18-letter words containing p, a, l, t, i
- self-tapping screw — a screw designed to tap its corresponding female thread as it is driven.
- september holidays — a period of time in September when people do not have to go to school, college or work
- shepherd satellite — a small moon orbiting near a planetary ring, whose gravitational pull helps confine the ring and the ring's extent.
- simple enumeration — a procedure for arriving at empirical generalizations by haphazard accumulation of positive instances.
- sit up like jackie — to sit bolt upright, esp cheekily
- 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
- solitary sandpiper — a North American sandpiper, Tringa solitaria, of inland wetlands, having a brownish-gray, white-spotted back and whitish underparts.
- 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).
- 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.
- special collection — a collection of materials segregated from a general library collection according to form, subject, age, condition, rarity, source, or value.
- special prosecutor — (formerly) an independent counsel.
- special relativity — the state or fact of being relative.
- specialist teacher — a teacher with expertise in working with children with special educational needs, such as dyslexia
- spectroheliography — the process of obtaining an image of the sun in light of a particular wavelength, such as calcium or hydrogen, showing the distribution of the element over the surface and in the solar atmosphere, using a spectroheliograph
- 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.
- spectropolariscope — an instrument combining the functions of a spectroscope with those of a polariscope.
- spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
- spherical triangle — a triangle formed by arcs of great circles of a sphere.
- spin stabilization — a technique by which a bullet, rocket, etc, is made to spin around its longitudinal axis to assist it in maintaining a steady flight path
- spinal anaesthesia — anaesthesia of the lower half of the body produced by injecting an anaesthetic beneath the arachnoid membrane surrounding the spinal cord
- status epilepticus — a condition in which repeated epileptic seizures occur without the patient gaining consciousness between them. If untreated for a prolonged period it can lead to long-term disability or death
- stepping-off place — jumping-off place (def 2).
- subatomic particle — physics:
- super giant slalom — a slalom race in which the course is longer and has more widely spaced gates than in a giant slalom.
- supraorbital ridge — browridge.
- talent competition — a contest in which people compete by showcasing their talents, for example in singing, dancing, acrobatics, etc
- talk between ships — TBS (def 1).
- television company — a company that broadcasts programmes by television
- temporal summation — the act or process of summing.
- terrestrial planet — inner planet.
- the family compact — the ruling oligarchy in Upper Canada in the early 19th century
- the general public — the people in a society; people in general
- 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 practicalities — the real facts or details of a situation, as opposed to its theoretical aspects
- the-cocktail-party — a play in verse (1950) by T. S. Eliot.
- thiosulphuric acid — an unstable acid known only in solutions and in the form of its salts. Formula: H2S2O3
- thrills and spills — If you refer to thrills and spills, you are referring to an experience which is exciting and full of surprises.
- to fall into place — If things fall into place, events happen naturally to produce a situation you want.
- to lick into shape — If you lick, knock, or whip someone or something into shape, you use whatever methods are necessary to change or improve them so that they are in the condition that you want them to be in.
- to play favourites — to display favouritism
- 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 spill the beans — If you spill the beans, you tell someone something that people have been trying to keep secret.
- traditional option — an option that once purchased cannot be resold
- traditional policy — a life assurance policy in which the policyholder's premiums are paid into a general fund and his or her investment benefits are calculated according to actuarial formulae
- traditional weapon — a weapon having ceremonial tribal significance, such as an assegai or knobkerrie
- transylvanian alps — a mountain range in S Romania; a SW extension of the Carpathian Mountains. Highest peak: Mount Negoiu, 2548 m (8360 ft)
- 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.
- upper palaeolithic — the latest of the three periods of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 40 000 bc and ending, in Europe, about 12 000 bc: characterized by the emergence of modern man, Homo sapiens
- upper partial tone — overtone (def 1).
- venture capitalist — funds invested or available for investment in a new or unproven business enterprise.