18-letter words containing f, e, s, t, o
- scientific officer — a police officer who carries out forensic examinations
- scottish blackface — a common breed of hardy mountain sheep having horns and a black face, kept chiefly on the mainland of Scotland
- scruff of the neck — If someone takes you by the scruff of the neck, they take hold of the back of your neck or collar suddenly and roughly.
- secretary of state — the head and chief administrator of the U.S. Department of State. Compare foreign minister.
- security of tenure — (in Britain) the right of a tenant to continue to occupy a dwelling or site unless the landlord obtains a court order for possession of the property or termination of the tenancy agreement
- see the last of sb — not encounter sb anymore
- self-actualization — the achievement of one's full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world.
- self-certification — statement of sick leave
- self-contemplation — the act or process of thinking about oneself or one's values, beliefs, behavior, etc.
- self-contradiction — an act or instance of contradicting oneself or itself.
- self-contradictory — an act or instance of contradicting oneself or itself.
- self-determination — determination by oneself or itself, without outside influence.
- self-fertilization — Botany. fertilization of an ovum of a plant by a male gamete from the same flower (opposed to cross-fertilization).
- self-glorification — a glorified or more splendid form of something.
- self-gratification — the act of pleasing or satisfying oneself, especially the gratifying of one's own impulses, needs, or desires.
- self-incrimination — the act of incriminating oneself or exposing oneself to prosecution, especially by giving evidence or testimony.
- self-instructional — pertaining to or constituting learning materials and conditions arranged so that students can proceed to learn on their own with little or no supervision.
- self-interrogation — the act of interrogating; questioning.
- self-justification — the act or fact of justifying oneself, especially of offering excessive reasons, explanations, excuses, etc., for an act, thought, or the like.
- self-manifestation — an act of manifesting.
- self-mortification — the inflicting of pain or privation on oneself: He was certain that self-mortification was the only road to salvation.
- self-preoccupation — the state of being preoccupied.
- self-recrimination — the act of recriminating, or countercharging: Hope gave way to recrimination with both sides claiming the moral high ground.
- sell oneself short — If you sell someone short, you do not point out their good qualities as much as you should or do as much for them as you should.
- senior aircraftman — a rank in the Royal Air Force comparable to that of a private in the army, though not the lowest rank in the Royal Air Force
- sense of direction — Your sense of direction is your ability to know roughly where you are, or which way to go, even when you are in an unfamiliar place.
- sequence of tenses — the sequence according to which the tense of a subordinate verb in a sentence is determined by the tense of the principal verb, as in I believe he is lying, I believed he was lying, etc
- shatterproof glass — glass designed to resist shattering
- shift one's ground — to change one's argument or defense
- shoot from the hip — the act of shooting with a bow, firearm, etc.
- sign of the zodiac — one of the twelve constellations along the path of the ecliptic.
- sit at the feet of — to be an admiring disciple of
- six-finger country — an isolated area considered as being inhabited by people who practise inbreeding
- sixth-form college — (in England and Wales) a college offering A-level and other courses to pupils over sixteen from local schools, esp from those that do not have sixth forms
- slip of the tongue — If you describe something you said as a slip of the tongue, you mean that you said it by mistake.
- smooth fox terrier — a breed of short-haired fox terrier with a mostly white, smooth coat.
- society of friends — a Christian denomination, founded in England c. 1650 by George Fox, that has no formal creed, liturgy, or priesthood and rejects violence in human relations, esp. warfare
- sodium hyposulfite — sodium thiosulfate.
- sodium thiosulfate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, Na 2 S 2 O 3 ⋅5H 2 O, used as a bleach and in photography as a fixing agent.
- soft touch sealing — Soft touch sealing is a copolymer seal for a tank, with characteristics designed for softness, used instead of a metal seal to help avoid fire when sparks are generated.
- software backplane — (programming, tool) A CASE framework from Atherton.
- soldier of fortune — a person who independently seeks pleasure, wealth, etc., through adventurous exploits.
- solid-fuel heating — heating that uses solid fuel, such as coal or coke
- sonic depth finder — a sonar instrument that uses echolocation to measure depths under water.
- sound and the fury — a novel (1929) by William Faulkner.
- specific viscosity — a measure of the resistance to flow of a fluid, expressed as the ratio of the absolute viscosity of the fluid to that of a reference fluid (usually water in the case of liquids)
- spectrofluorimeter — an instrument in which the spectrum of secondarily emitted fluorescent light is used to identify chemical compounds.
- spectrofluorometer — an instrument in which the spectrum of secondarily emitted fluorescent light is used to identify chemical compounds.
- spotted flycatcher — a European woodland songbird, Muscicapa striata, with a greyish-brown streaked plumage: family Muscicapidae (Old World flycatchers)
- spur-of-the-moment — occurring or done without advance preparation or deliberation; extemporaneous; unplanned: a spur-of-the-moment decision.