17-letter words containing p, a, s, n
- speak one's piece — a separate or limited portion or quantity of something: a piece of land; a piece of chocolate.
- special constable — a person recruited for temporary or occasional police duties, esp in time of emergency
- special education — education that is modified or particularized for those with singular needs, as disabled or maladjusted people, slow learners, or gifted children.
- special messenger — a postal worker who delivers mail by special delivery
- special schooling — the system of educating children with special needs in schools designed to meet their needs
- spectrum analyser — an instrument that splits an input waveform into its frequency components, which are then displayed
- spectrum analysis — the determination of the constitution or condition of bodies and substances by means of the spectra they produce.
- spenserian sonnet — a sonnet employing the rhyme scheme abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee.
- spenserian stanza — the stanza used by Spenser in his Faerie Queene and employed since by other poets, consisting of eight iambic pentameter lines and a final Alexandrine, with a rhyme scheme of ababbcbcc.
- sperrin mountains — a mountain range in NW Northern Ireland
- spherical polygon — a closed figure formed by arcs of great circles on a spherical surface.
- spinal anesthesia — interruption of conduction of nerve impulses by the injection of an anesthetic into the spinal canal that reduces sensitivity to pain without loss of consciousness.
- spinal meningitis — infection of spinal membrane
- spiny-headed worm — any of a small group of endoparasites of the phylum Acanthocephala, as larvae parasitic in insects and crustaceans and as adults in various vertebrates.
- spiritual healing — faith healing
- spit in the ocean — a variety of poker in which four cards are dealt face down to each player and one card, forming the fifth for all hands, is dealt face up in the center of the table, the exposed card and others of its denomination being wild cards.
- spitting distance — a short space or distance
- split keyboarding — the act or practice of editing data from one terminal on another terminal
- split personality — multiple personality.
- spongy parenchyma — the lower layer of the ground tissue of a leaf, characteristically containing irregularly shaped cells with relatively few chloroplasts and large intercellular spaces.
- spoonbill catfish — flathead catfish.
- spot announcement — a brief radio or television announcement, usually an advertisement, made by an individual station during or after a network program.
- spot-illustration — a rounded mark or stain made by foreign matter, as mud, blood, paint, ink, etc.; a blot or speck.
- spotted sandpiper — a North American sandpiper, Actitis macularia, that has brownish-gray upper parts and white underparts, and is spotted with black in the summer.
- spread your wings — if you spread your wings, you do something new and rather difficult or move to a new place, because you feel more confident in your abilities than you used to and you want to gain wider experience
- spring cankerworm — the striped, green caterpillar of any of several geometrid moths: a foliage pest of various fruit and shade trees, as Paleacrita vernata (spring cankerworm) and Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm)
- st. crispin's day — October 25: anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (1415).
- stand-up comedian — performer: tells jokes
- standing expenses — fixed or flat expenses or charges
- stars and stripes — US national flag
- steamboat springs — a town in NW Colorado: ski resort.
- steamship company — a company which has a fleet of steamships
- storm in a teacup — a violent fuss or disturbance over a trivial matter
- stray capacitance — undesired capacitance in equipment, occurring between the wiring, between the wiring and the chassis, or between components and the chassis
- stymphalian birds — a flock of predacious birds of Arcadia that were driven away and killed by Hercules as one of his labors.
- subscription rate — the price charged for a subscription
- sunday supplement — a special section incorporated in the Sunday editions of many newspapers, often containing features on books, celebrities, home entertainment, gardening, and the like.
- super-nationalism — an extreme or fanatical loyalty or devotion to a nation.
- superaerodynamics — the branch of aerodynamics that deals with gases at very low densities.
- superalimentation — nourishment; nutrition.
- supercolumniation — the placing of one order of columns above another.
- supernova remnant — an expanding shell of gas, with accompanying strong radio and x-ray emissions, produced by a supernova.
- superregeneration — regeneration in which a signal is alternately amplified and quenched at a frequency slightly above the audible range to achieve high sensitivity with a single tube.
- supply and demand — economy: basic market theory
- supply management — business purchasing
- support mechanism — any formal system or method of providing support or assistance
- supra-nationalism — outside or beyond the authority of one national government, as a project or policy that is planned and controlled by a group of nations.
- supralapsarianism — the doctrine that the decree of election preceded human creation and the Fall (opposed to infralapsarianism).
- supreme commander — the military officer commanding all allied forces in a theater of war.
- take no prisoners — to be uncompromising and resolute in one's actions