15-letter words containing a, s, p, o
- diaheliotropism — the tendency among plants to respond to the light of the sun by orienting their leaves perpendicular to the sun's rays, such that the upper surface of the leaves receives maximum light
- diaphototropism — growth of a plant or plant part in a direction transverse to that of the light
- diastrophically — in a diastrophic fashion
- dictation speed — a speed of speaking that enables someone to take down what is being said
- disappointingly — failing to fulfill one's hopes or expectations: a disappointing movie; a disappointing marriage.
- disappointments — Plural form of disappointment.
- dishwasherproof — (of dishes, cooking utensils, etc.) able to withstand washing in an automatic dishwasher without breaking, chipping, fading, etc.
- disincorporated — Simple past tense and past participle of disincorporate.
- dispassionately — free from or unaffected by passion; devoid of personal feeling or bias; impartial; calm: a dispassionate critic.
- dispositionally — In a dispositional manner.
- disproportional — not in proportion; disproportionate.
- distributor cap — the cap of an engine's distributor that holds in place the wires from the distributor to the sparking plugs
- doomsday weapon — any weapon of extreme lethal or destructive power; superweapon
- double saucepan — a cooking utensil consisting of two saucepans, one fitting inside the other. The bottom saucepan contains water that, while boiling, gently heats food in the upper pan
- draw oneself up — to assume a straighter posture; stand or sit straight
- drop handlebars — aerodynamic handlebars that drop down and curve towards the rider at the ends rather than turning upwards as on conventional bicycles
- dynamic scoping — dynamic scope
- dysmorphophobia — an obsessive fear that one's body, or any part of it, is repulsive or may become so
- dystrophication — the process by which a body of water becomes dystrophic.
- east providence — a town in NE Rhode Island, near Providence.
- eclipse scotoma — a blind spot; a permanent or temporary area of depressed or absent vision caused by viewing the sun directly
- edriophthalmous — (of certain crustaceans) having stalkless eyes
- elephant's-foot — a monocotyledonous plant, Testudinaria elephantipes, of southern Africa, with a very large starchy tuberous stem, covered in corky scales: family Dioscoreaceae
- emancipationist — An advocate of the emancipation of slaves.
- enantiomorphism — (chemistry) The relationship exhibited by a pair of enantiomorphs.
- enantiomorphous — Of or pertaining to enantiomorphs or enantiomorphism; enantiomorphic.
- english sparrow — a small Eurasian weaverbird, Passer domesticus, now established in North America and Australia. It has a brown streaked plumage with grey underparts
- enterohepatitis — dual inflammation of the intestine and liver
- enteropeptidase — Enterokinase.
- epistemological — Of or pertaining to epistemology or theory of knowledge, as a field of study.
- epsilon squared — (jargon) A quantity even smaller than epsilon, as small in comparison to epsilon as epsilon is to something normal; completely negligible. If you buy a supercomputer for a million dollars, the cost of the thousand-dollar terminal to go with it is epsilon, and the cost of the ten-dollar cable to connect them is epsilon squared. Compare lost in the underflow, lost in the noise.
- eric conspiracy — (person, humour) A shadowy group of moustachioed hackers named Eric first pinpointed as a sinister conspiracy by an infamous talk.bizarre posting ca. 1986. This was doubtless influenced by the numerous "Eric" jokes in the Monty Python oeuvre. There do indeed seem to be considerably more moustachioed Erics in hackerdom than the frequency of these three traits can account for unless they are correlated in some arcane way. Well-known examples include Eric Allman (of the "Allman style" described under indent style), Erik Fair (co-author of NNTP), Eric S. Raymond and about fifteen others. The organisation line "Eric Conspiracy Secret Laboratories" now emanates regularly from more than one site.
- escape velocity — great enough speed to escape gravity
- exceptionalness — The quality of being exceptional.
- expansion joint — structural feature: gap to allow for expansion or contraction
- expense account — account for expenses
- explain oneself — to make clear what one means
- export earnings — the earnings of a company or country that are generated through the export of goods or services
- expression mark — one of a set of musical directions, usually in Italian, indicating how a piece or passage is to be performed
- extemporisation — Alternative spelling of extemporization.
- fahnestock clip — a type of terminal using a spring that clamps readily onto a connecting wire.
- fairy footsteps — heavy footsteps
- fallopian tubes — one of a pair of long, slender ducts in the female abdomen that transport ova from the ovary to the uterus and, in fertilization, transport sperm cells from the uterus to the released ova; the oviduct of higher mammals.
- fasciolopsiasis — a parasitic disease caused by flukes of the genus Fasciolopsis and characterized by abdominal pain and diarrhea: common in the Far East.
- fissiparousness — The quality of being fissiparous.
- floating supply — the aggregate supply of ready-to-market goods or securities.
- fluorophosphate — a salt or ester of a fluorophosphoric acid.
- fool's paradise — a state of enjoyment based on false beliefs or hopes; a state of illusory happiness.
- foolscap octavo — a book size, 41⁄4 by 63⁄4 inches
- foolscap quarto — a book size, 63⁄4 by 81⁄2 inches (foolscap quarto)