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14-letter words containing a, r, c, h, e, s

  • scotch furnace — ore hearth.
  • scrap merchant — dealer in discarded materials
  • scrape through — only just succeed
  • 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.
  • scratchbuilder — a person who scratchbuilds
  • screen sharing — audiographic teleconferencing
  • search warrant — a court order authorizing the examination of a dwelling or other private premises by police officials, as for stolen goods.
  • second chamber — the parliament of the Netherlands, consisting of an upper chamber (First Chamber) and a lower chamber (Second Chamber)
  • segmental arch — a shallow arch not including a complete semicircle
  • self-searching — examining carefully or thoroughly: a searching inspection.
  • semi-spherical — shaped like half a sphere; hemispheric.
  • servant church — the attitude or practices of a church whose avowed purpose is to serve the world.
  • service charge — a fee charged for a service, sometimes in addition to a basic charge.
  • servomechanism — an electronic control system in which a hydraulic, pneumatic, or other type of controlling mechanism is actuated and controlled by a low-energy signal.
  • share of voice — the proportion of the total audience or readership commanded by a media group across its full range of publishing and broadcasting activities
  • sharp practice — You can use sharp practice to refer to an action or a way of behaving, especially in business or professional matters, that you think is clever but dishonest.
  • sheepback rock — roche moutonnée.
  • sheva brachoth — the seven blessings said during the marriage service and repeated at the celebration thereafter
  • shock absorber — a device for damping sudden and rapid motion, as the recoil of a spring-mounted object from shock.
  • shoulder patch — a cloth emblem worn on the upper part of a sleeve of a uniform typically as identification of the organization to which the wearer is assigned.
  • shower curtain — waterproof sheet around a shower
  • sickle feather — one of the paired, elongated, sickle-shaped, middle feathers of the tail of the rooster.
  • sleeping chair — a chair of the 17th century, having a high back, usually adjustable, with deep wings of the same height.
  • sobriety coach — a person who is employed to help another to refrain from drinking alcohol
  • social chapter — The social chapter is an agreement between countries in the European Union concerning workers' rights and working conditions.
  • social charter — a declaration of the rights, minimum wages, maximum hours, etc, of workers in the European Union, later adopted in the Social Chapter
  • soul-searching — the act or process of close and penetrating analysis of oneself, to determine one's true motives and sentiments.
  • sound archives — official records or files (as in a library) of sound recordings, broadcasts, or performances, esp those from radio programmes
  • 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
  • spanner wrench — a spanner with a fixed opening that cannot be adjusted to different sizes
  • special branch — The Special Branch is the department of the British police that is concerned with political security and deals with things such as terrorism and visits by foreign leaders.
  • speech therapy — treatment for speaking disorders
  • speech-reading — the act or process of determining the intended meaning of a speaker by utilizing all visual clues accompanying speech attempts, as lip movements, facial expressions, and bodily gestures, used especially by people with impaired hearing.
  • speed merchant — a person who habitually drives too fast in a motor vehicle
  • spermatothecae — a female reproductive organ in some insects
  • sphaerocrystal — a spherical crystalline mass
  • spinthariscope — an instrument that detects ionizing radiation by picking up sparks of light from alpha particles.
  • spirochaetosis — a disease caused by infection with a spirochete.
  • st. catharines — a city in SE Ontario, in SE Canada.
  • starch blocker — a substance ingested in the belief that it inhibits the body's ability to metabolize starch and thereby promotes weight loss: declared illegal in the U.S. by the FDA.
  • starch-reduced — (of food, esp bread) having the starch content reduced, as in proprietary slimming products
  • steganographic — of, or pertaining to, steganography
  • stereochemical — of, relating to, stereochemistry
  • straight-faced — a serious or impassive facial expression that conceals one's true feelings about something, especially a desire to laugh.
  • straight-laced — strait-laced (sense 2)
  • straightjacket — to put in or as in a straitjacket: Her ambition was straitjacketed by her family.
  • stretchability — to draw out or extend (oneself, a body, limbs, wings, etc.) to the full length or extent (often followed by out): to stretch oneself out on the ground.
  • stretcher case — someone who has to be taken away on a stretcher because they are too ill to walk
  • subatmospheric — (of a quantity) having a value lower than that of the atmosphere: subatmospheric temperatures.
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