21-letter words containing c, a, t, s
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- saint anthony's cross — tau cross.
- saint lawrence seaway — a series of channels, locks, and canals between Montreal and the mouth of Lake Ontario, a distance of 182 miles (293 km), enabling most deep-draft vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean, up the St. Lawrence River, to all the Great Lakes ports: developed jointly by the U.S. and Canada.
- santa cruz water lily — a South American aquatic plant, Victoria cruziana, of the water lily family, having floating leaves from 2–5 feet (0.6–1.5 meters) and deep pink or red flowers.
- sao tome and principe — Democratic Republic of, a republic in W Africa, comprising the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, in the Gulf of Guinea, N of the equator: a former overseas province of Portugal; gained independence in 1975. 372 sq. mi. (964 sq. km). Capital: São Tomé.
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- scalar multiplication — an operation used in the definition of a vector space in which the product of a scalar and a vector is a vector, the operation is distributive over the addition of both scalars and vectors, and is associative with multiplication of scalars
- scalar triple product — the volume of the parallelepiped defined by three given vectors, u, v, and w, usually represented as u·v 1 (v×w), [ uvw ], or (uvw), where × denotes a cross product and · denotes an inner product.
- scarce as hen's teeth — extremely rare
- scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
- scarlet runner (bean) — a climbing bean plant (Phaseolus coccineus) of tropical America, having pods with large, edible, red-and-black seeds and usually having scarlet flowers: often grown in cold climates as an ornamental
- schema definition set — (SDS) Something in Portable Common Tool Environment.
- schlieren photography — a type of photography which records schlieren
- scholastic philosophy — the system of philosophy, theology, and teaching that dominated medieval western Europe and was based on the writings of the Church Fathers and (from the 12th century) Aristotle, the Greek philosopher (384–322 bc)
- scintillation counter — a device for detecting and measuring radioactivity, having a crystal scintillator, a photoelectric cell sensitive to the light from scintillations, and an amplifier.
- scorched earth policy — a military practice of devastating the property and agriculture of an area before abandoning it to an advancing enemy.
- scorched-earth policy — a military practice of devastating the property and agriculture of an area before abandoning it to an advancing enemy.
- seating accommodation — the provision of seats for people in a room, building, etc
- second-hand endowment — A second-hand endowment is a traditional with-profits endowment policy that has been sold to a new owner part way through its term.
- secondary containment — Secondary containment is a system for dealing with hazardous spills.
- secure hash algorithm —
- sedimentary sequences — Sedimentary sequences are layers of rock which are derived from weathered rocks, biogenic (= of living organisms) activity, or precipitation from solution.
- self-characterization — portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.
- semantic differential — a technique for measuring the connotative meaning of concepts by having an individual rate each concept on a series of graduated scales, each scale defined by a pair of polar adjectives, as good–bad or strong–weak.
- sentential connective — any of several words or their equivalent symbols used in logical formulas to connect propositions, as “or,” “not,” “and,” “if and only if.”.
- seventeen-year locust — a cicada, Magicicada septendecim, of the eastern U.S., having nymphs that live in the soil, usually emerging in great numbers after 17 years in the North or 13 years in the South.
- sheppard's correction — a method of correcting the bias in standard deviations and higher moments of distributions that arises from grouping values of the variable.
- sherman antitrust act — an act of Congress (1890) prohibiting any contract, conspiracy, or combination of business interests in restraint of foreign or interstate trade.
- short message service — (messaging) (SMS) A message service offered by the GSM digital mobile telephone system. Using SMS, a short alphanumeric message (160 alphanumeric characters) can be sent to a mobile phone to be displayed there, much like in an alphanumeric pager system. The message is buffered by the GSM network until the phone becomes active.
- sick to one's stomach — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
- silicon tetrachloride — a colorless, fuming liquid, SiCl 4 , used chiefly for making smoke screens and various derivatives of silicon.
- silicon tetrafluoride — a colorless, fuming gas, SiF 4 , used chiefly in the manufacture of fluosilicic acid.
- simple actor language — (language) (SAL) A minimal actor language, used for teaching in:
- sinusoidal projection — an equal-area projection in which parallels are straight lines spaced at regular intervals, the central meridian is a straight line one-half the length of the equator, and the other meridians are curves symmetrical to the central meridian.
- skew symmetric matrix — a matrix that is equal to the negation of its transpose
- slatwall merchandiser — A slatwall merchandiser is a three-dimensional display unit with grooves cut into its surface into which metal hanging rails can be fixed at various heights.
- snr bandwidth product — (communications) The integral of the SNR over frequency. The SNR bandwidth product is an important limit in the capacity of a communication channel.
- social administration — the administration and maintenance of issues to do with social policies and welfare
- social anthropologist — an anthropologist who deals with cultural and social phenomena such as kinship systems or beliefs, esp of nonliterate peoples
- social inquiry report — (in Britain) a report on a person and his or her circumstances, which may be required by a court before sentencing and is made by a probation officer or a social worker from a local authority social services department
- social stratification — the act or an instance of stratifying.
- socialist labor party — a U.S. political party, organized in 1874, advocating the peaceful introduction of socialism.
- somatotrophic-hormone — a hormone secreted by the anterior pituitary gland, that stimulates growth in humans.
- south pacific current — an ocean current that flows E in the South Pacific Ocean parallel to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
- space shuttle orbiter — orbiter (def 1).
- special correspondent — a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone
- special court-martial — a court-martial established to try violations of military law less serious than those tried by a general court-martial but more serious than those tried by a summary court-martial.
- spherical coordinates — Usually, spherical coordinates. any of three coordinates used to locate a point in space by the length of its radius vector and the angles this vector makes with two perpendicular polar planes.