20-letter words containing a, e, r, o, c, u
- pseudoparenchymatous — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
- pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
- quadrantal corrector — either of two soft-iron spheres attached to each side of a binnacle, intended to correct the compass deviation (quadrantal deviation) resulting from magnetism from ferrous metal in a ship.
- quarantine anchorage — an anchorage for ships awaiting a pratique.
- quasi-stellar object — quasar. Abbreviation: QSO.
- rachel louise carson — Christopher ("Kit") 1809–68, U.S. frontiersman and scout.
- receivables turnover — A receivables turnover is a measure of cash flow that is calculated by dividing net credit sales by average accounts receivable.
- reciprocal insurance — insurance in which members of a reciprocal exchange, acting through an attorney-in-fact, insure themselves and each other.
- reconcile an account — If you reconcile an account, you compare the items in a bank statement, credit card statement, or vendor statement with the entries on your books and make sure that the statement and books match.
- red badge of courage — a novel (1895) by Stephen Crane.
- reductio ad absurdum — a reduction to an absurdity; the refutation of a proposition by demonstrating the inevitably absurd conclusion to which it would logically lead.
- relative conjunction — a conjunction that introduces a relative clause
- republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
- rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
- santa cruz operation — (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. SCO maintains its world headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, USA; a European headquarters in Watford, England; a Government Systems Group in Reston, Virginia; and offices in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, and throughout Europe and the United States. In February 1993, SCO acquired IXI Limited of Cambridge, England, the leading supplier of Unix System windowing software.
- scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
- scream bloody murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
- secure accommodation — an institution where young offenders are kept in custody
- secure sockets layer — (networking, security) (SSL) A protocol designed by Netscape Communications Corporation to provide secure communications over the Internet using asymmetric key encryption. SSL is layered beneath application protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, Telnet, FTP, Gopher and NNTP and is layered above the connection protocol TCP/IP. It is used by the HTTPS access method.
- security association — (networking) The relationship between two or more entities (typically, a computer, but could be a user on a computer, or software component) which describes how the entities will use security services, such as encryption, to communicate. See RFC 1825.
- semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
- serious fraud office — a UK government office responsible for investigating and prosecuting serious fraud cases
- skull and crossbones — a representation of a front view of a human skull above two crossed bones, originally used on pirates' flags and now used as a warning sign, as in designating substances as poisons.
- social security card — a card that contains details of a person's social security number
- sodium fluoroacetate — a white, amorphous, water-soluble, poisonous powder, C 2 H 2 FO 2 Na, used as a rodenticide.
- south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
- southern oscillation — a low-latitude fluctuation of atmospheric pressure closely linked with El Niño events, specifically the periods of El Niño warming and La Niña cooling.
- special patrol group — a former police unit tasked with counter terrorism in the Royal Ulster Constabulary
- spontaneous recovery — the reappearance of a response after its extinction has been followed by a period of rest
- square cross-section — If a kelly has a square cross-section, it has a surface area with four equal sides, when looked at as if has been sliced through.
- states of the church — Papal States
- strong nuclear force — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
- structural isomerism — Chemistry. the relation of two or more compounds, radicals, or ions that are composed of the same kinds and numbers of atoms but differ from each other in structural arrangement (structural isomerism) as CH 3 OCH 3 and CH 3 CH 2 OH, or in the arrangement of their atoms in space and therefore in one or more properties. Compare optical isomerism, stereoisomerism.
- supersonic transport — a commercial jet airplane that can fly faster than the speed of sound. Abbreviation: SST.
- surveillance society — a society where surveillance technology is widely used to monitor people's everyday activities
- systemic circulation — the circulatory system in general.
- the course of nature — the ordinary course of events
- the internet account — An Internet provider in Sydney, Australia who provides SLIP, PPP and CLI accounts for the same rates. <[email protected]> handles Acorn software. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Telephone: +61 (2) 968 4333. Fax: +61 (2) 968 4334. Address: PO BOX 473, Crows Nest, NSE 2065, Australia.
- the luck of the draw — If you say that something is the luck of the draw, you mean that it is the result of chance and you cannot do anything about it.
- therapeutic abortion — abortion performed when a woman's pregnancy endangers her health.
- thermal conductivity — the amount of heat per unit time per unit area that can be conducted through a plate of unit thickness of a given material, the faces of the plate differing by one unit of temperature.
- thomas of erceldoune — Thomas of, Thomas of Erceldoune.
- thought transference — transference of thought by extrasensory means from the mind of one individual to another; telepathy.
- to catch your breath — If something makes you catch your breath, it makes you take a short breath of air, usually because it shocks you.
- to clean up your act — If someone who has been behaving badly cleans up their act, they start to behave in a more acceptable or responsible way.
- to clear your throat — If you clear your throat, you cough once in order to make it easier to speak or to attract people's attention.
- to disturb the peace — If someone is accused of disturbing the peace, they are accused of behaving in a noisy and offensive way in public.
- to get your own back — If you get your own back on someone, you have your revenge on them because of something bad that they have done to you.
- to keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example, when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.