19-letter words containing a, c, h, e, s
- prescription charge — a charge, set by the government, to be paid by a patient for medicines
- professional school — a postgraduate school or college which trains students for a particular profession
- programmer's switch — (hardware) A button on the front of some Apple Macintosh computers which, when pressed, causes a command line prompt to appear. This gives access to the built-in mini-debugger, which has commands to dump memory, return to the application that was broken out, and others. A more sophisticated debugger must be installed in order to inspect breakpoints, etc.
- pseudo-biographical — of or relating to a person's life: He's gathering biographical data for his book on Milton.
- pseudopsychological — of or relating to psychology.
- psychological novel — a novel that focuses on the complex mental and emotional lives of its characters and explores the various levels of mental activity.
- psychotechnological — of or relating to psychotechnology
- psychrometric chart — a chart for calculating values of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point from psychrometer readings.
- puerperal psychosis — a mental disorder sometimes occurring in women after childbirth, characterized by deep depression, delusions of the child's death, and homicidal feelings towards the child
- pugwash conferences — international peace conferences of scientists held regularly to discuss world problems: Nobel peace prize 1995 awarded to Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) , one of the founders of the conferences, secretary-general (1957–73), and president (1988–97)
- quick-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
- raise one's hackles — one of the long, slender feathers on the neck or saddle of certain birds, as the domestic rooster, much used in making artificial flies for anglers.
- rake over the coals — a black or dark-brown combustible mineral substance consisting of carbonized vegetable matter, used as a fuel. Compare anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite.
- rancho palos verdes — a town in SW California.
- rap on the knuckles — a mild reprimand or light sentence
- rayleigh scattering — the scattering of light by particles that are very small in relation to the wavelength of the light, and in which the intensity of the scattered light varies inversely with the fourth power of the wavelength.
- redress the balance — to make a fair adjustment; see that justice is done
- regular icosahedron — an icosahedron in which each of the faces is an equilateral triangle
- releasing mechanism — a hypothetical control complex in the central nervous system of animals that triggers the appropriate behavioral response to a releaser.
- research fellowship — the position or office of someone who conducts academic research into a subject at a university, etc
- research laboratory — place for scientific experimentation
- resorcinolphthalein — fluorescein.
- reverse charge call — callee pays fees
- reverse the charges — If you reverse the charges when you make a telephone call, the person who you are phoning pays the cost of the call and not you.
- rhetorical question — a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply, as “What is so rare as a day in June?”.
- rhodesian ridgeback — a large short-haired breed of dog characterized by a ridge of hair growing along the back in the opposite direction to the rest of the coat. It was originally a hunting dog from South Africa
- saccharofarinaceous — pertaining to or consisting of sugar and meal.
- sackcloth and ashes — a public display of extreme grief, remorse, or repentance
- salvage archaeology — the collection of archaeological data and materials from a site in danger of imminent destruction, as from new construction or flooding.
- samuel de champlain — Samuel de [sam-yoo-uh l duh;; French sa-my-el duh] /ˈsæm yu əl də;; French sa müˈɛl də/ (Show IPA), 1567–1635, French explorer in the Americas: founder of Quebec; first colonial governor 1633–35.
- sandwich generation — the generation of people still raising their children while having to care for their aging parents.
- scare the pants off — to scare extremely
- scattersite housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- school of the squad — an institution where instruction is given, especially to persons under college age: The children are at school.
- scratch the surface — examine superficially
- seleucia tracheotis — an ancient city in SE Asia Minor, on the River Calycadnus (modern Goksu Nehri): captured by the Turks in the 13th century; site of present-day Silifke (Turkey)
- sell like hot cakes — a pancake or griddlecake.
- semidetached binary — a pair of stars that are so close together that mass transfer occurs from one to the other
- seventh commandment — “Thou shalt not commit adultery”: seventh of the Ten Commandments.
- sharp-focus realism — photorealism.
- shopping facilities — shops or other retail services
- simple carbohydrate — a carbohydrate, as glucose, that consists of a single monosaccharide unit.
- sissinghurst castle — a restored Elizabethan mansion near Cranbrook in Kent: noted for the gardens laid out in the 1930s by Victoria Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
- sleepy hollow chair — an armchair of the mid-19th century, sometimes on rockers, having a single piece forming a high upholstered back and a concave upholstered seat.
- solid-state physics — the branch of physics that deals with the macroscopic physical properties of matter, especially solids; the study of the electromagnetic, structural, and thermodynamic properties of solids.
- son-of-a-bitch stew — (in the Old West) a stew often prepared by chuck-wagon cooks for working cowboys, containing tripe and often also the heart, liver, brains, kidney, etc., of a slaughtered steer.
- south pacific ocean — the part of the Pacific Ocean extending S from the Equator to the Antarctic continent.
- southern crab apple — a tree, Malus angustifolia, of the eastern U.S., having oblong leaves, fragrant, pink or rose-colored flowers, and small, round, yellow-green fruit.
- spanish west africa — a former overseas territory of Spain in NW Africa: divided in 1958 into the overseas provinces of Ifni and Spanish Sahara
- special partnership — limited partnership.