20-letter words containing i, s, r
- special boat service — a unit of the Royal Marines specializing in reconnaissance and sabotage
- special patrol group — a former police unit tasked with counter terrorism in the Royal Ulster Constabulary
- special relationship — the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom
- specialist registrar — a hospital doctor senior to a house officer but junior to a consultant, specializing in medicine (medical specialist registrar), surgery (surgical specialist registrar), or some subspeciality of either
- specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
- spectrophotoelectric — pertaining to the relationship between the wavelength of the incident radiation and the number of electrons released by a photoelectric substance.
- 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.
- spiral of archimedes — a curve that is the locus of a point that moves outward with uniform speed along a vector, beginning at the origin, while the vector rotates about the origin with uniform angular velocity. Equation (in polar coordinates): r = aθ.
- spirit of enterprise — the motivation to set up and succeed in business or commerce
- spirits of hartshorn — a colorless, pungent, suffocating, aqueous solution of about 28.5 percent ammonia gas: used chiefly as a detergent, for removing stains and extracting certain vegetable coloring agents, and in the manufacture of ammonium salts.
- 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-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.
- spread like wildfire — If something, especially news or a rumour, spreads like wildfire, it spreads extremely quickly.
- 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.-germain-des-pres — an area in Paris, on the Left Bank.
- stallman, richard m. — Richard Stallman
- standstill agreement — law: between company and bidder
- 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 highway patrol — a state's road traffic police
- state representative — a person elected by a state to be a member of the House of Representatives
- 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.
- stochastic terrorism — the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted: The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.
- stockholders' equity — the net assets of a corporation as owned by stockholders in capital stock, capital surplus, and undistributed earnings.
- stoichiometric ratio — The stoichiometric ratio is the exact ratio between air and flammable gas or vapor at which complete combustion takes place.
- stony-iron meteorite — a meteorite of roughly equal proportions of metallic iron and stony matter.
- straight as an arrow — direct, unwavering
- straight-cut tobacco — tobacco that is cut in such a way that it will lie flat.
- 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.
- strike off the rolls — to expel from membership
- string correspondent — stringer (def 6).
- structural isomerism — Chemistry. the relation of two or more compounds, radicals, or ions that are composed of the same kinds and numbers of atoms but differ from each other in structural arrangement (structural isomerism) as CH 3 OCH 3 and CH 3 CH 2 OH, or in the arrangement of their atoms in space and therefore in one or more properties. Compare optical isomerism, stereoisomerism.
- subscription edition — an edition of one or more volumes for which a number of prospective purchasers place orders, usually in advance of publication.
- subscription library — a commercial lending library
- suitland-silver hill — a city in central Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
- summary jurisdiction — the right a court has to adjudicate immediately upon some matter arising during its proceedings
- 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.
- supersonic transport — a commercial jet airplane that can fly faster than the speed of sound. Abbreviation: SST.
- surface-active agent — any substance that when dissolved in water or an aqueous solution reduces its surface tension or the interfacial tension between it and another liquid.
- surveillance society — a society where surveillance technology is widely used to monitor people's everyday activities
- switchboard operator — a person who operates an installation in a telephone exchange, office, hotel, etc, at which the interconnection of telephone lines is manually controlled
- symmetric difference — the union of the relative complements of two sets.