet — Everyday, meaning 1: A person who writes poems.↗ Example: The poet wrote about the sea and the sky.↗ · Our class read a poem by a poet from Ireland.↗ · She wants to be a poet when she grows up.↗ · The poet read her poems aloud to the school.↗ · A good poet chooses every word carefully.↗ · «You're a poet and you didn't know it!» laughed Gran.↗ · Late in the evening the poet came home.↗

poetess — Everyday, meaning 1: (old use) A poetess is a woman who writes poems; today most people just say poet.↗ Example: When Hase-Hime was thirteen, she was already mentioned as a poetess of some merit.↗ · Our class read a book by a famous poetess.↗ · The poetess wrote a poem for the queen.↗

poetic — Everyday, meaning 1: To do with poetry or written in the form of poems.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Beautiful, expressive or imaginative, like a poem: a poetic description.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Poetic justice: when someone who has done wrong gets a fitting, almost funny punishment.↗ Example: Her description of the sea was very poetic.↗ · Alliteration is a poetic device.↗ · It was poetic justice when the bully slipped on his own banana skin.↗ · The poet used poetic licence and changed the word order.↗ · The song has poetic lyrics.↗ · Write a poetic sentence about the moon.↗ · "I should like to try what it is to have a poetic taste, and to become a poet myself.↗ · Midrash Tanchuma 1:5 on [Genesis 1:1], Zohar 1:3a inter alia.]↗ [note 8: Though the phrase is usually translated the ‘Thirty-Two Paths’, I find that the alliteration of ‘Wondrous Ways of Wisdom’ neatly approximates the SY’s choice of poetic vocabulary.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

poetical — Everyday, meaning 1: Of or about poetry, or written like a poem.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Full of feeling, imagination or beautiful language.↗ Example: Upon which he cried out with great earnestness, but not in the most poetical manner.↗ · The most important of these divinities may have been the creations of an active and poetical imagination.↗ · Her description of the sea was very poetical.↗

poetically — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: In a way that is like a poem, beautiful and full of imagery.↗ Example: Most literally, it means ‘waste(land)’, the lifeless open desert, a translation of [Genesis 1:2] so far captured in English only by Robert Alter’s The Hebrew Bible (2019), who poetically renders תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ tohu vavohu as “waste and welter”; cf.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

poetry — Everyday, meaning 1: Writing in which words are chosen for their sound, rhythm and pictures, often set out in short lines and sometimes rhyming.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Poems as a group, or the poems of one writer or country.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A quality of beauty and grace in something that is not writing: «the poetry of her dancing».↗ Example: We are studying poetry in English this week.↗ · Her poetry is full of the sea and the wind.↗ · Each pupil read a poem at the poetry assembly.↗ · The Psalms are some of the oldest poetry in the Bible.↗ · Not all poetry rhymes; some is free verse.↗ · Watching the gymnast was like poetry in motion.↗ · Grandma keeps a book of Irish poetry by her bed.↗ · He won a prize in the school poetry competition.↗ · Here is true poetry in nature.↗ · Depth [note 15: עוֹמֶק ʽomeq ‘depth’ here is based on the metaphor of עֲמֻקָּה ʽamuqqah ‘deepness’ as a symbol of divine mystery, as found in Biblical poetry, ex.↗ [Job 11:8], [Psalms 64:7], [Ecclesiastes 7:24].↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

pogrom — Everyday, meaning 1: A pogrom is a violent attack by a mob on a group of people because of their religion or people, in which homes and shops are destroyed and people are hurt or killed.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The word was first used for attacks on Jewish people in the Russian Empire, including in towns that are now in Ukraine, in the 1800s and early 1900s.↗ Example: A pogrom is an attack on people just because of their religion or background.↗ · Many Jewish families left the Russian Empire after pogroms destroyed their homes.↗ · Kristallnacht in 1938 was a pogrom against Jewish people in Germany.↗ · During the pogrom, shops were smashed and families were hurt.↗ · My great-grandparents moved to America to escape the pogroms.↗ · The museum taught us how hatred can grow into a pogrom.↗ · Remembering the pogroms helps people stand up against prejudice.↗

poinsettia — Everyday, meaning 1: A plant from Mexico with large bright red (or pink or white) leaves around small yellow flowers, popular at Christmas.↗ Example: We bought a poinsettia for the Christmas table.↗ · The red parts of a poinsettia are leaves, not petals.↗ · Poinsettias come from Mexico.↗ · The church was decorated with red poinsettias.↗ · Keep a poinsettia warm and away from draughts.↗ · In Mexico the poinsettia is called the Christmas Eve flower.↗

point — Everyday, meaning 1: A point is a score in a game.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A point is a very small dot, or an exact place: a point on a line, a meeting point.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: The point is the sharp end of something: the point of a pencil.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: The point is the main idea or reason: «What is the point?».↗ Everyday, meaning 5: To point is to show with your finger.↗ Everyday, meaning 6: A point in a number is a decimal point: 3.5 is «three point five».↗ Everyday, meaning 7: A point can also mean one detail or respect in which two things are alike.↗ Example: She scored 12 points.↗ · Each goal is worth 3 points.↗ · How many more points does Tom have?↗ · Write 3 point 5 as a number.↗ · Mark the point where the two lines cross.↗ · Water's boiling point is 100 degrees Celsius.↗ · It is rude to point at people.↗ · Sharpen your pencil to a fine point.↗ · That's a good point!↗ · The point of the game is to have fun.↗ · And Moses and Aaron took these men that are pointed out by name.↗ (Torah NUM.1.17, JPS 1917)↗ · And Esau said: 'Behold, I am at the point to die; and what profit shall the birthright do to me?'↗ (Torah GEN.25.32, JPS 1917)↗ · But Isaac Myer states that there are un- doubted traces of pointing in Hebrew MSS. of the second century.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗ · So Hushai David's friend came into the city; and Absalom was at the point of coming into Jerusalem.↗ (Prophets 2SA.15.37, JPS 1917)↗ · If one lay at him with the sword, it will not hold; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.↗ (Writings JOB.41.18, JPS 1917)↗ · I am afflicted and at the point of death from my youth up; I have borne Thy terrors, I am distracted.↗ (Writings PSA.88.16, JPS 1917)↗