20-letter words containing p, e, s, i
- specialist registrar — a hospital doctor senior to a house officer but junior to a consultant, specializing in medicine (medical specialist registrar), surgery (surgical specialist registrar), or some subspeciality of either
- specific conductance — conductivity (def 2).
- specific performance — (especially in the sale of land) literal compliance with one's contractual promises pursuant to a judicial mandate.
- specific-conductance — conductivity (def 2).
- spectrophotoelectric — pertaining to the relationship between the wavelength of the incident radiation and the number of electrons released by a photoelectric substance.
- 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.
- spike someone's guns — a weapon consisting of a metal tube, with mechanical attachments, from which projectiles are shot by the force of an explosive; a piece of ordnance.
- spiral of archimedes — a curve that is the locus of a point that moves outward with uniform speed along a vector, beginning at the origin, while the vector rotates about the origin with uniform angular velocity. Equation (in polar coordinates): r = aθ.
- spirit of enterprise — the motivation to set up and succeed in business or commerce
- splice the mainbrace — to issue and partake of an extra allocation of alcoholic spirits
- split the difference — the state or relation of being different; dissimilarity: There is a great difference between the two.
- spontaneous abortion — miscarriage (def 1).
- 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.
- spread like wildfire — If something, especially news or a rumour, spreads like wildfire, it spreads extremely quickly.
- spuyten duyvil creek — a channel in New York City at the north end of Manhattan Island, connecting the Hudson and Harlem rivers.
- square of opposition — a diagrammatic representation of the opposition of categorical propositions.
- st.-germain-des-pres — an area in Paris, on the Left Bank.
- staff of aesculapius — a representation of a forked staff with an entwining serpent, used as a symbol of the medical profession and as the insignia of the American Medical Association and other medical organizations. Compare caduceus (def 2).
- state highway patrol — a state's road traffic police
- state representative — a person elected by a state to be a member of the House of Representatives
- steak and kidney pie — meat pastry
- 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.
- swan's neck pediment — a broken pediment, the outline of which consists of a pair of S -curves tangent to the cornice level at the ends of the pediment, rising to a pair of scrolls on either side of the center, where a finial often rises between the scrolls.
- switchboard operator — a person who operates an installation in a telephone exchange, office, hotel, etc, at which the interconnection of telephone lines is manually controlled
- synoptic meteorology — a branch of meteorology analyzing data collected simultaneously over a wide region, for the purpose of weather forecasting.
- synthetic philosophy — the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, intended as a synthesis of all the sciences.
- take pity on someone — If you take pity on someone, you feel sorry for them and help them.
- telephone subscriber — a person who subscribes to a telephone service
- television programme — a programme broadcast on television
- the (great) pyramids — the three large pyramids at Gîza, Egypt: the largest is the Pyramid of Khufu
- the legal profession — the profession of law
- the price of someone — what someone deserves, esp a fitting punishment
- the thinking process — thought; the activity of thinking
- theosophical society — a society founded by Madame Blavatsky and others, in New York in 1875, advocating a worldwide eclectic religion based largely on Brahmanic and Buddhistic teachings.
- third-party software — software created by programmers or publishers independent of the manufacturer of the hardware for which it is intended.
- to disturb the peace — If someone is accused of disturbing the peace, they are accused of behaving in a noisy and offensive way in public.
- to give up the ghost — If someone gives up the ghost, they stop trying to do something because they no longer believe they can do it successfully. If a machine gives up the ghost, it stops working.
- to line your pockets — If you say that someone is lining their own or someone else's pockets, you disapprove of them because they are making money dishonestly or unfairly.
- to 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.
- transposition cipher — a cipher that rearranges the letters of the plain text in a different sequence.
- travel-sickness pill — a pill which is used to relieve the symptoms of travel or motion sickness, the condition of being nauseated from riding in a moving vehicle
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- tropospheric scatter — transmission of radio frequency signals that have been scattered from irregularities in the troposphere to locations hundreds of kilometers distant.