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14-letter words containing k, o, t, a

  • potamoplankton — plankton living in freshwater streams.
  • practical joke — a playful trick, often involving some physical agent or means, in which the victim is placed in an embarrassing or disadvantageous position.
  • prawn cocktail — A prawn cocktail is a dish that consists of prawns, salad, and a sauce. It is usually eaten at the beginning of a meal.
  • protocol stack — (protocol)   A layered set of protocols which work together to provide a set of network functions. Each intermediate protocol layer uses the layer below it to provide a service to the layer above. The OSI seven layer model is an attempt to provide a standard framework within which to describe protocol stacks.
  • quotation mark — one of the marks used to indicate the beginning and end of a quotation, in English usually shown as “ at the beginning and ” at the end, or, for a quotation within a quotation, of single marks of this kind, as “He said, ‘I will go.’ ” Frequently, especially in Great Britain, single marks are used instead of double, the latter being then used for a quotation within a quotation.
  • railroad track — railway line
  • rathke's pouch — an invagination of stomodeal ectoderm developing into the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland.
  • re-embarkation — the act of boarding a ship or aircraft again
  • rock formation — rock that is arranged or formed in a certain way
  • rock partridge — the Greek partridge; Alectoris graeca
  • roller-skating — the act of moving on roller skates
  • rotating stock — Rotating stock is a system used especially in food stores and to reduce wastage, in which the oldest stock is moved to the front of shelves and new stock is added at the back.
  • saigo takamori — 1828–77, Japanese samurai, who led (1868) the coup that restored imperial government. In 1877 he reluctantly led a samurai rebellion, committing suicide when it failed
  • saratoga trunk — a type of large traveling trunk used mainly by women during the 19th century.
  • 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.
  • sea of okhotsk — part of the NW Pacific, surrounded by the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin Island, and the E coast of Siberia. Area: 1 589 840 sq km (613 838 sq miles)
  • shooting brake — station wagon.
  • skeleton draft — a basic or minimum draft or outline
  • skeleton staff — the minimum staff needed by a company during a time where most staff do not normally work, such as a holiday, weekend, etc
  • skip-tooth saw — a saw with alternate teeth absent
  • skirting board — fabric for making skirts.
  • smoking jacket — a loose-fitting jacket for men, often of a heavy fabric and trimmed with braid, worn indoors, especially as a lounging jacket.
  • smooth-talking — A smooth-talking man talks very confidently in a way that is likely to persuade people, but may not be sincere or honest.
  • social network — a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts: Strong social networks can encourage healthy behaviors.
  • sorting tracks — the part of a railroad yard used for the final sorting of cars from a classification yard.
  • squeak through — to succeed, get through, survive, etc. by a narrow margin or with difficulty
  • st. louis park — a city in E Minnesota, near Minneapolis.
  • 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.
  • starting block — a device used by runners, especially sprinters, for increasing their speed off the mark, consisting of a metal or wooden frame, usually secured to the ground at both ends, with adjustable, triangular-shaped blocks on each side for bracing the feet.
  • stock exchange — a building or place where stocks and other securities are bought and sold.
  • 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 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
  • stockade fence — a fence of closely fitted vertical boards with pointed tops.
  • stockbrokerage — a stockbroker's work or business
  • stocking frame — a type of knitting machine
  • stony tunguska — one of three rivers in Russia, in central Siberia, that is a tributary of the Yenisei and is 1550 km (960 miles) long
  • stop-and-frisk — a policy that permits a police officer to momentarily detain and pat down or search a person suspected of criminal activity, especially when suspected of concealing a weapon.
  • 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.
  • tailor's chalk — hardened chalk or soapstone used to make temporary guide marks on a garment that is being altered.
  • take a shot at — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
  • take away from — detract
  • take exception — to make objections (to); demur (at)
  • take inventory — count stock or belongings
  • take it out of — to sap the energy or vitality of
  • take it out on — to get into one's hold or possession by voluntary action: to take a cigarette out of a box; to take a pen and begin to write.
  • take no notice — If you take no notice of someone or something, you do not consider them to be important enough to affect what you think or what you do.
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