16-letter words containing a, b, s, e
- steamboat gothic — a florid architectural style suggesting the gingerbread-decorated construction of river boats of the Victorian period.
- sth rings a bell — If you say that something rings a bell, you mean that it reminds you of something, but you cannot remember exactly what it is.
- strawberry blite — a plant, Chenopodium capitatum, having dense, rounded clusters of minute reddish flowers.
- strawberry blond — reddish blond.
- strawberry guava — a shrub or small tree, Psidium littorale, of the myrtle family, native to Brazil, having smooth, grayish-brown bark, leathery leaves, white flowers, and edible, white-fleshed, purplish-red fruit.
- strawberry shrub — Carolina allspice
- stretcher bearer — a person who helps to carry a stretcher, esp in wartime
- stretcher-bearer — a person who helps carry a stretcher, as in removing wounded from a battlefield.
- strike a balance — compromise
- strike a bargain — an advantageous purchase, especially one acquired at less than the usual cost: The sale offered bargains galore.
- subjectification — to make subjective.
- subliminal image — an image used in advertising, etc, that is too quick to be registered by the mind but is used to influence the viewer unconsciously
- submarine chaser — a small patrol vessel, 100–200 feet (30–60 meters) long, designed for military operations against submarines.
- subsistence wage — the lowest wage upon which a worker and his or her family can survive
- substance abuser — a person who takes an excessive amount of drugs in a manner that is detrimental to health
- substantive rank — a permanent rank in the armed services obtained by length of service, selection, etc
- sulfocarbanilide — thiocarbanilide.
- superserviceable — overly disposed to be of service; officious.
- swedenborgianism — of or relating to Emanuel Swedenborg, his religious doctrines, or the body of followers adhering to these doctrines and constituting the Church of the New Jerusalem, or New Church.
- sysdeco mimer ab — (company) Part of the international software group Sysdeco Group AS. They developed the MIMER RDBMS. Address: Uppsala, Sweden.
- tablets of stone — Stone is used in expressions such as set in stone and tablets of stone to suggest that an idea or rule is firm and fixed, and cannot be changed.
- take a back seat — a seat at the rear.
- take by surprise — to strike or occur to with a sudden feeling of wonder or astonishment, as through unexpectedness: Her beauty surprised me.
- take the biscuit — Take the biscuit means the same as take the cake.
- tell one's beads — a small, usually round object of glass, wood, stone, or the like with a hole through it, often strung with others of its kind in necklaces, rosaries, etc.
- tertiary bursary — a noncompetitive award granted to all pupils who have passed a university entrance examination
- that's as may be — even so
- the amazon basin — the catchment area of the River Amazon
- the barren lands — a region of tundra in N Canada, extending westwards from Hudson Bay: sparsely inhabited, chiefly by Inuit
- the beaver state — a name for the state of Oregon
- the best part of — most of
- the black forest — a hilly wooded region of SW Germany, in Baden-Württemberg: a popular resort area
- the easter bunny — the rabbit that brings Easter eggs
- the eastern bloc — (formerly) the Soviet bloc
- the great gatsby — a novel (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
- the red brigades — a group of urban guerrillas, based in Italy, who kidnapped and murdered the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro (1916–78) in 1978
- the subsidiariat — a collective term for the news sources that would not survive without being subsidized directly (by a government, etc), or indirectly (through sharing a parent company with another more profitable revenue source)
- the unobservable — something that cannot be observed
- the war-disabled — those people who have been disabled by war
- the wheel blacks — the international wheelchair rugby football team of New Zealand
- thumbnail sketch — small preliminary drawing
- tibetan buddhism — the form of Mahayana Buddhism that developed and is practiced primarily in Tibet and some nearby nations: its spiritual leader is the Dalai Lama
- to get bad press — If someone or something gets bad press, they are criticized, especially in the newspapers, on television, or on radio. If they get good press, they are praised.
- to mean business — If you say that someone means business, you mean they are serious and determined about what they are doing.
- to miss the boat — If you say that someone has missed the boat, you mean that they have missed an opportunity and may not get another.
- to pass the buck — If you pass the buck, you refuse to accept responsibility for something, and say that someone else is responsible.
- transport number — that fraction of the total electric current that anions and cations carry in passing through an electrolytic solution.
- transubstantiate — to change from one substance into another; transmute.
- tread the boards — to set down the foot or feet in walking; step; walk.
- tungsten carbide — a very hard, black or gray compound of tungsten and carbon, used in the manufacture of cutting and abrasion tools, dies, and wear-resistant machine parts.