16-letter words containing o, a, s, i
- self-stimulation — to rouse to action or effort, as by encouragement or pressure; spur on; incite: to stimulate his interest in mathematics.
- self-subjugation — the act, fact, or process of subjugating, or bringing under control; enslavement: The subjugation of the American Indians happened across the country.
- self-vindication — the act of vindicating.
- semi-hibernation — Zoology. to spend the winter in close quarters in a dormant condition, as bears and certain other animals. Compare estivate.
- semi-mountainous — abounding in mountains: a mountainous wilderness.
- semiconservative — disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
- semidomesticated — living in a state of partial domestication.
- semiprivate room — a hospital room shared by two people, typically with a curtain dividing the room and providing some privacy
- semiprofessional — actively engaged in some field or sport for pay but on a part-time basis: semiprofessional baseball players.
- senate committee — a committee formed from the upper chamber of the legislature in, for example, the US, Canada, Australia, etc
- sensationalistic — subject matter, language, or style producing or designed to produce startling or thrilling impressions or to excite and please vulgar taste.
- separate opinion — an opinion written by a judge separately from other judges, which can either agree or disagree with the opinion written by the majority of judges
- series resonance — the resonance that results when circuit elements are connected with their inductance and capacitance in series, so that the impedance of the combination falls to a minimum at the resonant frequency
- service contract — law: between employer and employee
- service elevator — an elevator for the use of servants and delivery people and for carrying large items.
- session musician — a studio musician, esp one who works freelance
- severance motion — an application made to a judge or court for the division into separate parts of a joint estate, contract, etc
- sex-and-shopping — (of a novel) belonging to a genre of novel in which the central character, a woman, has a number of sexual encounters, and the author mentions the name of many up-market products
- sexual deviation — a type of mental disorder characterized by a preference for or obsession with unusual sexual practices, as pedophilia, sadomasochism, or exhibitionism.
- sexual relations — sexual intercourse; coitus.
- sexual selection — a special type of natural selection in which the sexes acquire distinct forms either because the members of one sex choose mates with particular features or because in the competition for mates among the members of one sex only those with certain traits succeed.
- shakedown cruise — extortion, as by blackmail or threats of violence.
- shared ownership — (in Britain) a form of house purchase whereby the purchaser buys a proportion of the dwelling, usually from a local authority or housing association, and rents the rest
- sharia-compliant — (of a product or service) produced or offered in accordance with the doctrines of the sharia
- shipping company — business that sends goods overseas
- shoestring catch — a catch of a ball on the fly, made close to the ground while running.
- shoot-to-disable — of or relating to shooting by soldiers or police that is intended to disable rather than kill
- shooting gallery — a place equipped with targets and used for practice in shooting.
- shopping channel — television station used to sell goods
- shopping village — a shopping centre that designed to look like a village
- shortfin corvina — See under corvina.
- shorthand typing — shorthand and typing
- shorthand typist — A shorthand typist is a person who types and writes shorthand, usually in an office.
- shorthand writer — a person trained to write in shorthand
- shot in the dark — a discharge of a firearm, bow, etc.
- shotgun marriage — a wedding occasioned or precipitated by pregnancy.
- show-me attitude — a sceptical frame of mind
- siberian mammoth — a shaggy-coated mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, that lived in cold regions across Eurasia and North America during the Ice Age, known from fossils, cave paintings, and well-preserved frozen carcasses.
- sick as a parrot — very disappointed
- sidestream smoke — secondhand smoke.
- signal generator — radio
- simeon ben yohai — flourished 2nd century a.d, Palestinian rabbi.
- simon boccanegra — an opera (1857) by Giuseppe Verdi.
- simonyi, charles — Charles Simonyi
- singapore strait — a strait between Singapore Island and the Riau Archipelago at the S end of the Malay Peninsula: shipping channel between the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait. 65 miles (105 km) long and 10 miles (16 km) wide.
- single occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as at a hotel, for one person in a room.
- sir isaac newton — Sir Isaac, 1642–1727, English philosopher and mathematician: formulator of the law of gravitation.
- situation comedy — a comedy drama, especially a television series made up of discrete episodes about the same group of characters, as members of a family.
- situation ethics — a view of ethics that deprecates general moral principles while emphasizing the source of moral judgments in the distinctive characters of specific situations.
- slang dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering the words, phrases, and idioms that reflect the least formal speech of a language. These terms are often metaphorical and playful, and are likely to be evanescent as the spoken language changes from one generation to another. Much slang belongs to specific groups, as the jargon of a particular class, profession, or age group. Some is vulgar. Some slang terms have staying power as slang, but others make a transition into common informal speech, and then into the standard language. An online slang dictionary, such as the Dictionary.com Slang Dictionary, provides immediate information about the meaning and history of a queried term and its appropriateness or lack of appropriateness in a range of social and professional circumstances.