21-letter words containing s, e, c, r
- public address system — loudspeaker
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- public-address system — a combination of electronic devices that makes sound audible via loudspeakers to many people, as in an auditorium or out of doors.
- purchasing department — the group of staff within an organization that is responsible for buying goods or products
- purple-fringed orchis — either of two North American orchids (Habenaria psycodes and H. fimbriata) with purple-fringed flowers
- put sb in the picture — If you put someone in the picture, you tell them about a situation which they need to know about.
- put sb in their place — If you put someone in their place, you show them that they are less important or clever than they think they are.
- queer someone's pitch — to upset someone's plans
- radius of convergence — a positive number so related to a given power series that the power series converges for every number whose absolute value is less than this particular number.
- range of significance — the set of subjects for which a given predicate is intelligible
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- rattle someone's cage — to upset or anger someone
- reading comprehension — a text that students use to help them improve their reading skills, by reading it and answering questions relating to the text. Sometimes used as a test or examination of reading skills. A reading comprehension can be in the student's own or another language
- real estate insurance — Real estate insurance is insurance of property, land, and buildings.
- reckless endangerment — a crime whereby a person behaves in a reckless manner which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person
- recompression chamber — hyperbaric chamber.
- reconnaissance flight — a flight made by an aircraft in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reconnaissance patrol — a patrol made by soldiers in order to obtain military information about a particular place
- reduced circumstances — If you say that someone is living in reduced circumstances, you mean that they do not have as much money as they used to have.
- registration document — a document giving identification details of a motor vehicle, including its manufacturer, date of registration, engine and chassis numbers, and owner's name
- relaxation oscillator — a nonsinusoidal oscillator, the timing of which is controlled by the charge and discharge time constants of resistance and capacitance components
- resident commissioner — a representative from a dependency, as Guam or Puerto Rico, who is entitled to speak, but not to vote, in the U.S. House of Representatives.
- reverse transcriptase — a retrovirus enzyme that synthesizes DNA from viral RNA, the reverse of the usual DNA-to-RNA replication: used in genetic engineering to clone genes from RNA strands.
- rocky mountain oyster — mountain oyster.
- roll with the punches — a thrusting blow, especially with the fist.
- rutherford scattering — the scattering of an alpha particle through a large angle with respect to the original direction of motion of the particle, caused by an atom (Rutherford atom) with most of the mass and all of the positive electric charge concentrated at a center or nucleus.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- saint lawrence seaway — a series of channels, locks, and canals between Montreal and the mouth of Lake Ontario, a distance of 182 miles (293 km), enabling most deep-draft vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean, up the St. Lawrence River, to all the Great Lakes ports: developed jointly by the U.S. and Canada.
- santa cruz water lily — a South American aquatic plant, Victoria cruziana, of the water lily family, having floating leaves from 2–5 feet (0.6–1.5 meters) and deep pink or red flowers.
- sao bernardo do campo — a city in SE Brazil, SE of São Paulo.
- sao tome and principe — Democratic Republic of, a republic in W Africa, comprising the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, in the Gulf of Guinea, N of the equator: a former overseas province of Portugal; gained independence in 1975. 372 sq. mi. (964 sq. km). Capital: São Tomé.
- saponification number — the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify one gram of a given ester, especially a glyceride.
- satisficing behaviour — the form of behaviour demonstrated by firms who seek satisfactory profits and satisfactory growth rather than maximum profits
- saving your reverence — a form of apology for using an obscene or taboo expression
- scalar triple product — the volume of the parallelepiped defined by three given vectors, u, v, and w, usually represented as u·v 1 (v×w), [ uvw ], or (uvw), where × denotes a cross product and · denotes an inner product.
- scarce as hen's teeth — extremely rare
- scarlet monkey flower — any of various plants belonging to the genus Mimulus, of the figwort family, as M. cardinalis (scarlet monkey flower) having spotted flowers that resemble a face.
- scarlet runner (bean) — a climbing bean plant (Phaseolus coccineus) of tropical America, having pods with large, edible, red-and-black seeds and usually having scarlet flowers: often grown in cold climates as an ornamental
- schlieren photography — a type of photography which records schlieren
- school of the soldier — an institution where instruction is given, especially to persons under college age: The children are at school.
- school superintendent — an official whose job is to oversee school administration within a district
- schoolgirl complexion — a smooth, clear complexion, such as schoolgirls are considered to have
- science correspondent — a newspaper or television journalist who specializes in reporting on new discoveries in science
- scientific empiricism — the philosophy that there are no real differences between the sciences.
- scintillation counter — a device for detecting and measuring radioactivity, having a crystal scintillator, a photoelectric cell sensitive to the light from scintillations, and an amplifier.
- scorched earth policy — a military practice of devastating the property and agriculture of an area before abandoning it to an advancing enemy.
- scorched-earth policy — a military practice of devastating the property and agriculture of an area before abandoning it to an advancing enemy.
- secondary containment — Secondary containment is a system for dealing with hazardous spills.
- secure hash algorithm —
- sedimentary sequences — Sedimentary sequences are layers of rock which are derived from weathered rocks, biogenic (= of living organisms) activity, or precipitation from solution.