17-letter words containing a, r, u
- road-fund licence — a licence showing that the tax payable in respect of a motor vehicle has been paid
- roll with a punch — to move in the same direction as a punch thrown at one so as to lessen its force
- rom kernel manual — (publication) (RKM) A series of books or files for developers for the Amiga computer, containing information about the operating system kernel stored in ROM.
- rotary cultivator — a machine for breaking up and tilling soil, consisting of a series of blades mounted on a revolving power-driven shaft
- rough puff pastry — a rich flaky pastry made with butter and used for pie-crusts, flans, etc
- rough-legged hawk — a large hawk, Buteo lagopus, of the Northern Hemisphere, that feeds chiefly on small rodents.
- royal institution — a British society founded in 1799 for the dissemination of scientific knowledge
- rub the wrong way — to subject the surface of (a thing or person) to pressure and friction, as in cleaning, smoothing, polishing, coating, massaging, or soothing: to rub a table top with wax polish; to rub the entire back area.
- rubarth's disease — a common, rapidly progressing viral hepatitis of dogs and other carnivores, often confused with canine distemper.
- rubber plantation — an estate in a tropical country where rubber trees are grown on a large scale
- rubber-base paint — latex paint.
- rubberman disease — Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
- run a temperature — If you are running a temperature or if you have a temperature, your temperature is higher than it usually is.
- rural development — social or economic activities or initiatives designed to improve the standard of living in areas far away from large towns or cities
- rush-hour traffic — the large number of vehicles that move along roads, travelling to or from work at the beginning and end of the working day
- russell's paradox — a paradox of set theory in which an object is defined in terms of a class of objects that contains the object being defined, resulting in a logical contradiction.
- russell, bertrand — Bertrand Russell
- russian turkestan — a vast region in W and central Asia, E of the Caspian Sea: includes territory in the S central part of Xinjiang province in China (Eastern Turkestan or Chinese Turkestan) a strip of N Afghanistan, and the area (Russian Turkestan) comprising the republics of Kazakhstan, Kirghizia (Kyrgyzstan), Tadzhikistan (Tajikistan), Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
- russian wolfhound — borzoi.
- safety in numbers — If you say that there is safety in numbers, you mean that you are safer doing something if there are a lot of people doing it rather than doing it alone.
- safety precaution — a precaution that is taken in order to ensure that something is safe and not dangerous
- saint bonaventure — Saint ("the Seraphic Doctor") 1221–74, Italian scholastic theologian.
- samurai tradition — the body of customs, thought, practices, etc belonging to the samurai warrior caste of Japan
- san andreas fault — an active strike-slip fault in W United States, extending from San Francisco to S California and forming the on-land portion of the western margin of the North American Plate.
- sanctum sanctorum — the holy of holies of the Biblical tabernacle and the Temple in Jerusalem.
- sandringham house — a residence of the royal family, in Sandringham, a village in E England, in Norfolk near the E shore of the Wash
- saturation diving — a method of prolonged diving, using an underwater habitat to allow divers to remain in the high-pressure environment of the ocean depths long enough for their body tissues to become saturated with the inert components of the pressurized gas mixture that they breathe: when this condition is reached, the amount of time required for decompression remains the same, whether the dive lasts a day, a week, or a month.
- saxe-coburg-gotha — a member of the present British royal family, from the establishment of the house in 1901 until 1917 when the family name was changed to Windsor.
- schematic capture — The process of entering the logical design of an electronic circuit into a CAE system by creating a schematic representation of components and interconnections.
- school playground — school's outdoor recreation area
- scrophulariaceous — belonging to the Scrophulariaceae, the figwort family of plants.
- search and rescue — Search and rescue operations involve looking for people who are lost or in danger, for example, after a war or a natural disaster, and bringing them back safely.
- seaweed marquetry — marquetry having the form of symmetrical, foliate scrolls, as on English cabinetwork of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
- secondary product — a product that is not the main product of an industry; a by-product
- secondary quality — one of the qualities attributed by the mind to an object perceived, such as color, temperature, or taste.
- securities dealer — a person who buys and sells securities
- securities market — the market in stocks, shares, bonds and other securities
- self-perpetuating — continuing oneself in office, rank, etc., beyond the normal limit.
- self-purification — a natural process of purifying, as the ability of a body of water to rid itself of pollutants.
- self-renunciation — renunciation of one's own will, interests, etc.
- selkirk mountains — a mountain range in SW Canada, in SE British Columbia. Highest peak: Mount Sir Sandford, 3533 m (11 590 ft)
- semi-manufactured — the making of goods or wares by manual labor or by machinery, especially on a large scale: the manufacture of television sets.
- separating funnel — a large funnel having a tap in its output tube, used to separate immiscible liquids
- sexual dimorphism — the condition in which the males and females in a species are morphologically different, as with many birds.
- sexual generation — the gametophyte generation in the alternation of generations in plants that produces a zygote from male and female gametes.
- sexual harassment — unwelcome sexual advances made by an employer or superior, especially when compliance is made a condition of continued employment or advancement.
- sexual preference — Someone's sexual preference is the same as their sexual orientation.
- shetland pullover — a thick woollen sweater made from Shetland wool
- shirt-tail cousin — a distant cousin
- shortcrust pastry — a basic type of pastry that is made with half the quantity of fat to flour, and has a crisp but crumbly texture