20-letter words containing e, n, s
- special relationship — the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom
- specific conductance — conductivity (def 2).
- specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
- specific-conductance — conductivity (def 2).
- spectroscopic binary — a binary star having components that are not sufficiently separated to be resolved by a telescope, known to be a binary only bythe variations in wavelength of emitted light that are detected by a spectroscope.
- spherical aberration — variation in focal length of a lens or mirror from center to edge, due to its spherical shape.
- spherical coordinate — 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.
- spike someone's guns — a weapon consisting of a metal tube, with mechanical attachments, from which projectiles are shot by the force of an explosive; a piece of ordnance.
- spirit of enterprise — the motivation to set up and succeed in business or commerce
- splice the mainbrace — to issue and partake of an extra allocation of alcoholic spirits
- split the difference — the state or relation of being different; dissimilarity: There is a great difference between the two.
- spontaneous abortion — miscarriage (def 1).
- spontaneous recovery — the reappearance of a response after its extinction has been followed by a period of rest
- spontaneous-abortion — Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
- spotted crane's-bill — the American wild geranium, Geranium maculatum.
- spuyten duyvil creek — a channel in New York City at the north end of Manhattan Island, connecting the Hudson and Harlem rivers.
- square cross-section — If a kelly has a square cross-section, it has a surface area with four equal sides, when looked at as if has been sliced through.
- square of opposition — a diagrammatic representation of the opposition of categorical propositions.
- squatter sovereignty — (used contemptuously by its opponents) popular sovereignty (def 2).
- squirrel's-foot fern — ball fern.
- st. george's channel — a channel between Wales and Ireland, connecting the Irish Sea and the Atlantic. 100 miles (160 km) long; 50–90 miles (81–145 km) wide.
- st. james-assiniboia — a city in SE Manitoba, in S central Canada: suburb of Winnipeg.
- st.-germain-des-pres — an area in Paris, on the Left Bank.
- staff sergeant major — a noncommissioned officer equivalent in rank to a command sergeant major but having no command responsibility.
- stained glass window — a window made of coloured glass, often showing religious pictures and usually seen in churches
- standard book number — International Standard Book Number. Abbreviation: SBN.
- standstill agreement — law: between company and bidder
- star spangled banner — Stars and Stripes.
- star-spangled banner — Stars and Stripes.
- stare sb in the face — If a situation or the answer to a problem is staring you in the face, it is very obvious, although you may not be immediately aware of it.
- state enrolled nurse — a nurse with training and examinations enabling him or her to perform many nursing services
- state representative — a person elected by a state to be a member of the House of Representatives
- ste. anne de beaupre — a village in S Quebec, in SE Canada, on the St. Lawrence, NE of Quebec: Roman Catholic shrine.
- steak and kidney pie — meat pastry
- stefan-boltzmann law — the law stating that the total energy radiated from a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature.
- step into the breach — If you step into the breach, you do a job or task which someone else was supposed to do or has done in the past, because they are suddenly unable to do it.
- stick one's neck out — the part of the body of an animal or human being that connects the head and the trunk.
- stony-iron meteorite — a meteorite of roughly equal proportions of metallic iron and stony matter.
- storage area network — (storage) (SAN) A high-speed subnetwork of shared storage devices. A storage device is a machine that contains nothing but a disk or disks for storing data. A SAN's architecture works in a way that makes all storage devices available to all servers on a LAN or WAN. As more storage devices are added to a SAN, they too will be accessible from any server in the larger network. The server merely acts as a pathway between the end user and the stored data. Because stored data does not reside directly on any of a network's servers, server power is used for business applications, and network capacity is released to the end user.
- stress concentration — A stress concentration in a solid is a place where there is a lot of stress, either because a force is applied in a particular area or there is a change in the cross-sectional area.
- string correspondent — stringer (def 6).
- strong nuclear force — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
- subjective intension — the associations that an expression has for an individual; the intension he believes it to have
- subpoena duces tecum — a writ directing a person to appear in court and to bring some document described in the writ.
- subscription edition — an edition of one or more volumes for which a number of prospective purchasers place orders, usually in advance of publication.
- sufficient condition — a statement whose truth is sufficient to guarantee the truth of a given statement
- suitland-silver hill — a city in central Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
- summative assessment — general assessment of a pupil's achievements over a range of subjects by means of a combined appraisal of formative assessments
- sunday-go-to-meeting — most presentable; best: Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
- superior conjunction — the alignment of an inferior planet and the sun in which the planet is at the far side of the sun from the earth.