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22-letter words containing a, s, t, o

  • spontaneous combustion — the ignition of a substance or body from the rapid oxidation of its own constituents without heat from any external source.
  • spontaneous generation — abiogenesis.
  • st-pierre and miquelon — group of islands in the Atlantic, south of Newfoundland, constituting a political unit of France: includes the islands of St-Pierre (c. 10 sq mi, 26 sq km) & Miquelon & several islets: 93 sq mi (241 sq km); pop. 6,000
  • stand the test of time — last, endure
  • standard scratch score — the number of strokes a scratch player would need to go round a particular course, based on the length of each hole to the green and allowing 36 putts for the round
  • start the ball rolling — to open or initiate (an action, discussion, movement, etc)
  • statute of limitations — a statute defining the period within which legal action may be taken.
  • statute of westminster — the act of Parliament (1931) that formally recognized the independence of the dominions within the Empire
  • strait of juan de fuca — a strait between Vancouver Island (Canada) and NW Washington (US). Length: about 129 km (80 miles). Width: about 24 km (15 miles)
  • stratford de redcliffe — 1st Viscount (Stratford Canning) 1786–1880, English diplomat.
  • structured programming — the design and coding of programs by a methodology (top-down) that successively breaks problems into smaller, nested subunits.
  • student volunteer army — a students' voluntary organization that aims to undertake useful work in communities, founded in 2010 to help clear up after a damaging earthquake in Christchurch
  • subjective probability — a measure or estimate of the degree of confidence one may have in the occurrence of an event, defined by subjective criteria
  • subornation of perjury — the offense of bribing or otherwise persuading another to commit perjury.
  • suffice it to say that — let us say no more than that; I shall just say that
  • supplementary question — a question asked in Parliament by an MP during Questions to the Prime Minister
  • supreme judicial court — (often initial capital letters) the highest court in some states, as Massachusetts and Maine.
  • swings and roundabouts — If you say that a situation is swings and roundabouts, you mean that there are as many gains as there are losses.
  • sympathetic ophthalmia — inflammation of one eye due to injury or disease of the other eye.
  • syntactic construction — a construction that has no bound forms among its immediate constituents. Compare morphologic construction.
  • system account manager — (cryptography, operating system, security)   (SAM) A password database stored as a registry file in Windows NT and Windows 2000. The System Account Manager (SAM) database stores users' passwords in a hashed format. Since a hash function is one-way, this provides some measure of security for the storage of the passwords. In an attempt to enhance the security of the SAM database against offline cracking, Microsoft introduced the SYSKEY utility in Windows NT 4.0.
  • system management mode — (hardware)   (SMM) A reduced power consumption state provided by some Intel microprocessors. When a CPU enters SMM it saves its current state in a special area of static RAM called SMRAM (System Management RAM) and then runs a program, also stored in SMRAM, the SMM handler. SMM is implemented in all Intel "SL" suffixed CPUs. In June 1993, Intel announced it was discontinuing its SL range and instead making all its current processors SL enhanced. See also Auto Idle.
  • take a fancy to sb/sth — If you take a fancy to someone or something, you start liking them, usually for no understandable reason.
  • take cognizance of sth — If you take cognizance of something, you take notice of it or acknowledge it.
  • take in (one's) stride — to cope with easily and without undue effort or hesitation
  • take one's breath away — the air inhaled and exhaled in respiration.
  • take someone's measure — a unit or standard of measurement: weights and measures.
  • take something as read — to take something for granted as a fact; understand or presume
  • talk someone's arm off — to talk to someone at great length or without pause
  • talk through one's hat — a shaped covering for the head, usually with a crown and brim, especially for wear outdoors.
  • targa graphics adaptor — (graphics, file format)   (TGA) The Truevision Targa Graphics Adaptor file format. The TGA format is a common bitmap file format for storage of 24-bit images. It supports colourmaps, alpha channels, compression and comments. More information is available from Truevision and The Graphics File Format Page.
  • tear sb limb from limb — If someone threatens to tear you limb from limb, they mean that they are extremely angry with you, and may use violence against you.
  • tell it to the marines — of or relating to the sea; existing in or produced by the sea: marine vegetation.
  • temporal lobe epilepsy — a type of seizure disorder produced by abnormal electric discharges in the temporal lobe of the brain, characterized by the occurrence of any of a variety of auras followed by a brief loss of consciousness with accompanying repetitive, automatic movements.
  • temporal-lobe epilepsy — a type of seizure disorder produced by abnormal electric discharges in the temporal lobe of the brain, characterized by the occurrence of any of a variety of auras followed by a brief loss of consciousness with accompanying repetitive, automatic movements.
  • that is/that is to say — You use that is or that is to say to indicate that you are about to express the same idea more clearly or precisely.
  • the (great) depression — the period of economic depression which began in 1929 and lasted through most of the 1930s
  • the atlantic provinces — certain of the Canadian provinces with coasts facing the Gulf of St Lawrence or the Atlantic: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador
  • the authorized version — an English translation of the Bible published in 1611 under James I
  • the brothers karamazov — a novel (1880) by Dostoevsky.
  • the caring professions — professions such as nursing and social work that are involved with looking after people who are ill or who need help in coping with their lives
  • the continental system — Napoleon's plan in 1806 to blockade Britain by excluding her ships from ports on the mainland of Europe
  • the grand remonstrance — the document prepared by the Long Parliament in 1640 listing the evils of the king's government, the abuses already rectified, and the reforms Parliament advocated
  • the houston ship canal — a canal linking Houston to the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway
  • the maritime provinces — another name for the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, but often excluding Newfoundland and Labrador
  • the medical profession — the occupation of working as a doctor of medicine
  • the nature conservancy — a US charitable environmental organization, founded in 1951, that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive
  • the ouachita mountains — a mountain range in the United States, located in W Arkansas, S E Oklahoma, and N E Texas
  • the sb/sth before last — You use expressions such as the night before last, the election before last and the leader before last to refer to the period of time, event, or person that came immediately before the most recent one in a series.
  • the straits of florida — a sea passage between the Florida Keys and Cuba, linking the Atlantic with the Gulf of Mexico
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