15-letter words containing p, l, i
- spanish needles — (used with a singular or plural verb) a composite plant, Bidens bipinnata, having achenes with downwardly barbed awns.
- spanish trefoil — alfalfa.
- sparkling water — soda water (def 1).
- special edition — newspaper, magazine: extra issue
- special effects — Usually, special effects. a video or audio illusion in film or other media, created with computer-generated images, prosthetic makeup, pyrotechnics, etc.
- special feature — an article differing from the normal format and focusing on a particular topic
- special library — a library maintained by an organization, as a business, association, or government agency, to collect materials and provide information of special relevance to the work of the organization.
- special licence — a licence permitting a marriage to take place by dispensing with the usual legal conditions
- special partner — a partner whose liability for the firm's debts is limited to the amount that partner has invested in the firm.
- special session — a session, as of a legislature or council, called to meet in addition to those held regularly.
- special student — a student who is not seeking a degree but enrols in a course, esp to gain academic credits
- special subject — an area of knowledge in which someone specializes
- specific volume — volume per unit mass; the reciprocal of density.
- spectral series — a series of lines in the spectrum of light emitted by excited atoms of an element, each line being related to the others in the series by a simple numerical equation and identified with a particular energy level of an atom of the element.
- spectrochemical — of, relating to, or utilizing the techniques of spectrochemistry.
- speller-divider — a reference book that lists words in alphabetical order to show spelling and syllabification.
- spelling reform — an attempt to change the spelling of English words to make it conform more closely to pronunciation.
- spermatoblastic — relating to a spermatoblast
- spherical angle — an angle formed by arcs of great circles of a sphere.
- spill the beans — the edible nutritious seed of various plants of the legume family, especially of the genus Phaseolus.
- spill your guts — If someone spills their guts, they tell you everything about something secret or private.
- spin the bottle — a game in which someone spins a bottle and receives a kiss from the person at whom the bottle points on coming to rest.
- spinal ganglion — a ganglion on the dorsal root of each spinal nerve, containing the cell bodies of sensory nerves.
- spiny cocklebur — a cocklebur, Xanthium spinosum, introduced into North America from Europe.
- spiral notebook — a notebook held together by a coil of wire passed through small holes punched at the back edge of the covers and individual pages
- spirit leveling — leveling according to the indications of a spirit level.
- spirit wrestler — a Doukhobor.
- spirits of salt — a solution of hydrochloric acid in water
- spit and polish — great care in maintaining smart appearance and crisp efficiency: The commander was concerned more with spit and polish than with the company's morale.
- spratly islands — a widely-scattered group of uninhabited islets and reefs in the S South China Sea, the subject of territorial claims wholly or in part by six neighbouring nations
- spread sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical analysis by selecting a number of short passages at random throughout the work and considering their aggregation
- spread-eagleism — boastfulness or bombast, especially in the display of patriotic or nationalistic pride in the U.S.; flag-waving.
- spring-cleaning — a complete cleaning of a place, as a home, done traditionally in the spring of the year.
- sprinkler dance — a celebratory dance in which participants extend one arm and shake it to imitate the action of a rotating water sprinkler
- starting pistol — a pistol used to give the signal to start a race
- stereotypically — in a stereotypical manner
- stiff upper lip — stoicism
- stigmatophilist — a person who has stigmatophilia
- stilpnosiderite — a resinous variety of limonite with a black-brown colour
- stirrup leather — the strap that holds the stirrup of a saddle.
- strephosymbolia — a condition of perceiving objects as their mirror image and, specifically, having difficulty in distinguishing letters in words
- streptobacillus — any of various bacilli that form in chains.
- styloid process — a long, spinelike process of a bone, especially the projection from the base of the temporal bone.
- sublapsarianism — infralapsarianism.
- subperiosteally — the normal investment of bone, consisting of a dense, fibrous outer layer, to which muscles attach, and a more delicate, inner layer capable of forming bone.
- subprofessional — being below professional standards: subprofessional health care.
- subreptitiously — in a subreptitious manner
- sulfite process — a process for making wood pulp by digesting wood chips in an acid liquor consisting of sulfurous acid and a salt, usually calcium bisulfite.
- sulphinpyrazone — a uricosuric drug with molecular formula C23H20N2O3S, used in the treatment of chronic gout
- sulphur dioxide — a colourless soluble pungent gas produced by burning sulphur. It is both an oxidizing and a reducing agent and is used in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, the preservation of a wide range of foodstuffs (E220), bleaching, and disinfecting. Formula: SO2