platitudinize
- v utter platitudes
The candidate platitudinized and bored the audience
persuade
- v win approval or support for
- v cause somebody to adopt a certain position, belief, or course of action; twist somebody's arm
You can't persuade me to buy this ugly vase!
pertain
- v be relevant to
My remark pertained to your earlier comments - v be a part or attribute of
perturb
- v disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed
She was rather perturbed by the news that her father was seriously ill - v disturb or interfere with the usual path of an electron or atom
The electrons were perturbed by the passing ion - v cause a celestial body to deviate from a theoretically regular orbital motion, especially as a result of interposed or extraordinary gravitational pull
The orbits of these stars were perturbed by the passings of a comet - v throw into great confusion or disorder
Fundamental Islamicists threaten to perturb the social order in Algeria and Egypt
peruse
- v examine or consider with attention and in detail
Please peruse this report at your leisure
pervaporate
- v evaporate through a semipermeable membrane
- v cause (a liquid) to evaporate through a semipermeable membrane
peter out
- v end weakly
- v use up all one's strength and energy and stop working
petrify
- v cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned
- v change into stone
- v make rigid and set into a conventional pattern
slogans petrify our thinking