| painstaking | extremely careful; taking pains |
| palliate | to relieve or alleviate something without getting rid of the problem; to assuage; to mitigate |
| palpable | capable of being touched; obvious; tangible |
| paltry | insignificant; worthless |
| panacea | something that cures everything |
| paradigm | a model or example |
| paradox | a true statement or phenomenon that nonetheless seems to contradict itself; an untrue statement of or phenomenon that nonetheless seems logical |
| parochial | narrow or confined in point of view; provincial |
| parody | a satirical imitation |
| parsimonious | stingy |
| pervade | to spread throughout |
| petulant | rude; cranky; ill-tempered |
| philanthropy | love of mankind, especially by doing good deeds |
| philistine | a smugly ignorant person with no appreciation of intellectual or artistic matters |
| pious | reverent or devout; outwardly (and sometimes falsely) reverent or devout; hypocritical |
| pivotal | crucial |
| placate | to pacify; to appease; to soothe |
| plaintive | expressing sadness or sorrow |
| platitude | a dull or trite remark; a cliche |
| plebeian | common; vulgar; low class; bourgeois |
| plethora | an excess |
| poignant | emotional; exremely moving; sharp or astute |
| polarize | to break up into opposing factions or groupings |
| polemic | a powerful argument often made to attack or refute a controversial issue |
| ponderous | so large as to be clumsy; massive; dull |
| portent | an omen; a sign of something coming in the future |
| postulate | something accepted as true without proof; an axiom |
| pragmatic | practical; down to earth; based on experience rather than theory |
| precedent | an earlier example or model of something |
| precept | a rule to live by; a principle establishing a certain kind of action or behavior; a maxim |
| precipitate | to cause to happen abruptly |
| precipitous | steep |
| preclude | to prevent something from ever happening |
| precursor | forerunner; something that goes before and anticipates or paves the way for whatever it is that follows |
| predilection | a natural preference for something |
| preeminent | better than anyone else; outstanding; supreme |
| preempt | to seize something by prior right |
| premise | an assumption; the basis for a conclusion |
| prepossess | to preoccupy; to influence beforehand or prejudice; to make a good impression on beforehand |
| prerogative | a right or privilege connected exclusively with a position, a person, a class, a nation, or some othe rgroup or classification |
| prevail | to triumph; to overcome rivals; (with on, upon, or with) to persuade |
| pristine | original; unspoiled; pure |
| prodigal | wastefully extravagant |
| prodigious | extraordinary; enormous |
| prodigy | an extremely talented child; an extraordinary accomplishment or occurrence |
| profane | not having to do with religion; irreverent; blasphemous |
| profess | to declare; to declare falsely or pretend |
| proficient | throughly competent; skillful; very good (at something) |
| profligate | extravagantly wasteful and, usually, wildly immoral |
| profound | deep (in several senses) |
| profuse | flowing; extravagant |
| proletariat | the industrial working class |
| proliferate | to spread or grow rapidly |
| prolific | abundantly productive; fruitful or fertile |
| promulgate | to proclaim; to publicly or formally declare something |
| propensity | a natural inclination or tendency; a predilection |
| propitious | marked by favorable signs or conditions |
| proponent | an advocate; a supporter of a position |
| proprietary | characteristic of an owner of property; constituting property |
| propriety | properness; good manners |
| prosaic | dull; unimaginative; like prose (as opposed to poetry) |
| proscribe | to outlaw; to prohibit |
| proselytize | to convert (someone) from one religion or doctrine ot another; to recruit converts to a religion or doctrine |
| protagonist | the leading character in a noverl, play, or other work; a leader or champion |
| protract | to prolong |
| provident | preparing for the future; providing for the future; frugal |
| provincial | limited in outlook to one's own small corner of the world; narrow |
| provisional | conditional; temporary; tentative |
| proximity | nearness |
| prudent | careful; having foresight |
| purported | rumored; claimed |
| putative | commonly accepted; supposed; reputed |