23-letter words containing r, a, d, i, o
- sheltered accommodation — housing specially designed to provide a safe environment for the elderly, handicapped, or disabled, often with some shared facilities and a caretaker
- short-billed marsh wren — sedge wren.
- short-tailed shearwater — any of several long-winged seabirds, often used as food, especially Puffinus tenuirostris (short-tailed shearwater) of Australia and Puffinus griseus (sooty shearwater) which breeds in the Southern Hemisphere and winters in the Northern Hemisphere.
- sierra madre occidental — the system of mountains in the west of Mexico
- social democratic party — History/Historical. a political party in Germany advocating a form of social organization based on the economic and political ideology of Karl Marx.
- social education centre — a daycentre, run by a local authority, for people with learning disabilities and sometimes also for people who have physical disabilities or are mentally ill
- sodium tripolyphosphate — a white powder, Na 5 P 3 O 1 0 , used as a water softener, sequestering agent, and food additive.
- software developers kit — (jargon, product) (SDK, or "Software Development Kit") Software provided by a software vendor to allow their products to be used with those of other software vendors.
- somaliland protectorate — official name of the former British Somaliland.
- st. pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.
- staggered directorships — a defence against unwelcome takeover bids in which a company resolves that its directors should serve staggered terms of office and that no director can be removed from office without just cause, thus preventing a bidder from controlling the board for some years
- standard widget toolkit — (graphics, programming, standard) (SWT) The Eclipse Foundation's framework for developing graphical user interfaces in Java. SWT is written in explicitly standard Java but uses the Java Native Interface to talk to a platform-native GUI library. SWT is the third major attempt to give Java a decent GUI framework, following AWT and Swing. Of the three, SWT is the most consistent with the native GUIs but its programming model is hard to port to non-Windows platforms.
- state coordinate system — a system of right-angled planar coordinates established by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for each state in the United States.
- state-trading countries — countries whose export and import trading is government controlled
- straight bill of lading — a bill of lading that is issued to a specified consignee for the delivery of the goods and that cannot be endorsed to another party.
- take into consideration — take account of, allow for
- take sth in your stride — In British English, if you take a problem or difficulty in your stride, you deal with it calmly and easily. The American expression is take something in stride.
- the chamber of deputies — the lower legislative assembly in some parliaments
- the data protection act — a United Kingdom act of parliament designed to ensure the proper handling of information stored about individuals on computers and entitling individuals to find out what information is stored about them
- the kingdom of lorraine — an early medieval kingdom on the Meuse, Moselle, and Rhine rivers: later a duchy
- to add insult to injury — You say to add insult to injury when mentioning an action or fact that makes an unfair or unacceptable situation even worse.
- to be at your wit's end — If you say that you are at your wits' end, you are emphasizing that you are so worried and exhausted by problems or difficulties that you do not know what to do next.
- to drive a hard bargain — If people drive a hard bargain, they argue with determination in order to achieve a deal which is favourable to themselves.
- to have a police record — If you say that somebody has a police record, you mean that they have committed a crime or crimes and the police have a record of this.
- to have an axe to grind — If someone has an axe to grind, they are doing something for selfish reasons.
- tongue-and-groove joint — a long, narrow cut or indentation in a surface, as the cut in a board to receive the tongue of another board (tongue-and-groove joint) a furrow, or a natural indentation on an organism.
- trans-siberian railroad — a railroad traversing Siberia, from Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains to Vladivostok: constructed by the Russian government 1891–1916. over 4000 miles (6440 km) long.
- transcendental equation — an equation that involves transcendental functions.
- transcendental function — a function that is not an algebraic function.
- treat someone like dirt — If you say that someone treats you like dirt, you are angry with them because you think that they treat you unfairly and with no respect.
- trellis code modulation — (TCM) A modulation technique with hardware error detection and correction.
- trials and tribulations — difficult experiences
- trigonal trisoctahedron — a trisoctahedron whose faces are triangles.
- turn-and-bank indicator — bank-and-turn indicator.
- turn-and-slip indicator — bank-and-turn indicator.
- unconditional discharge — the release of a defendant without having to spend time on parole or probation
- uniform commercial code — a codification of commercial laws designed to provide uniformity among the states
- unincorporated business — a privately owned business, often owned by one person who has unlimited liability as the business is not legally registered as a company
- united church of canada — the largest Protestant denomination in Canada, formed in the 1920s by incorporating some Presbyterians and most Methodists
- united states air force — the permanent or regular military air force of the United States, established in 1947 as a separate service under the authority of the Department of Defense: a branch of the U.S. Army before 1947. Abbreviation: USAF.
- united states of brazil — former official name of Brazil.
- urea-formaldehyde resin — any of a group of resins formed by the interaction of urea and formaldehyde under conditions that include heat and pH control: used chiefly in the manufacture of buttons, baking enamels, and for making fabrics wrinkle-resistant.
- van der waals' equation — an equation of state relating the pressure, volume, and absolute temperature of a gas, taking into account the finite size of the molecules and the attractive force between them.
- veterans administration — the federal agency charged with administering benefits provided by law for veterans of the armed forces. Abbreviation: VA, V.A.
- video cassette recorder — See VCR.
- virtual device location — (Or "Virtual Address") The address of a device (e.g. disk, printer, terminal) belonging to a "guest" operating system. Such an address is mapped to a physical device. VM may remap several virtual disks to different parts of a single physical disk.
- virtual loadable module — (networking) (VLM) Novell's term for software modules that can be dynamically loaded to extend the functionality of the "VLM" NetWare Requester for MS-DOS that became standard beginning with Novell NetWare 4.
- volumetric displacement — the volume of air per revolution that passes through a mechanical pump when the pressure at the intake and the exhaust is the same as that of the atmosphere
- voter registration card — a card that enables a person to register in order to vote
- western lowland gorilla — the largest of the anthropoid apes, Gorilla gorilla, terrestrial and vegetarian, of western equatorial Africa and the Kivu highlands, comprising the subspecies G. g. gorilla (western lowland gorilla) G. g. graueri (eastern lowland gorilla) and G. g. beringei (mountain gorilla) now rare.