18-letter words containing n, a, p, e, r
- stand-by passenger — someone who buys a (usually cheaper) ticket, if they are still available, on a plane just before it is about to leave rather than booking in advance
- stroustrup, bjarne — Bjarne Stroustrup
- 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.
- superior vena cava — See under vena cava.
- supporting actress — an actress playing a supporting role
- surgical appliance — a specialized device used by somebody to relieve a particular medical condition
- 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.
- sweptwing aircraft — an aircraft which has wings that are swept (usually) backwards
- 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).
- 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
- terrestrial planet — inner planet.
- the general public — the people in a society; people in general
- the passenger seat — the seat used by a passenger of a car, beside the driver
- threatened species — a species likely, in the near future, to become an endangered species within all or much of its range.
- to all appearances — apparently
- to cast aspersions — If you cast aspersions on someone or something, you suggest that they are not very good in some way.
- to learn the ropes — If you are learning the ropes, you are learning how a particular task or job is done.
- to open your heart — If you open your heart or pour out your heart to someone, you tell them your most private thoughts and feelings.
- to put years on sb — if you say that something such as an experience or a way of dressing has put years on someone, you mean that it has made them look or feel much older
- to scrape a living — If you say that someone scrapes a living or scratches a living, you mean that they manage to earn enough to live on, but it is very difficult. In American English, you say they scrape out a living or scratch out a living.
- 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.
- traditional weapon — a weapon having ceremonial tribal significance, such as an assegai or knobkerrie
- transfer passenger — a traveller who changes from one plane, train, or bus to another, or to another form of transport
- transient response — A transient response of a circuit is a temporary change in the way that it behaves due to an external excitation, that will disappear with time.
- transporter bridge — a bridge for carrying passengers and vehicles by means of a platform suspended from a trolley.
- transverse process — a process that projects from the sides of a vertebra.
- 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.
- under-compensation — to compensate or pay less than is fair, customary, or expected.
- under-depreciation — decrease in value due to wear and tear, decay, decline in price, etc.
- 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.
- universal coupling — a coupling between rotating shafts set at an angle to one another, allowing for rotation in three planes.
- upper partial tone — overtone (def 1).
- urban contemporary — popular dance music incorporating elements of rap, rhythm-and-blues, funk, and soul.
- venture capitalist — funds invested or available for investment in a new or unproven business enterprise.
- vermiform appendix — a narrow, blind tube protruding from the cecum, having no known useful function, in humans being 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) long and situated in the lower right-hand part of the abdomen.
- vulcan nerve pinch — (jargon) (Or "three-finger salute", Vulcan death grip; from the old "Star Trek" TV series via Commodore Amiga hackers) The keyboard combination that forces a soft boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a feature). On an Amiga this is done with Ctrl/Right Amiga/Left Amiga; on IBM PCs and many microcomputers it is Ctrl/Alt/Del; on Suns, L1-A; on some Macintoshes, it is
- ! Silicon Graphics users are obviously the most dextrous however, as these machines use the five-finger combination: Left Shift/Left Ctrl/Left Alt/Keypad Divide/F12. Compare quadruple bucky. - weberian apparatus — (in certain fishes) a chain of small bones and ligaments connecting the inner ear with the air bladder.
- 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.
- whispering gallery — a space or gallery beneath a dome or broad arch in which low sounds produced at any of certain points are clearly audible at certain other distant points.
- wild passionflower — the maypop, Passiflora incarnata.
- wilson's phalarope — a phalarope, Phalaropus tricolor, that breeds in the prairie regions of North America and winters in Argentina and Chile.
- women at point sur — a narrative poem (1927) by Robinson Jeffers.