18-letter words containing i, t, o, u
- self-preoccupation — the state of being preoccupied.
- semiprecious stone — See at semiprecious.
- sexual intercourse — genital contact, especially the insertion of the penis into the vagina followed by orgasm; coitus; copulation.
- sexual orientation — one's natural preference in sexual partners; predilection for homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality.
- shift one's ground — to change one's argument or defense
- shipping documents — documents relating to the sending of a shipment of goods, for example containing details of contents, weight, value etc.
- shop till you drop — If you shop till you drop, you do a large amount of shopping.
- shotgun microphone — a directional microphone with a narrow-angle range of sensitivity.
- shugart associates — (company) The disk drive company, founded by Alan F. Shugart, which developed SCSI. Alan left Shugart Associates in 1974 [did he quit or was he fired?]. Shugart Associates was bought, and eventually shut down by Xerox.
- shunting operation — an operation in which rail coaches are manoeuvred
- simple enumeration — a procedure for arriving at empirical generalizations by haphazard accumulation of positive instances.
- six-finger country — an isolated area considered as being inhabited by people who practise inbreeding
- ski-mountaineering — a combination of the sports of skiing and mountaineering, for example by climbing up a mountain then skiing down it
- slip of the tongue — If you describe something you said as a slip of the tongue, you mean that you said it by mistake.
- small claims court — a special court established to handle small claims or debts, usually without the services of lawyers.
- small outline dimm — (storage) (SO-DIMM) A smaller kind of DIMM with 72 pins (supporting 32-bit transfers) or 144 pins (64-bit transfers). Regular DIMMs have 168 pins and support 64-bit transfers. Being roughly half the size of the regular DIMM, SO-DIMMs are often used in notebook computers.
- small-claims court — a special court established to handle small claims or debts, usually without the services of lawyers.
- sodium bicarbonate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble solid, in powder or granules, NaHCO 3 , usually prepared by the reaction of soda ash with carbon dioxide or obtained from the intermediate product of the Solvay process by purification: used chiefly in the manufacture of sodium salts, baking powder, and beverages, as a laboratory reagent, as a fire extinguisher, and in medicine as an antacid.
- sodium hyposulfite — sodium thiosulfate.
- sodium tetraborate — borax1 .
- sodium thiocyanate — a white powder or colorless, deliquescent crystals, NaSCN, used chiefly in organic synthesis and in medicine in the treatment of hypertension.
- 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.
- 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
- solubility product — the maximum number of undissociated ions, of an electrolyte in a saturated solution, capable at a given temperature of remaining in equilibrium with the undissolved phase of the solution.
- song without words — a song which only consists of a tune or melody and does not have any lyrics
- southampton island — an island in N Canada, in the Northwest Territories at the entrance to Hudson Bay. 19,100 sq. mi. (49,470 sq. km).
- southern rhodesian — a former name (until 1964) of Zimbabwe (def 1).
- spaghetti junction — an interchange, usually between motorways, in which there are a large number of underpasses and overpasses and intersecting roads used by a large volume of high-speed traffic
- special prosecutor — (formerly) an independent counsel.
- spectrofluorimeter — an instrument in which the spectrum of secondarily emitted fluorescent light is used to identify chemical compounds.
- squinting modifier — a word or phrase that can modify either the words that precede it or those that follow, as frequently in the sentence Studying frequently is tedious.
- standoff insulator — a type of insulator that supports an electrical conductor at a distance from other elements or surfaces.
- state of the union — A State of the Union speech or address is a speech, given once a year, in which the president of the United States talks about the current political issues that affect the country as a whole and about his plans for the year ahead.
- statutory sick pay — the pay an employee is legally entitled to when sick
- stirling's formula — a relation that approximates the value of n factorial (n!), expressed as .
- strontium monoxide — a white insoluble solid substance used in making strontium salts and purifying sugar. Formula: SrO
- student councillor — a student who is a member of a council or body representing the interests of students at a school, university or college
- sub-classification — to arrange in subclasses.
- subatomic particle — physics:
- subordinate clause — a clause that modifies the principal clause or some part of it or that serves a noun function in the principal clause, as when she arrived in the sentence I was there when she arrived or that she has arrived in the sentence I doubt that she has arrived.
- sugarloaf mountain — a mountain in SE Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, at the entrance to Guanabara Bay. 1280 feet (390 meters).
- sun-dried tomatoes — tomatoes that have been dried or preserved by exposure to the sun
- super giant slalom — a slalom race in which the course is longer and has more widely spaced gates than in a giant slalom.
- superstring theory — any supersymmetric string theory in which each type of elementary particle is treated as a vibration of a single fundamental string (superstring) at a particular frequency.
- supporting actress — an actress playing a supporting role
- supportive therapy — any treatment, such as the intravenous administration of certain fluids, designed to reinforce or sustain the physiological well-being of a patient
- supraorbital ridge — browridge.
- sustaining program — a radio or television program without a commercial sponsor.