22-letter words containing a, u, t, o
- south african republic — former name of Transvaal.
- south atlantic current — an eastward-flowing ocean current formed by the merging of the Brazil Current and the southward-flowing current near the Falkland Islands and forming the southern part of the general circulation of the South Atlantic Ocean.
- south sandwich islands — a group of volcanic islands, administered by England, in the South Atlantic Ocean: part of the Falkland Islands dependency. 120 sq. mi. (310 sq. km).
- south shetland islands — a group of uninhabited islands in the S Atlantic, north of the Antarctic Peninsula: formerly a dependency of the Falkland Islands; part of British Antarctic Territory since 1962. (Claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty). Area: 4662 sq km (1800 sq miles)
- southern redbelly dace — any of the small, brightly colored North American freshwater cyprinids, especially Phoxinus oreas (northern redbelly dace) and P. erythrogaster (southern redbelly dace)
- special interest group — (SIG) One of several technical areas, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery. Well-known SIGs include SIGPLAN (the Special Interest Group on Programming Languages), SIGARCH (the Special Interest Group for Computer Architecture) and SIGGRAPH (the Special Interest Group for Computer Graphics).
- special-interest group — Also called special interest. a body of persons, corporation, or industry that seeks or receives benefits or privileged treatment, especially through legislation.
- speculative philosophy — philosophy embodying beliefs insusceptible of proof and attempting to gain insight into the nature of the ultimate by intuitive or a priori means.
- spelling pronunciation — a pronunciation based on spelling, usually a variant of the traditional pronunciation. The spelling pronunciation of waistcoat is [weyst-koht] /ˈweɪstˌkoʊt/ (Show IPA) rather than [wes-kuh t] /ˈwɛs kət/ (Show IPA).
- split-dollar insurance — life insurance in which someone helps pay the premiums for another, as when an employer contributes to the premiums of an employee's policy.
- 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
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- take someone's measure — a unit or standard of measurement: weights and measures.
- take the mickey out of — to deflate (a person)
- talk through one's hat — a shaped covering for the head, usually with a crown and brim, especially for wear outdoors.
- temporary life annuity — an annuity that ceases upon the death of the annuitant or upon the expiration of a period of time, whichever occurs first.
- the authorized version — an English translation of the Bible published in 1611 under James I
- the houston ship canal — a canal linking Houston to the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway
- 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
- thermonuclear reaction — a nuclear-fusion reaction that takes place between the nuclei of a gas, especially hydrogen, heated to a temperature of several million degrees.
- through thick and thin — having relatively great extent from one surface or side to the opposite; not thin: a thick slice.
- time complex simulator — (simulation) (Tcsim) Complex arithmetic version of Tsim. Contact: ZOLA Technologies.
- to beat about the bush — If you tell someone not to beat about the bush, you mean that you want them to tell you something immediately and quickly, rather than in a complicated, indirect way.
- to cast your mind back — If you cast your mind back to a time in the past, you think about what happened then.
- to cast your net wider — If you cast your net wider, you look for or consider a greater variety of things.
- to hate someone's guts — If you hate someone's guts, you dislike them very much indeed.
- to have the last laugh — If you say that you have the last laugh, you mean that you become successful at something so that people who criticize or oppose you look foolish.
- to laugh your head off — Phrases such as laugh your head off and scream your head off can be used to emphasize that someone is laughing or screaming a lot or very loudly.
- to upset the applecart — If you upset the applecart, you do something which causes a plan, system, or arrangement to go wrong.
- transformational rules — rules that specify in purely syntactic terms a method by which theorems may be derived from the axioms of a formal system
- transition temperature — Physics. a temperature at which a substance undergoes some abrupt change in its properties, as when it passes from the normal to the superconducting state.
- transposing instrument — a musical instrument played at a pitch different from that indicated in the score.
- trichlorofluoromethane — chlorotrifluoromethane.
- trifluorochloromethane — chlorotrifluoromethane.
- trigonometric equation — an equation involving trigonometric functions of unknown angles, as cos B = ½.