18-letter words containing m, p, a
- sell someone a pup — to swindle someone by selling him something worthless
- september holidays — a period of time in September when people do not have to go to school, college or work
- september massacre — (in the French Revolution) the massacre of royalists and other inmates of the prisons of Paris, September 2–6, 1792.
- service department — a repair shop
- simple enumeration — a procedure for arriving at empirical generalizations by haphazard accumulation of positive instances.
- sleeping policeman — a bump built across roads, esp in housing estates, to deter motorists from speeding
- slow-motion replay — a showing again in slow motion of a sequence of action, esp of part of a sporting contest immediately after it happens
- small pastern bone — the part of the foot of a horse, cow, etc., between the fetlock and the hoof.
- soda-lime feldspar — plagioclase.
- sodium-vapour lamp — a type of electric lamp consisting of a glass tube containing neon and sodium vapour at low pressure through which an electric current is passed to give an orange light. They are used in street lighting
- something to spare — a surplus of something
- 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).
- spackling compound — spackle
- special assessment — a tax levied by a local government on private property to pay the cost of local public improvements, as sidewalk construction or sewage disposal, that are of general benefit to the property taxed.
- specimen signature — a signature to be compared to an original signature in order to verify someone's identity
- spectropolarimeter — an instrument for determining the extent to which plane-polarized light of various wavelengths is rotated by certain solutions, consisting of a combination of a spectroscope and a polarimeter.
- spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
- spirits of ammonia — a 10% solution of ammonia in alcohol
- st. james's palace — a palace in London, England: the royal residence from the time of Henry VIII until the accession of Victoria.
- subatomic particle — physics:
- subsidiary company — a company whose controlling interest is owned by another company.
- summary proceeding — a mode of trial authorized by statute to be held before a judge without the usual full hearing.
- super giant slalom — a slalom race in which the course is longer and has more widely spaced gates than in a giant slalom.
- surveyor's compass — an instrument used by surveyors for measuring azimuths.
- sustaining program — a radio or television program without a commercial sponsor.
- 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.
- sympathetic string — a thin wire string, as in various obsolete musical instruments, designed to vibrate sympathetically with the bowed or plucked strings to reinforce the sound.
- symphony orchestra — a large orchestra composed of wind, string, and percussion instruments and organized to perform symphonic compositions.
- system-programming — a program, as an operating system, compiler, or utility program, that controls some aspect of the operation of a computer (opposed to application program).
- systematic phoneme — a phonological unit in generative phonology representing an underlying form that takes into account the relationship between phonological patterns and morphological variation, as the unit underlying the second vowel in both derive and derivative.
- systems programmer — a person whose job is to program systems software
- talent competition — a contest in which people compete by showcasing their talents, for example in singing, dancing, acrobatics, etc
- teaching equipment — teaching aids
- television company — a company that broadcasts programmes by television
- temporal summation — the act or process of summing.
- temporary hardness — hardness of water due to the presence of magnesium and calcium hydrogencarbonates, which can be precipitated as carbonates by boiling
- the family compact — the ruling oligarchy in Upper Canada in the early 19th century
- the lords temporal — (in Britain) peers other than bishops in their capacity as members of the House of Lords
- the middle passage — the journey across the Atlantic Ocean from the W coast of Africa to the Caribbean: the longest part of the journey of the slave ships sailing to the Caribbean or the Americas
- the palmetto state — a nickname for South Carolina
- thiruvananthapuram — a state in SW India: formerly the regions of Travancore and Cochin. 15,005 sq. mi. (38,836 sq. km). Capital: Thiruvananthapuram.
- 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.
- under-compensation — to compensate or pay less than is fair, customary, or expected.
- unfair competition — acts done by a seller to confuse or deceive the public with intent to acquire a larger portion of the market, as by cutting prices below cost, misleading advertising, selling a spurious product under a false identity, etc.
- unit magnetic pole — the unit of magnetic pole strength equal to the strength of a magnetic pole that repels a similar pole with a force of one dyne, the two poles being placed in a vacuum and separated by a distance of one centimeter.
- up someone's alley — suited to someone's tastes or abilities
- upper klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
- upper middle class — wealthy, highly-educated people
- urban contemporary — popular dance music incorporating elements of rap, rhythm-and-blues, funk, and soul.