16-letter words containing i, r, k, s
- river carpsucker — a carpsucker, Carpiodes carpio, found in silty rivers of the central U.S. south to Mexico.
- rocket scientist — a specialist in rocketry.
- roskind grammars — (tool) Yacc-based parsers for C and C++ by Jim Roskind. It does not use the %prec and %assoc YACC features so conflicts are never hidden. The C grammar has only one shift-reduce conflict, the C++ grammar has a few more. With byacc it can produce graphical parse trees automatically. The C grammar conforms to ANSI C and the C++ grammar supports cfront 2.0 constructs.
- sailmaker's palm — palm1 (def 4).
- scribbling block — scratch pad.
- security blanket — a blanket or other familiar item carried especially by a young child to provide reassurance and a feeling of psychological security.
- sedimentary rock — rock formed from compacted minerals
- sekondi-takoradi — a seaport in SW Ghana.
- selective strike — a partial strike against a particular area of a business or against one employer or a small number of employers in a collective bargaining situation
- shakedown cruise — extortion, as by blackmail or threats of violence.
- short ski method — a way of learning to ski, using short skis
- shot in the dark — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
- shrinking violet — a shy, modest, or self-effacing person.
- sick as a parrot — very disappointed
- sidestream smoke — secondhand smoke.
- silk-cotton tree — any of several spiny trees belonging to the genus Ceiba, of the bombax family, having palmately compound leaves and seeds surrounded by silk cotton, especially C. pentandra, from which kapok is obtained.
- silky flycatcher — any of several passerine birds of the family Ptilogonatidae, of the southwestern U.S. to Panama, related to the waxwings.
- snakebite remedy — hard liquor.
- sour-milk cheese — cottage cheese made from sour milk.
- spanish mackerel — an American game fish, Scomberomorus maculatus, inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean.
- sparking voltage — the minimum voltage required to produce a spark across a given spark gap.
- speak for itself — be self-evident
- speaking trumpet — a trumpet-shaped instrument used to carry the voice a great distance or held to the ear by a deaf person to aid his hearing
- speed networking — the practice of trying to form business connections and contacts through meetings at which individuals are given the opportunity to have several conversations of limited duration with strangers
- spring snowflake — a European amaryllidaceous plant, Leucojum vernum, with white nodding bell-shaped flowers
- sprinkler system — apparatus for automatically extinguishing fires in a building, consisting of a system of water pipes in or below the ceilings, with valves or sprinklers usually made to open automatically at a certain temperature.
- square kilometer — a unit of area measurement equal to a square measuring one kilometer on each side. 2 , sq. km. Abbreviation: km.
- sticking plaster — an adhesive cloth or other material for covering and closing superficial wounds, holding bandages in place, etc.
- stock car racing — the sport of racing in stock cars
- stocking stuffer — a small, usually inexpensive gift that is placed with others in a Christmas stocking.
- straight whiskey — pure, unblended whiskey of 80 to 110 proof.
- streak lightning — lightning in which there is a sudden flash from what appears to be a single main line
- strike a balance — compromise
- strike a bargain — an advantageous purchase, especially one acquired at less than the usual cost: The sale offered bargains galore.
- substantive rank — a permanent rank in the armed services obtained by length of service, selection, etc
- swiss army knife — a small knife with blades and other tools, such as a nail file and corkscrew, all folding into the handle.
- take by surprise — to strike or occur to with a sudden feeling of wonder or astonishment, as through unexpectedness: Her beauty surprised me.
- tracking station — a facility equipped with instrumentation for following the flight path of, communicating with, and collecting data from a rocket or spacecraft.
- turkish crescent — crescent (def 6).
- unpublished work — a literary work that has not been reproduced for sale or publicly distributed.
- unskilled worker — a worker who does not have any special skill or training
- user-defined key — a key on the keyboard of a computer that can be used to carry out any of a limited number of predefined actions as selected by the user
- windsor, duke of — (since 1917) a member of the present British royal family. Compare Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (def 1).
- work-in-progress — In book-keeping, work-in-progress refers to the monetary value of work that has not yet been paid for because it has not yet been completed.