21-letter words containing e, r, y, s, i
- reverse polish syntax — postfix notation
- ring-around-the-rosey — a children's game in which the players sing while going around in a circle and squat when the lyrics “all fall down” are sung.
- rocky mountain oyster — mountain oyster.
- 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.
- salam-weinberg theory — the electroweak theory.
- 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.
- saving your reverence — a form of apology for using an obscene or taboo expression
- schlieren photography — a type of photography which records schlieren
- 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.
- secondary containment — Secondary containment is a system for dealing with hazardous spills.
- sedimentary sequences — Sedimentary sequences are layers of rock which are derived from weathered rocks, biogenic (= of living organisms) activity, or precipitation from solution.
- sir roger de coverley — Sir Roger de, a literary figure representing the ideal of the early 18th-century squire in The Spectator, by Addison and Steele.
- skew symmetric matrix — a matrix that is equal to the negation of its transpose
- 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
- split-screen facility — a facility allowing different scenes to be shown on screen at the same time
- sport utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- sport-utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- statutory declaration — a declaration made under statutory authority before a justice of the peace or commissioner for oaths which may in certain cases be substituted for a statement on oath
- steady state universe — a universe described by the steady state theory.
- strachey, christopher — Christopher Strachey
- supplementary benefit — (formerly) an extra amount of money that is paid to someone by the government, in addition to their normal income. Replaced by income support in 1988
- sympathetic vibration — a vibration induced by resonance.
- synchronized shifting — gear shifting in which the gears to be meshed are made to rotate at the same speed.
- synchronized swimming — a sport growing out of water ballet in which swimmers, in solo, duet, and team efforts, complete various required figures by performing motions in relatively stationary positions, along with a freestyle competition, with the contestants synchronizing movements to music and being judged for body position, control, and the degree of difficulty of the moves.
- systeme international — Système International d'Unités
- take sb/sth seriously — If you take someone or something seriously, you believe that they are important and deserve attention.
- tape operating system — (operating system) (TOS) An IBM operating system for System 360, used in the early days around 1965 to support the IBM 360 model 30 et al. TOS was a predecessor to IBM's Disk Operating System. TOS died out really early as disks such as the 2311 and 2314 became common with the IBM 360 whereas thet had been a real luxury on the IBM 7090.
- tartarian honeysuckle — an Asian honeysuckle, Lonicera tatarica, having fragrant, white to pink flowers.
- the early renaissance — the period from about 1400 to 1500 in European, esp Italian, painting, sculpture, and architecture, when naturalistic styles and humanist theories were evolved from the study of classical sources, notably by Donatello, Masaccio, and Alberti
- the jury is still out — it has not yet been decided or agreed on
- the maastricht treaty — a treaty on European economic and monetary union agreed by government leaders of the 12 EC states at a meeting in Maastricht in December 1991
- the stationery office — (in the UK) the company that supplies the civil service with all its office supplies, machinery, printing and binding, etc
- the throwaway society — a society full of excessive consumption and waste of food, products, etc
- theoretical physicist — a scientist who studies theoretical physics
- third-party insurance — insurance that compensates for a loss to a party other than the insured for which the insured is liable.
- threshold wage policy — a policy whereby wages are increased in accordance with inflation
- to be arrayed against — to be opposed to
- to cross your fingers — If you cross your fingers, you put one finger on top of another and hope for good luck. If you say that someone is keeping their fingers crossed, you mean they are hoping for good luck.
- to lay something bare — If you lay something bare, you uncover it completely so that it can then be seen.
- to mix your metaphors — If you mix your metaphors, you use two conflicting metaphors. People do this accidentally, or sometimes deliberately as a joke.
- to rear its ugly head — If something unpleasant rears its head or rears its ugly head, it becomes visible or noticeable.
- trustee in bankruptcy — a person appointed by a court to administer the property of a bankrupt.
- uk overseas territory — any of the territories that are governed by the UK but lie outside the British Isles; many were formerly British crown colonies: includes Bermuda, Falkland Islands, and Montserrat
- ulster unionist party — a Northern Irish political party advocating the maintenance of union with the UK
- ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
- university of arizona — (body, education) The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. Today, the University is one of the top 20 research universities in the nation, with a student enrollment of more than 35,000, a faculty and staff of 12,500, and a 345-acre campus. Address: Tucson, Arizona, USA.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- virtual memory system — (operating system) (VMS) DEC's proprietary operating system originally produced for its VAX minicomputer. VMS V1 was released in August 1978. VMS was renamed "OpenVMS" around version 5.5. The first version of VMS on DEC Alpha was known as OpenVMS for AXP V1.0, and the correct way to refer to the operating system now is OpenVMS for VAX or OpenVMS for Alpha. The renaming also signified the fact that the X/Open consortium had certified OpenVMS as having a high support for POSIX standards. VMS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market (making it popular in financial institutions). It currently (October 1997) has the best clustering capability (both number and distance) and is very scalable with binaries portable from small desktop workstations up to huge mainframes. Many Unix fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favourite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.