17-letter words containing i, r, d, p
- spotted sandpiper — a North American sandpiper, Actitis macularia, that has brownish-gray upper parts and white underparts, and is spotted with black in the summer.
- spread your wings — if you spread your wings, you do something new and rather difficult or move to a new place, because you feel more confident in your abilities than you used to and you want to gain wider experience
- springfield rifle — a single-shot, breechloading .45-caliber rifle used by the U.S. Army from 1867 to 1893.
- spruce gall aphid — any of various homopterous insects of the family Adelgidae, as Adelges abietis (spruce gall aphid) and Pineus pinifoliae (pine leaf aphid) that feed and form galls on conifers.
- st. crispin's day — October 25: anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (1415).
- stars and stripes — US national flag
- stratified sample — a sample that is not drawn at random from the whole population, but separately from a number of disjoint strata of the population in order to ensure a more representative sample
- striped killifish — a killifish, Fundulus majalis, of the Atlantic coast of the U.S., the female of which is marked with black stripes.
- stymphalian birds — a flock of predacious birds of Arcadia that were driven away and killed by Hercules as one of his labors.
- superaerodynamics — the branch of aerodynamics that deals with gases at very low densities.
- superconductivity — the phenomenon of almost perfect conductivity shown by certain substances at temperatures approaching absolute zero. The recent discovery of materials that are superconductive at temperatures hundreds of degrees above absolute zero raises the possibility of revolutionary developments in the production and transmission of electrical energy.
- supervision order — an order by a juvenile court requiring a named probation officer or local-authority social worker to advise, assist, and befriend a child or young person who is the subject of care proceedings, over a period of up to three years
- supervisory board — a board of management of which nonmanagerial workers are members, having supervisory powers over some aspects of management decision-making
- suspension bridge — a bridge having a deck suspended from cables anchored at their extremities and usually raised on towers.
- take in good part — to respond to (teasing) with good humour
- telescopic damper — a device with telescopic parts that reduce vibration in a motor vehicle
- temporomandibular — of, relating to, or situated near the hinge joint formed by the lower jaw and the temporal bone of the skull.
- terephthalic acid — a white, crystalline, water-insoluble solid, C 8 H 6 O 2 , the para isomer of phthalic acid: used chiefly in the manufacture of resins and textile fibers.
- the little dipper — a small faint constellation, the brightest star of which is the Pole Star, lying 1° from the true celestial pole
- the tabloid press — (considered as a whole) newspapers with pages about 30 cm (12 inches) by 40 cm (16 inches), usually characterized by an emphasis on photographs and a concise and often sensational style
- therapeutic index — the ratio between the dosage of a drug that causes a lethal effect and the dosage that causes a therapeutic effect.
- thermoperiodicity — the effect on an organism of rhythmic fluctuations in temperature.
- to open your mind — If something opens your mind to new ideas or experiences, it makes you more willing to accept them or try them.
- to slip your mind — If something slips your mind, you forget it.
- trapdoor function — a function defined from data by means of a mathematical procedure in such a way that it is easy to obtain the function when the data are known, but when the procedure and data are not known it becomes very difficult to determine the original data: used in cryptography, where the data are the characters of the plain text, or message, and the trapdoor function is the cryptogram.
- triskaidekaphobia — fear or a phobia concerning the number 13.
- tropical medicine — the branch of medicine dealing with the study and treatment of diseases occurring in the tropics.
- uncomprehendingly — to understand the nature or meaning of; grasp with the mind; perceive: He did not comprehend the significance of the ambassador's remark.
- undercompensation — to compensate or pay less than is fair, customary, or expected.
- unpredictableness — not predictable; not to be foreseen or foretold: an unpredictable occurrence.
- vice-presidential — relating to a person who ranks immediately below the chief executive or head of state of a republic
- video disk player — a device that reads the information on a video disc
- visually impaired — (of a person) having reduced vision so severe as to constitute a handicap.
- vulcan death grip — (jargon) A variant of Vulcan nerve pinch derived from a Star Trek classic epsisode where a non-existant "Vulcan death grip" was used to fool Romulans that Spock had killed Kirk.
- wedding reception — party after a marriage
- well-proportioned — adjusted to proper proportion or relation.
- wild sarsaparilla — a low plant, Aralia nudicaulis, of the ginseng family, native to eastern North America, having a single, long-stalked, compound leaf and a ball-like cluster of greenish-yellow flowers.
- without prejudice — fairly
- wood preservative — a coating applied to timber as a protection against decay, insects, weather, etc
- yorkshire pudding — a pudding made of an unsweetened batter of flour, salt, eggs, and milk, baked under meat as it roasts to catch the drippings or baked separately with a small amount of meat drippings.