One-Letter Words A Dictionary 8
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P
P
P IN PRINT AND PROVERB
1. (phrase) William Oxberry (1784–1824) was called
“the Five P’s” because he was a publisher, printer,
poet, publican, and player.
2. (in literature) “After she left, I mused for a few sec -
onds on what is called in the medical profession the
‘p’ phenomenon: the tendency of starched nurses’
uniforms to make it seem as if all nurses were boun
-
tifully blessed in the bosom and this shaped like the
letter ‘p.’ ”
—Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
3. (in literature)
“I handed him two alphabet blocks
and part of a half- eaten soda cracker. The howl
-
ing ceased at once. He put the cracker in his mouth
and banged the letter P against the plastic padding
under him.”
—Sue Grafton, P Is for Peril
4. (in literature)
As a gentle letter of the alphabet:
“He remembers, as a child, poring over the word
rape in newspaper reports, trying to puzzle out
what exactly it meant, wondering what the letter
p, usually so gentle, was doing in the middle of a
word held in such horror that no one would utter it
aloud.” —J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
5. (in literature) As an antisocial letter of the alphabet:
“However, the letter P is much less friendly [than O
and X]. It tends to lurk around just a few letters, and
avoids 15 of them.” —Simon Singh, The Code Book:
The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quan
-
tum Cryptography
6. (in literature) As the character of the bear in A.A.
Milne’s Winnie- the- Pooh stories:
“ ‘It’s a Missage,’
he said to himself, ‘that’s what it is. And that letter
is a “P,” and so is that, and so is that, and “P” means
P
137
“Pooh,” so it’s a very important Missage to me, and
I can’t read it.’ ” —The Complete Tales & Poems of
Winnie- the- Pooh
7. (in literature) “P is a porter with a load on his back.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in ABZ by Mel Gooding
8. (in fi lm) Alphabet Pam is a short 2004 film by Eva
Saks about a little girl who has a passion for the
letter P.
The film was created for the Sesame Street
television program.
9. n. Behavior, as in the phrase “mind your p’s and q’s.”
McQuade was too near his d t’s to be mindful of his
p’s and q’s. —O. Henry, The Fifth Wheel
10. n. A written representation of the letter.
There, cut in half, was a symbol—barely noticeable
because of the faded ink. But with the light from
Eugene’s desk lamp behind it, it stood out clear as
day—the letter P with a lightning bolt running
through it. —Marshall Younger, Mysteries in Odys
-
sey #1: Case of the Mysterious Message
Half- way up the hill on a prominent lump of grey
stone the size of a hayrick had been painted with
a large, lop- sided letter P in scarlet paint, so that
it was visible to any ship anchored in the lagoon.
—Wilbur A. Smith, Blue Horizon
11. n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproduc-
ing the letter.
12. n. Blind P: the editorial symbol for a paragraph, i.e.,
¶
.
MISCELLANEOUS
13. n. Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
P
138
The sound vibration of the consonant P means
“heart, centre, sunset.” —Joseph E. Rael, Tracks of
Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to
Understanding Your Name
14. n.
The sixteenth letter of the alphabet.
The letter P, that broad, provocative expanse
between O and Q, is one of the most ambivalent of
all the twenty- six, for in it one finds pleasure and
pain, peace and pandemonium, prosperity and pov
-
erty. —James Thurber, “The Watchers of the Night”
Another fortunate terminologist hit upon the word
“psychical”—the p might be sounded or not, accord-
ing to the taste and fancy of the pronouncer—and
the fashionable children of a scientific age were
thoroughly at ease. —George Gissing, The Private
Papers of Henry Ryecroft
15. n.
The sixteenth in a series.
16. n. Something having the shape of a P.
Someone from the back would lean forward and say,
“You guys, I need a rest stop.” So then the driver
would flash her lights and signal the other cars, and
the entertainer would wave out the window and
form her fingers into the shape of a P and every
-
body would get off at the next exit. —Samantha
Bennett, Post- Gazette
Thread the nylon through the left (inactive) ring,
pulling the cord through with your left hand. Let
the resulting loop hang freely. Notice that it drops
naturally into the letter P. —New Skete Monks, The
Art of Raising a Puppy
17. n.
A Roman numeral for 400.
18. n. Something arbitrarily designated P (e.g., a per-
son, place, or other thing).
P
139
19. n. The sixteenth section in a piece of music.
20. n. A message- processing language.
P is a simple configuration language designed for
specification of message processing instructions
at application proxies. P can be used to instruct an
intermediary how to manipulate the application
message being proxied. —Alex Rousskov, “P: Mes
-
sage Processing Language.”
21. n.
P trap: a plumbing fixture with a P- shaped curl
installed below a sink and acting as a water door
to trap sewer gases.
“Was it clogged?” “I dropped something down it,” she
answered, digging around the P trap with her fi n-
ger. —Karin Slaughter, Blindsighted
SCIENTIFIC MATTERS
22. n. A vitamin found in citrus and rose hips.
Vitamin P was first discovered in 1936 by Hungar-
ian scientist Dr. Albert Szent- Gyorgyi, who found
it within the white of the rind in citrus fruits
. . . .
The letter P, for permeability factor, was given
to this group of nutrients because they improve
the capillary linings’ permeability and integrity—
that is, the passage of oxygen, carbon dioxide,
and nutrients through the capillary walls.
—Elson M. Haas, MD, Staying Healthy with Nutri-
tion: The Complete Guide to Diet and Nutritional
Medicine
23. n. (chemistry)
The symbol for the element phos-
phorous in the periodic table.
24. n. (logic) A symbol used to represent an arbitrary
proposition.
P
140
P, q, and r were used as propositional letters by
Bertrand Russell in 1903 in The Principles of Math
-
ematics. —Jeff Miller, “Earliest Uses of Various
Mathematical Symbols”
P
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