17-letter words containing a, e, o, n, s
- spread your wings — if you spread your wings, you do something new and rather difficult or move to a new place, because you feel more confident in your abilities than you used to and you want to gain wider experience
- spring cankerworm — the striped, green caterpillar of any of several geometrid moths: a foliage pest of various fruit and shade trees, as Paleacrita vernata (spring cankerworm) and Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm)
- squash vine borer — the larva of a clearwing moth, Melittia satyriniformis, that bores into the stems of squash and related plants.
- sri international — (company) One of the world's largest contract research firms. Founded in 1946 in conjuction with Stanford University as the Stanford Research Institute, they later became fully independent and were incorporated as a non-profit organisation under U.S. and California laws. SRI does research and development in many areas, independently and for hire. They produce and sell reports on the independent research. Address: Menlo Park, California, USA; Cambridge, UK.
- stage-door johnny — a man who often goes to a theater or waits at a stage door to court an actress.
- stand on ceremony — to insist on or act with excessive formality
- stand-up comedian — performer: tells jokes
- stannous chloride — a white, crystalline, water-soluble solid, SnCl 2 ⋅2H 2 O, used chiefly as a reducing and tinning agent, and as a mordant in dyeing with cochineal.
- stannous fluoride — a white, crystalline powder, SnF 2 , slightly soluble in water: used as a source of fluorine in the prevention of dental caries, especially as a toothpaste additive.
- stationary engine — an engine mounted in a fixed position, as one used for driving generators, compressors, etc.
- statutory meeting — company shareholders' discussion
- statutory offense — a wrong punishable under a statute, rather than at common law.
- stay of execution — If you are given a stay of execution, you are legally allowed to delay obeying an order of a court of law.
- steamboat springs — a town in NW Colorado: ski resort.
- steamship company — a company which has a fleet of steamships
- stellar evolution — the sequence of changes that occurs in a star as it ages
- stolen generation — Aboriginal children removed from their families and placed in institutions or fostered by White families between 1910 and 1970
- stonewall jackson — Andrew ("Old Hickory") 1767–1845, U.S. general: 7th president of the U.S. 1829–37.
- store and forward — to store (information) in a computer for later forward transmission through a telecommunication network
- storm in a teacup — a violent fuss or disturbance over a trivial matter
- strange attractor — Physics. a stable, nonperiodic state or behavior exhibited by some dynamic systems, especially turbulent ones, that can be represented as a nonrepeating pattern in the system's phase space.
- strawberry blonde — woman: with reddish fair hair
- stress relaxation — Stress relaxation is a gradual reduction in stress with time at constant strain.
- subclavian groove — either of two grooves in the first rib, one for the main artery (subclavian artery) and the other for the main vein (subclavian vein) of the arm
- subordinated debt — a debt that an unsecured creditor can only claim, in the event of a liquidation, after the claims of secured creditors have been paid
- subscription rate — the price charged for a subscription
- sudetes mountains — mountain range along the borders of N Czech Republic & SW Poland: highest peak, 5,259 ft (1,603 m)
- sufficient reason — the principle that nothing happens by pure chance, but that an explanation must always be available
- sunbury-on-thames — a town in SE England, in N Surrey. Pop: 27 415 (2001)
- sunday observance — the fact of keeping Sunday as a special day when people go to church
- super-nationalism — an extreme or fanatical loyalty or devotion to a nation.
- superaerodynamics — the branch of aerodynamics that deals with gases at very low densities.
- superalimentation — nourishment; nutrition.
- supercolumniation — the placing of one order of columns above another.
- supernova remnant — an expanding shell of gas, with accompanying strong radio and x-ray emissions, produced by a supernova.
- superregeneration — regeneration in which a signal is alternately amplified and quenched at a frequency slightly above the audible range to achieve high sensitivity with a single tube.
- support mechanism — any formal system or method of providing support or assistance
- supreme commander — the military officer commanding all allied forces in a theater of war.
- surface condenser — a device condensing steam or vapor by passing it over a cool surface.
- surrender to bail — to present oneself at court at the appointed time after having been on bail
- sustentation fund — a fund, esp in the Church of Scotland, to augment the support of ministers
- swaddling clothes — cloth for wrapping around a baby
- sweet mock orange — the syringa, Philadelphus coronarius.
- sword and sorcery — a genre of literature and film, usually set in days of old with magic as well as sword fighting
- sydenham's chorea — a form of chorea affecting children, often associated with rheumatic fever
- symbolic language — a specialized language dependent upon the use of symbols for communication and created for the purpose of achieving greater exactitude, as in symbolic logic or mathematics.
- synovial membrane — anatomy: connective tissue
- take into custody — to arrest
- take no prisoners — to be uncompromising and resolute in one's actions
- take second place — If one thing takes second place to another, it is considered to be less important and is given less attention than the other thing.