17-letter words containing r, o, l, e, t
- save shoe leather — to avoid wearing out shoes, as by taking a bus rather than walking
- scarlet firethorn — a Eurasian evergreen, thorny shrub, Pyracantha coccinea, of the rose family, having white, hairy flower clusters and bright red berries.
- sea grant college — a college or university doing research on marine resources under the U.S. National Sea Grant College and Program Act of 1966.
- secondary quality — one of the qualities attributed by the mind to an object perceived, such as color, temperature, or taste.
- self-appreciation — gratitude; thankful recognition: They showed their appreciation by giving him a gold watch.
- self-confirmation — the act of confirming.
- self-consecration — the act of setting oneself to a task or vocation without ordination by others or by a religious body.
- self-conservation — the act of conserving; prevention of injury, decay, waste, or loss; preservation: conservation of wildlife; conservation of human rights.
- self-introduction — the act of introducing or the state of being introduced.
- self-presentation — an act of presenting.
- self-preservation — preservation of oneself from harm or destruction.
- self-purification — a natural process of purifying, as the ability of a body of water to rid itself of pollutants.
- self-recollection — the act or power of recollecting, or recalling to mind; remembrance.
- self-renunciation — renunciation of one's own will, interests, etc.
- self-reproduction — the act or process of reproducing.
- selkirk mountains — a mountain range in SW Canada, in SE British Columbia. Highest peak: Mount Sir Sandford, 3533 m (11 590 ft)
- settlement worker — a person who works with underprivileged people in a settlement house.
- sexual generation — the gametophyte generation in the alternation of generations in plants that produces a zygote from male and female gametes.
- sheltered housing — accommodation designed esp for the elderly or infirm consisting of a group of individual premises, often with some shared facilities and a caretaker
- shetland pullover — a thick woollen sweater made from Shetland wool
- shoestring tackle — a tackle made around the ankles of the ball carrier.
- shorthold tenancy — letting of a dwelling for between one and five years at a fair rent
- silent revolution — a social or political revolution that takes place with little warning and without great fuss or unrest
- silicon rectifier — a rectifier consisting of a semiconductor diode using crystalline silicon
- silver collection — a collection that consists of silver coins that is made at a meeting etc
- sinbad the sailor — a merchant in The Arabian Nights who makes seven adventurous voyages
- single-track road — a road that is only wide enough for one vehicle
- sister of loretto — a member of a congregation of sisters founded at Loretto, Kentucky, in 1812 and engaged in educational and missionary works.
- slap on the wrist — a sharp blow or smack, especially with the open hand or with something flat.
- sleep deprivation — a condition in which you have not had enough sleep
- sleeper terrorist — a terrorist who is not currently active but assumes a guise in order to be in position, unsuspected, for future terrorist activities
- slenderness ratio — aspect ratio (def 4a).
- slenderness-ratio — Aeronautics. the ratio of the span of an airfoil to its mean chord.
- slip-joint pliers — pliers having a sliding joint, permitting the span of the jaws to be adjusted.
- slowly but surely — If you say that something is happening slowly but surely, you mean that it is happening gradually but it is definitely happening.
- social democratic — A social democratic party is a political party whose principles are based on social democracy.
- social enterprise — a business organization that works to benefit society as a whole
- social networking — the development of social and professional contacts; the sharing of information and services among people with a common interest.
- socialist realism — a state-approved artistic or literary style in some socialist countries, as the U.S.S.R., that characteristically celebrates an idealized vision of the life and industriousness of the workers.
- socratic elenchus — the drawing out of the consequences of a position in order to show them to be contrary to some accepted position
- soft-rock geology — geology dealing with sedimentary rocks.
- software platform — a major piece of software, as an operating system, an operating environment, or a database, under which various smaller application programs can be designed to run.
- soil conservation — any of various methods to achieve the maximum utilization of the land and preserve its resources through such controls as crop rotation, prevention of soil erosion, etc.
- solicitor general — a law officer who maintains the rights of the state in suits affecting the public interest, next in rank to the attorney general.
- south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
- south lanarkshire — a council area of S Scotland, comprising the S part of the historical county of Lanarkshire: included within Strathclyde Region from 1975 to 1996: has uplands in the S and part of the Glasgow conurbation in the N: mainly agricultural. Administrative centre: Hamilton. Pop: 303 010 (2003 est). Area: 1771 sq km (684 sq miles)
- southern triangle — the constellation Triangulum Australe.
- spectroheliograph — an apparatus for making photographs of the sun with a monochromatic light to show the details of the sun's surface and surroundings as they would appear if the sun emitted only that light.
- spectrohelioscope — a spectroheliograph.
- spectroscopically — an optical device for producing and observing a spectrum of light or radiation from any source, consisting essentially of a slit through which the radiation passes, a collimating lens, and an Amici prism.