17-letter words containing p, r, i, s
- sperrin mountains — a mountain range in NW Northern Ireland
- spherical polygon — a closed figure formed by arcs of great circles on a spherical surface.
- 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.
- spiral bevel gear — a bevel gear having curved teeth tending to converge on the axis of rotation.
- spiritual bouquet — the spiritual presentation of a good work to another person.
- spiritual healing — faith healing
- spiritus frumenti — whiskey.
- split keyboarding — the act or practice of editing data from one terminal on another terminal
- split personality — multiple personality.
- sports facilities — places and things for doing sports
- 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)
- springfield rifle — a single-shot, breechloading .45-caliber rifle used by the U.S. Army from 1867 to 1893.
- spruce gall aphid — any of various homopterous insects of the family Adelgidae, as Adelges abietis (spruce gall aphid) and Pineus pinifoliae (pine leaf aphid) that feed and form galls on conifers.
- st. crispin's day — October 25: anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (1415).
- stars and stripes — US national flag
- steamboat springs — a town in NW Colorado: ski resort.
- stenothermophilic — growing best within a narrow temperature range.
- stereolithography — a process for creating three-dimensional objects using a computer-controlled laser to build up the required structure, layer by layer, from a liquid photopolymer that solidifies.
- stereospecificity — (of a reaction) producing a simple stereoisomer.
- stir one's stumps — to move or become active
- storm in a teacup — a violent fuss or disturbance over a trivial matter
- stratified sample — a sample that is not drawn at random from the whole population, but separately from a number of disjoint strata of the population in order to ensure a more representative sample
- stray capacitance — undesired capacitance in equipment, occurring between the wiring, between the wiring and the chassis, or between components and the chassis
- strike-slip fault — a geological fault on which the movement is along the strike of the fault
- striped killifish — a killifish, Fundulus majalis, of the Atlantic coast of the U.S., the female of which is marked with black stripes.
- stymphalian birds — a flock of predacious birds of Arcadia that were driven away and killed by Hercules as one of his labors.
- subjective spirit — spirit, insofar as it falls short of the attainments of objective spirit.
- subscription rate — the price charged for a subscription
- super-nationalism — an extreme or fanatical loyalty or devotion to a nation.
- super-terrestrial — pertaining to, consisting of, or representing the earth as distinct from other planets.
- 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.
- superconductivity — the phenomenon of almost perfect conductivity shown by certain substances at temperatures approaching absolute zero. The recent discovery of materials that are superconductive at temperatures hundreds of degrees above absolute zero raises the possibility of revolutionary developments in the production and transmission of electrical energy.
- supermassive star — Astronomy. a star with a mass more than fifty times the mass of the sun.
- 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.
- superstitiousness — of the nature of, characterized by, or proceeding from superstition: superstitious fears.
- supervision order — an order by a juvenile court requiring a named probation officer or local-authority social worker to advise, assist, and befriend a child or young person who is the subject of care proceedings, over a period of up to three years
- supervisory board — a board of management of which nonmanagerial workers are members, having supervisory powers over some aspects of management decision-making
- 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 sacrifice — the sacrifice of one's own life: Many made the supreme sacrifice during the war.
- surprise symphony — the Symphony No. 94 in G major (1791) by Franz Josef Haydn.
- suspension bridge — a bridge having a deck suspended from cables anchored at their extremities and usually raised on towers.
- tactile corpuscle — an oval sense organ made of flattened cells and encapsulated nerve endings, occurring in hairless skin, as the tips of the fingers and toes, and functioning as a touch receptor.
- take no prisoners — to be uncompromising and resolute in one's actions