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20-letter words containing o, n, p, r, e, s

  • pull (one's) rank on — to take advantage of one's military rank in enforcing commands or one's high position or seniority in making demands on (a subordinate)
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
  • raynaud's phenomenon — a secondary circulatory disorder, often associated with a primary vascular disease, characterized by changes of blood flow resulting in white, bluish, or red hands and feet
  • real-time processing — data-processing by a computer which receives constantly changing data, such as information relating to air-traffic control, travel booking systems, etc, and processes it sufficiently rapidly to be able to control the source of the data
  • reciprocal insurance — insurance in which members of a reciprocal exchange, acting through an attorney-in-fact, insure themselves and each other.
  • reflecting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • refracting telescope — an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope.
  • refuse disposal unit — a unit or part of a sink that disposes of waste food, etc, by grinding
  • réseaux ip européens — (RIPE) A collaboration between European networks which use the TCP/IP protocol suite to provide Internet services.
  • respecter of persons — one whose behavior toward people is influenced by their social status, prestige, etc.
  • respiratory quotient — the ratio of the amount of carbon dioxide released by the lungs to the amount of oxygen taken in during a given period.
  • retinitis pigmentosa — degeneration of the retina manifested by night blindness and gradual loss of peripheral vision, eventually resulting in tunnel vision or total blindness.
  • revolving presidency — a form of presidency in which the president and vice-president, or countries or bodies acting as such, switch roles after a set period and then back again and so on
  • rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
  • rotations per minute — revolutions per minute
  • royal leamington spa — a city in Warwickshire, central England: health resort.
  • santa cruz operation — (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. SCO maintains its world headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, USA; a European headquarters in Watford, England; a Government Systems Group in Reston, Virginia; and offices in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, and throughout Europe and the United States. In February 1993, SCO acquired IXI Limited of Cambridge, England, the leading supplier of Unix System windowing software.
  • schizoid personality — sb with identity disorder
  • separation allowance — an allowance paid to a member of the military when they are forced to be apart from their family due to their military duties
  • separation of powers — the principle or system of vesting in separate branches the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of a government.
  • serve a person right — to pay a person back, esp for wrongful or foolish treatment or behaviour
  • service access point — (networking)   (SAP) The OSI term for the component of a network address which identifies the individual application on a host which is sending or receiving a packet. Different SAPs distinguish between different services or applications on a host, e.g. electronic mail, FTP, HTTP.
  • sex change operation — a surgical operation designed to change a person's physical sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
  • shakespearean sonnet — a sonnet form used by Shakespeare and having the rhyme scheme abab, cdcd, efef, gg.
  • sing for your supper — If someone has to sing for their supper, they have to do a job before they are allowed to do something they want to do.
  • single point mooring — monobuoy.
  • slip through the net — If criminals slip through the net, they avoid being caught by the system or trap that was meant to catch them.
  • sound motion picture — a motion picture with a soundtrack.
  • south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
  • south temperate zone — the part of the earth's surface between the tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle.
  • span of apprehension — the maximum number of objects that can be correctly assessed after a brief presentation
  • spanish oyster plant — a composite plant, Scolymus hispanicus, of southern Europe, having spiny, thistlelike leaf margins, small yellow flowers, and an edible root.
  • special relationship — the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural and historical relations between the United States and the United Kingdom
  • specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
  • spectroscopic binary — a binary star having components that are not sufficiently separated to be resolved by a telescope, known to be a binary only bythe variations in wavelength of emitted light that are detected by a spectroscope.
  • spherical aberration — variation in focal length of a lens or mirror from center to edge, due to its spherical shape.
  • spherical coordinate — Usually, spherical coordinates. any of three coordinates used to locate a point in space by the length of its radius vector and the angles this vector makes with two perpendicular polar planes.
  • spirit of enterprise — the motivation to set up and succeed in business or commerce
  • spontaneous abortion — miscarriage (def 1).
  • spontaneous recovery — the reappearance of a response after its extinction has been followed by a period of rest
  • spontaneous-abortion — Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
  • spotted crane's-bill — the American wild geranium, Geranium maculatum.
  • square of opposition — a diagrammatic representation of the opposition of categorical propositions.
  • step into the breach — If you step into the breach, you do a job or task which someone else was supposed to do or has done in the past, because they are suddenly unable to do it.
  • string correspondent — stringer (def 6).
  • subscription edition — an edition of one or more volumes for which a number of prospective purchasers place orders, usually in advance of publication.
  • superior conjunction — the alignment of an inferior planet and the sun in which the planet is at the far side of the sun from the earth.
  • supersonic transport — a commercial jet airplane that can fly faster than the speed of sound. Abbreviation: SST.
  • synoptic meteorology — a branch of meteorology analyzing data collected simultaneously over a wide region, for the purpose of weather forecasting.
  • telephone subscriber — a person who subscribes to a telephone service
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