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

  • sackville-west — Dame Victoria Mary ("Vita") 1892–1962, English poet and novelist (wife of Harold Nicolson).
  • saddle blanket — a saddle-shaped pad, as of felt or sheepskin, placed beneath the saddle to prevent it from irritating the horse's skin.
  • 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
  • salary bracket — a given range or bracket of salaries within which the amount of pay earned by someone falls
  • salt lake city — a state in the W United States. 84,916 sq. mi. (219,930 sq. km). Capital: Salt Lake City. Abbreviation: UT (for use with zip code), Ut.
  • saratoga trunk — a type of large traveling trunk used mainly by women during the 19th century.
  • satellite link — a link between a transmitting station and a receiving station via an artificial satellite
  • 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)
  • sergeant baker — a large brightly-coloured fish of the genus Latropiscis, found in temperate reef waters of Australasia
  • serrated wrack — the seaweed Fucus serratus
  • shaker heights — a city in NE Ohio, near Cleveland.
  • shark-infested — (of a body of water) known to contain large numbers of sharks, and therefore considered to be dangerous
  • shooting brake — station wagon.
  • sick and tired — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
  • sickle feather — one of the paired, elongated, sickle-shaped, middle feathers of the tail of the rooster.
  • silky anteater — an arboreal, tropical American anteater, Cyclopes didactylus, about the size of a rat, having a prehensile tail, glossy, golden fur, and two toes on each forelimb.
  • 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.
  • skull practice — a meeting for the purpose of discussion, exchange of ideas, solving problems, etc.
  • 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.
  • spark arrester — a device, consisting of wire netting or other material, used to stop or deflect sparks thrown from an open fireplace, a smokestack, or the like.
  • spark spectrum — a spectrum formed from the light produced by an electric spark, characteristic of the gas or vapor through which the spark passes.
  • speaking terms — if you are on speaking terms with someone, you are quite friendly with them and often talk to them
  • square bracket — bracket (def 3).
  • 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.
  • stack the deck — a more or less orderly pile or heap: a precariously balanced stack of books; a neat stack of papers.
  • stadium jacket — an insulated, parkalike jacket that reaches to the mid thigh or the knees and often has a drawstring around the bottom edge, worn outdoors in cold weather.
  • 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.
  • stay-in strike — sit-down strike.
  • steam cracking — Steam cracking is the main method of breaking down large molecules of hydrocarbons, in which a gaseous or liquid hydrocarbon is diluted with steam and then heated.
  • steamer basket — a gift basket of fruit, sweets, and the like, often including champagne, sent to a person departing on a trip, especially by ship.
  • sticking place — Also called sticking point. the place or point at which something stops and holds firm.
  • stinking cedar — an evergreen tree, Torreya taxifolia, of the yew family, native to Florida, having rank-smelling foliage and dark-green, egg-shaped fruit.
  • 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
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