18-letter words containing k, e, r, a
- sierra blanca peak — a mountain in S New Mexico: highest peak in the Sacramento Mountains. 11,997 feet (3651 meters).
- ski-mountaineering — a combination of the sports of skiing and mountaineering, for example by climbing up a mountain then skiing down it
- skinny-rib sweater — a tight-fitting ribbed woollen jumper or pullover
- snake in the grass — a treacherous person, especially one who feigns friendship.
- snakes and ladders — Snakes and ladders is a British children's game played with a board and dice. When you go up a ladder, you progress quickly. When you go down a snake, you go backwards.
- societal marketing — marketing that takes into account society's long-term welfare
- software backplane — (programming, tool) A CASE framework from Atherton.
- speak for yourself — If you say 'Speak for yourself' when someone has said something, you mean that what they have said is only their opinion or applies only to them.
- spike-tooth harrow — a harrow equipped with straight teeth on horizontal bars, usually employed to smooth and level plowed soil or seedbeds for planting or sowing.
- stokely carmichael — Hoagland Howard [hohg-luh nd] /ˈhoʊg lənd/ (Show IPA), ("Hoagy") 1899–1981, U.S. songwriter and musician.
- strike an attitude — to assume a posture or pose, often an affected or theatrical one
- swartkrans ape-man — the fossil remains of the extinct hominid Australopithecus robustus, found at Swartkrans, Republic of South Africa: formerly classified in the genus Paranthropus.
- sympathetic strike — sympathy strike.
- take a deep breath — If you say that you took a deep breath before doing something dangerous or frightening, you mean that you tried to make yourself feel strong and confident.
- take out insurance — take out insurance against something
- take sth in stride — If you take a problem or difficulty in stride, you deal with it calmly and easily.
- take sth literally — If you take something literally, you think that a word or expression is being used with its most simple or basic meaning.
- take the wraps off — to reveal
- talk a blue streak — speak rapidly and incessantly
- tardive dyskinesia — a disorder characterized by restlessness and involuntary rolling of the tongue or twitching of the face, trunk, or limbs, usually occurring as a complication of long-term therapy with antipsychotic drugs.
- telford and wrekin — a unitary authority in W Central England, in Shropshire. Pop: 160 300 (2003 est). Area: 289 sq km (112 sq miles)
- the cat's whiskers — a person or thing that is excellent or superior
- the dark continent — a term for Africa when it was relatively unexplored
- the masurian lakes — a group of lakes in Masuria in NE Poland: scene of Russian defeats by the Germans (1914, 1915) during World War I
- the northern karoo — a high arid plateau in South Africa, north of the Central Karoo
- the-cocktail-party — a play in verse (1950) by T. S. Eliot.
- the-dark-continent — Africa: so called, especially during the 19th century, because little was known about it.
- thorfinn karlsefni — 980–after 1007, Icelandic navigator, explorer, and leader of early colonizing expedition to Vinland, in North America.
- ticker-tape parade — a parade honoring a visiting dignitary, hero, or the like in which confetti, shredded newspapers, or the like are showered into the streets from buildings along the parade route.
- timber rattlesnake — a rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus horridus, of the eastern U.S., usually having the body marked with dark crossbands.
- to clear the decks — If you clear the decks, you get ready to start something new by finishing any work that has to be done or getting rid of any problems that are in the way.
- to speak your mind — If you speak your mind, you say firmly and honestly what you think about a situation, even if this may offend or upset people.
- track geometry car — a railroad car equipped with instruments for providing a continuous printed record of the cross level, gauge, alignment, warp, curvature, and bank of a track.
- transmission brake — A transmission brake is a brake that operates on the transmission system of a vehicle rather than directly on the wheels.
- treaty of rijswijk — a treaty signed at Rijswijk in the Netherlands in 1697, ending the War of the Grand Alliance
- trickle irrigation — drip irrigation.
- truck center plate — one of a pair of plates that fit together and support the body of a car on a truck, while allowing the truck to rotate with respect to the body. One plate (body center plate) is attached to the underside of the car body and the other (truck center plate) is part of the car truck.
- turk's-head cactus — a cactus, Melocactus communis, of Jamaica, having needlelike spines and a cylindrical body with a tawny-red, fezlike terminal part bearing red flowers.
- turn one's back on — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- under lock and key — a device for securing a door, gate, lid, drawer, or the like in position when closed, consisting of a bolt or system of bolts propelled and withdrawn by a mechanism operated by a key, dial, etc.
- under the jackboot — If a country or group of people is under the jackboot, they are suffering because the government is cruel and undemocratic.
- upper klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
- vicar of wakefield — a novel (1766) by Goldsmith.
- virginia snakeroot — any of various plants whose roots have been regarded as a remedy for snakebites, as the herb Aristolochia serpentaria (Virginia snakeroot) having a medicinal rhizome and rootlets, and the white-flowered Polygala senega (Seneca snakeroot) having a medicinal root.
- war risk insurance — life insurance for members of the armed forces.
- water stick insect — a slender sticklike flightless water bug, Ranatra linearis, that is predatory on small creatures such as water fleas
- watson-crick model — a widely accepted model for the three-dimensional structure of DNA, featuring a double-helix configuration for the molecule's two hydrogen-bonded complementary polynucleotide strands.
- weak nuclear force — weak interaction
- wernicke's aphasia — a type of aphasia caused by a lesion in Wernicke's area of the brain and characterized by grammatical but more or less meaningless speech and an apparent inability to comprehend speech.
- western meadowlark — any of several American songbirds of the genus Sturnella, of the family Icteridae, especially S. magna (eastern meadowlark) and S. neglecta (western meadowlark) having a brownish and black back and wings and a yellow breast, noted for their clear, tuneful song.