14-letter words containing k, e, r, o
- roller-skating — the act of moving on roller skates
- schlockmeister — a person who deals in or sells inferior or worthless goods; junk dealer.
- scratch monkey — (humour) As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
- self-reckoning — count; computation; calculation.
- sensor network — a network of tiny autonomous devices embedded in everyday objects or sprinkled on the ground, able to communicate using wireless links
- sheepback rock — roche moutonnée.
- shock absorber — a device for damping sudden and rapid motion, as the recoil of a spring-mounted object from shock.
- shooting brake — station wagon.
- skeleton draft — a basic or minimum draft or outline
- skilled labour — labour or work that demands skill and which you usually have to be trained for, or the workers that provide this labour
- smoke detector — an electronic fire alarm that is activated by the presence of smoke.
- smoker's cough — a chronic cough caused by smoking.
- social drinker — a person who drinks alcoholic beverages usually in the company of others and is in control of his or her drinking.
- social network — a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts: Strong social networks can encourage healthy behaviors.
- sock suspender — garter (def 1).
- sonderkommando — a group of prisoners assigned to collect belongings and dispose of the bodies of other prisoners who had died or been killed.
- speak well for — to say or indicate something favorable about
- speckled trout — brook trout (def 1).
- squeak through — to succeed, get through, survive, etc. by a narrow margin or with difficulty
- stalking horse — If you describe a person or thing as a stalking horse, you mean that it is being used to obtain a temporary advantage so that someone can get what they really want.
- stalking-horse — a horse, or a figure of a horse, behind which a hunter hides in stalking game.
- starch blocker — a substance ingested in the belief that it inhibits the body's ability to metabolize starch and thereby promotes weight loss: declared illegal in the U.S. by the FDA.
- stick together — be united
- stinking roger — any of various plants having an unpleasant odor.
- stock in trade — the requisites for carrying on a business, especially goods kept on hand for sale in a store.
- stock transfer — Stock transfer is the act of moving goods from one part of the distribution chain to another.
- stock turnover — the rate at which stock is sold and replenished
- stock watering — the creation of more new shares in a company than is justified by its assets
- stock-in-trade — items used in performing a job
- stockbrokerage — a stockbroker's work or business
- stocking frame — a type of knitting machine
- stoke-on-trent — a city in N Staffordshire, in central England, on the Trent River: pottery and china.
- straight poker — one of the original forms of poker in which players are dealt five cards face down, upon which they bet and then have the showdown without drawing any cards.
- strike through — cross out
- surface worker — a person who works on or near the ground surface
- surfer's knobs — a tumorlike nodule below a surfer's knee or on the upper area of the foot, caused by pressure on the skin and tissue exerted by the surfboard.
- surgeon's knot — a knot resembling a reef knot, used by surgeons for tying ligatures and the like.
- take away from — detract
- take inventory — count stock or belongings
- take the floor — that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface and upon which one walks.
- take years off — to make (someone) feel or look much younger
- tank destroyer — a high-speed, self-propelled, armored combat vehicle with antitank cannon.
- ten-acre block — a block of subdivided farming land, usually within commuting distance of a city, that provides a semirural way of life
- the job market — the people who are looking for work and the jobs available for them to do
- the silk route — an ancient trade route that linked Asia and the countries of the Mediterranean and was followed by Marco Polo when he travelled to Cathay
- ticket counter — the place where you buy a ticket for public transport, the theatre, cinema, etc
- to break cover — If you break cover, you leave a place where you have been hiding or sheltering from attack, usually in order to run to another place.
- to break ranks — If you say that a member of a group or organization breaks ranks, you mean that they disobey the instructions of their group or organization.
- to close ranks — If you say that the members of a group close ranks, you mean that they are supporting each other only because their group is being criticized.
- to get to work — If you get to work, go to work, or set to work on a job, task, or problem, you start doing it or dealing with it.