14-letter words containing r, y, s, a
- salvation army — an international Christian organization founded in England in 1865 by William Booth, organized along quasi-military lines and devoted chiefly to evangelism and to providing social services, especially to the poor.
- sanctuary lamp — a lamp, usually red, placed in a prominent position in the sanctuary of a church, that when lit indicates the presence of the Blessed Sacrament
- sanitary towel — sanitary napkin.
- satisfactorily — giving or affording satisfaction; fulfilling all demands or requirements: a satisfactory solution.
- sauropterygian — any of various Mesozoic marine reptiles of the superorder Sauropterygia, including the suborder Plesiosauria.
- scaly anteater — pangolin.
- scarcity value — increased value due to the inadequate supply of something
- scenic railway — a railroad that carries its passengers on a brief tour of an amusement park, resort, etc.
- scheme library — (library) (SLIB) A portable Scheme library providing compatibiliy and utility functions for all standard Scheme implementations. Version 2c5 supports Bigloo, Chez, ELK, GAMBIT, MacScheme, MITScheme, PocketScheme, RScheme, Scheme->C, Scheme48, SCM, SCSH, T3.1, UMB-Scheme, and VSCM.
- school library — a library within a school where teachers and students have access to books and other resources
- scratch monkey — (humour) As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
- sea gooseberry — a comb jelly, especially of the genus Pleurobrachia.
- secondary beam — a beam of particles of one kind selected from the group of particles produced when a beam of particles from an accelerator (primary beam) strikes a target.
- secondary cell — storage cell.
- secondary gain — any advantage, as increased attention, disability benefits, or release from unpleasant responsibilities, obtained as a result of having an illness (distinguished from primary gain).
- secondary road — a road less important than a main road or highway.
- secondary wall — the innermost part of a plant cell wall, deposited after the wall has ceased to increase in surface area.
- secondary wave — a transverse earthquake wave that travels through the interior of the earth and is usually the second conspicuous wave to reach a seismograph.
- secretary bird — a large, long-legged, raptorial bird, Sagittarius serpentarius, of Africa, that feeds on reptiles.
- secure tenancy — the letting of a dwelling by a nonprivate landlord, usually a local council or housing association, under an agreement that allows security of tenure, subletting, improvements made to the property by the tenant without consequent rent increase, and the right to buy the dwelling at a discount after three years' occupancy
- security guard — a uniformed guard employed by a bank, airport, office building, etc., to maintain security.
- self-laudatory — containing or expressing praise: overwhelmed by the speaker's laudatory remarks.
- self-parodying — given to or involving self-parody
- semi-legendary — somewhat legendary; having something of the nature of a legend; almost legendary
- semi-paralysis — Pathology. a loss or impairment of voluntary movement in a body part, caused by injury or disease of the nerves, brain, or spinal cord. a disease characterized by this, especially palsy.
- semi-paralyzed — to affect with paralysis.
- sergiyev posad — a city in the NW Russian Federation in Europe, NE of Moscow.
- seronegativity — the quality or state of being seronegative
- serviceability — capable of or being of service; useful.
- seward's folly — the purchase of Alaska in 1867, through the negotiations of Secretary of State W. H. Seward.
- seyfert galaxy — one of a group of spiral galaxies with compact, bright nuclei having characteristically broad emission lines suggestive of very hot gases in violent motion at the center.
- shankaracharya — a.d. 789?–821? Hindu Vedantist philosopher and teacher.
- sherry vinegar — a gourmet wine vinegar produced in the Jerez region of S Spain
- shooting party — a social gathering when people shoot game together
- shrove tuesday — the last day of Shrovetide, long observed as a season of merrymaking before Lent.
- siberian husky — one of a Siberian breed of medium-size dogs having a thick, soft coat, raised originally as sled dogs.
- silky anteater — an arboreal, tropical American anteater, Cyclopes didactylus, about the size of a rat, having a prehensile tail, glossy, golden fur, and two toes on each forelimb.
- sinistrorsally — in a sinistrorsal manner
- slaughterously — murderously
- slave cylinder — a small cylinder containing a piston that operates the brake shoes or pads in hydraulic brakes or the working part in any other hydraulically operated system
- slurry reactor — A slurry reactor is a reactor in which contact is achieved by suspending a solid in a liquid.
- sobriety coach — a person who is employed to help another to refrain from drinking alcohol
- social history — a view of historical events seen in terms of social trends
- socratic irony — pretended ignorance in discussion.
- solar activity — the sum of all variable and short-lived disturbances on the sun, as sunspots, prominences, and solar flares.
- solitary vireo — a vireo, Vireo solitarius, of North and Central America, having the top and sides of the head bluish-gray.
- solvay process — a process for manufacturing sodium carbonate whereby a concentrated solution of sodium chloride is saturated with ammonia, carbon dioxide is passed through it, and the product is calcined.
- south ayrshire — a council area of SW Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde: comprises the S part of the historical county of Ayrshire; formerly part of Strathclyde Region (1975–96): chiefly agricultural, with fishing and tourism. Administrative centre: Ayr. Pop: 111 580 (2003 est). Area: 1202 sq km (464 sq miles)
- south-easterly — A south-easterly point, area, or direction is to the south-east or towards the south-east.
- spectacularity — of or like a spectacle; marked by or given to an impressive, large-scale display.