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14-letter words containing a, n, c, e, s, t

  • sclerotization — the state of being sclerotized.
  • scotch furnace — ore hearth.
  • scrap merchant — dealer in discarded materials
  • scratch monkey — (humour)   As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
  • screen capture — Also called screen capture. a copy or image of what is seen on a computer screen at a given time: Save the screenshot as a graphics file.
  • screen trading — a form of trading on a market or exchange in which the visual display unit of a computer replaces personal contact as in floor trading
  • scsi interface — SCSI adaptor
  • seaman recruit — a noncommissioned enlisted person of the lowest rank. Abbreviation: SR.
  • search warrant — a court order authorizing the examination of a dwelling or other private premises by police officials, as for stolen goods.
  • secret partner — a partner whose name as a member of a firm is not revealed to the public.
  • sectionization — the act or state of being sectionized
  • secularization — to make secular; separate from religious or spiritual connection or influences; make worldly or unspiritual; imbue with secularism.
  • secure tenancy — the letting of a dwelling by a nonprivate landlord, usually a local council or housing association, under an agreement that allows security of tenure, subletting, improvements made to the property by the tenant without consequent rent increase, and the right to buy the dwelling at a discount after three years' occupancy
  • securitization — the use of such securities as eurobonds to enable investors to lend directly to borrowers with a minimum of risk but without using banks as intermediaries
  • segmental arch — a shallow arch not including a complete semicircle
  • self-actuating — to incite or move to action; impel; motivate: actuated by selfish motives.
  • self-contained — containing in oneself or itself all that is necessary; independent.
  • semantic field — an area of human experience or perception, as color, that is delimited and subcategorized by a set of interrelated vocabulary items in a language.
  • semi-nocturnal — active at night (opposed to diurnal): nocturnal animals.
  • semicentennial — of or relating to a fiftieth anniversary.
  • serbo-croatian — a Slavic language spoken in Serbia and Croatia, usually written with Cyrillic letters in Serbia but with Roman letters in Croatia.
  • sericitization — the process of transforming into sericite
  • serodiscordant — pertaining to a relationship with one HIV-positive partner and one HIV-negative partner.
  • servant church — the attitude or practices of a church whose avowed purpose is to serve the world.
  • shadow cabinet — (in the British Parliament) a group of prominent members of the opposition who are expected to hold positions in the cabinet when their party assumes power.
  • shower curtain — waterproof sheet around a shower
  • sick and tired — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
  • silent auction — an auction at which previously submitted written bids of prospective buyers are opened and compared, with each item being sold to the highest bidder.
  • sistine chapel — the chapel of the pope in the Vatican at Rome, built for Pope Sixtus IV and decorated with frescoes by Michelangelo and others.
  • slalom descent — a winding descent
  • slantendicular — slanting (rather than perpendicular or horizontal)
  • smoking jacket — a loose-fitting jacket for men, often of a heavy fabric and trimmed with braid, worn indoors, especially as a lounging jacket.
  • social network — a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts: Strong social networks can encourage healthy behaviors.
  • somali current — a current of the Indian Ocean, flowing northward along the coast of Somalia in summer and southwestward the rest of the year.
  • south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
  • southern ocean — that part of the Indian Ocean south of Australia
  • specbase_int92 — A variant of SPECint92 that reports "baseline" results, using stricter run rules.
  • specialisation — the act of specializing, or pursuing a particular line of study or work: Medical students with high student loans often feel driven into specialization.
  • specialization — the act of specializing, or pursuing a particular line of study or work: Medical students with high student loans often feel driven into specialization.
  • specimen plant — a plant grown by itself for ornamental effect, rather than being massed with others in a bed or border.
  • specrate_int92 — (benchmark)   The integer SPECrate derived from the results of a set of integer benchmarks (the geometric mean of six SPEC rates from CINT92) run multiple times simultaneously, and can be used to estimate a machine's overall multi-tasking throughput for integer code. It is typically used on multiprocessor machines. SPECrate_int92 obsoletes SPECintThruput89. See also SPECbaserate.
  • speed merchant — a person who habitually drives too fast in a motor vehicle
  • spinthariscope — an instrument that detects ionizing radiation by picking up sparks of light from alpha particles.
  • spironolactone — a steroid, C 2 4 H 3 2 O 4 S, used in combination with other drugs as a diuretic and antihypertensive.
  • st. catharines — a city in SE Ontario, in SE Canada.
  • stand a chance — (of a person) to be in an upright position on the feet.
  • stand the pace — to keep up with the speed or rate of others
  • standard score — the test score of a participant expressed as the deviation of the score from the mean score of the sample in units of standard deviation.
  • stanley dancer — Stanley, 1927–2005, U.S. harness racer and trainer.
  • starting price — gambling odds
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