Orangutangents

Words That Sit in a Corner 7

I'll have a P please Bob! Good old Blockbusters, always good for a Beavis and Butthead moment when the P is called...

paludal - living or occurring in a marshy habitat

Pantagruelian - enormous ("my word, that boil on the end of your nose is positively pantagruelian", said by no-one ever...)

panurgic - able or ready to do anything 

parapente - an aerofoil parachute, used for gliding (as opposed to a tin foil parachute which is used for plummeting)

paraph - a flourish after a signature (or a paragraph with 'gra' missing)

patulous - of the boughs of a tree, for example, spreading (what's wrong with 'spreading'?)

pavonine - to do with or resembling a peacock 

pedicular - to do with lice

peely-wally - Scottish, looking pale and unwell

peever - Scottish, hopscotch

periapt - an item worn as a charm or amulet

petcock - a small valve in a steam engine or boiler, used for drainage or for reducing pressure (or a tame male chicken)

peterman - a person who breaks open and robs safes (occasionally called Peter one would assume)

pettitoes - pig's trotters, especially as food

piacular - making or requiring atonement

pilgarlic - a bald-headed man, or a person regarded with mild contempt (as a bald guy I regard this one with some suspicion)

pinguid - resembling fat; oily or greasy (or Pingu's ID badge)

piscatorial - connected with fishermen or fishing (flushing the dead goldfish)

pleurodynia - severe pain in the muscles between the ribs or in the diaphragm

plew - a beaver skin

pneumonoul­tramicrosc­opicsilico­volcanocon­iosis - an invented term said to mean ‘a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust’, but rarely used except for its curiosity value (it's a bit like banana, very easy to start spelling, but very difficult to stop...)

pogey - Canadian informal unemployment or welfare benefit

pollex - Anatomy the thumb

pooter - a suction bottle for collecting insects and other small invertebrates (I wonder if that's where pootling about comes from...)

portolan - a book containing sailing directions with hand-drawn charts and descriptions of harbours and coasts

posology - the branch of medicine concerned with the size and frequency of doses of a medicine or a drug 

possident - a possessor, i.e. a person who owns something

pother - a commotion or fuss (are we sure that 'p' at the front there hasn't got a hinge on the top and should actually be a 'b'?)

pre-loved - second-hand (why does this sound like pre-chewed to me?)

presenteeism - the compulsion to spend longer at work than is required or to continue working despite illness

previse - to foresee or predict an event

probang - a strip of flexible material with a sponge or tuft at the end, used to remove a foreign body from the throat or to apply medication to it (Mmm... that sounds like fun...)

prosopagnosia - an inability to recognize the faces of familiar people, typically as a result of brain damage

puddle jumper - a small, light aircraft which is fast and highly manoeuvrable and used for short trips (or a small child in wellies)

puddysticks - S. African children's word, very easy

pyknic - a technical description of a stocky physique with a rounded body and head, thickset trunk, and a tendency to fat (ye olde pyknic, bring yon sandwyches and pyckle)

pyroclastic - relating to fragments of rock erupted by a volcano