14-letter words containing s, e, p, t, a
- astrocompasses — Plural form of astrocompass.
- at one's peril — If you say that someone does something at their peril, you are warning them that they will probably suffer as a result of doing it.
- attention span — the period of time during which someone's attention is held by something in particular
- autoresponders — Plural form of autoresponder.
- aztec two-step — Montezuma's revenge
- backstage pass — a document or badge that entitles the bearer to go backstage at an event, esp a pop concert
- bacteriophages — Plural form of bacteriophage.
- ballast pocket — a depression that is formed beneath the ballast layer by penetration of ballast particles into the subgrade and that tends to collect moisture.
- ballet slipper — a heelless cloth or leather slipper worn by ballet dancers.
- baptismal name — Christian name (def 1).
- base component — the system of rules in a transformational grammar that specify the deep structure of the language
- bisphosphonate — any drug of a class that inhibits the resorption of bone; used in treating certain bone disorders, esp osteoporosis
- black panthers — (in the US) a militant Black political party founded in 1965 to end the political dominance of White people
- blepharoplasty — cosmetic surgery performed on the eyelid
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- britney spears — beers
- broad-spectrum — effective against a wide variety of diseases or microorganisms
- brood parasite — a young bird hatched and reared by birds of a different species as a result of brood parasitism.
- bush carpenter — a rough-and-ready unskilled workman
- bush telegraph — a means of communication between primitive peoples over large areas, as by drum beats
- campaign chest — money collected and set aside for use in a campaign, especially a political one; a campaign fund.
- campylobacters — Plural form of campylobacter.
- can't help sth — If you can't help the way you feel or behave, you cannot control it or stop it happening. You can also say that you can't help yourself.
- capital assets — any assets, tangible or intangible, that are held for long-term investment
- carpet slipper — Carpet slippers are soft, comfortable slippers.
- carpet sweeper — a pushable, long-handled implement for removing dirt, lint, etc., from rugs and carpets, consisting of a metal case enclosing one or more brushes that rotate.
- carpet-sweeper — a household device with a revolving brush for sweeping carpets
- case and paste — (programming) (From "cut and paste") The addition of a new feature to an existing system by selecting the code from an existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes. This usually results in gross violation of the fundamental programming tenet, Don't Repeat Yourself. Common in telephony circles because most operations in a telephone switch are selected using "case" statements. Leads to software bloat. In some circles of Emacs users this is called "programming by Meta-W", because Meta-W is the Emacs command for copying a block of text to a kill buffer in preparation to pasting it in elsewhere. The term is condescending, implying that the programmer is acting mindlessly rather than thinking carefully about what is required to integrate the code for two similar cases. At DEC, this is sometimes called "clone-and-hack" coding.
- castrop-rauxel — an industrial city in W Germany, in North Rhine-Westphalia. Pop: 78 208 (2003 est)
- catastrophized — Simple past tense and past participle of catastrophize.
- catechumenship — the office or position of a catechumen
- cavalier poets — a group of mid-17th-century English lyric poets, mostly courtiers of Charles I. Chief among them were Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace
- celestial pole — either of the two points at which the earth's axis, extended to infinity, would intersect the celestial sphere
- central powers — (before World War I) Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary after they were linked by the Triple Alliance in 1882
- centripetalism — the movement of things towards a centre
- cephalometrics — The measurement and analysis of the craniofacial area, especially as an aid to dental or orthodontic procedures.
- chapel of rest — a room in an undertaker's place of business where bodies are laid out in their coffins to be viewed before the funeral
- chase pointers — (programming) To determine a chain of memory locations where each location holds a pointer to the next, starting from some initial pointer, e.g. traversing a linked list or other graph structure. This may be performed by a computer executing a program or by a programmer going through a core dump or using a debugger.
- chemotherapies — Plural form of chemotherapy.
- chemotherapist — One who administers chemotherapy.
- chest expander — a device for strengthening the chest muscles, consisting of two handles attached to strong springs or elastic cords that the user pulls apart across the chest
- chromatophores — Plural form of chromatophore.
- claustrophobes — Plural form of claustrophobe.
- cleistocarpous — Mycology. having cleistothecia.
- cleptomaniacs' — kleptomania.
- cleptoparasite — Alternative spelling of kleptoparasite.
- compass rafter — a rafter cut to a curve on one or both edges.
- compassionated — Simple past tense and past participle of compassionate.
- compatibleness — The state or quality of being compatible.