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14-letter words containing s, h, o, r, t, m

  • rhythm section — band instruments, as drums or bass, that supply rhythm rather than harmony or melody.
  • saccharomycete — a single-celled yeast of the family Saccharomycetaceae, having no mycelium.
  • schafer method — a method of artificial respiration in which the patient is placed face downward, pressure then being rhythmically applied with the hands to the lower part of the thorax.
  • schlockmeister — a person who deals in or sells inferior or worthless goods; junk dealer.
  • scholar's mate — a simple mate by the queen on the f7 square, achievable by white's fourth move
  • schoolmistress — a woman who presides over or teaches in a school.
  • 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.
  • sharptail mola — a fish, Masturus lanceolatus, related to the ocean sunfish but having a pointed tail.
  • short-tempered — having a quick, hasty temper; irascible.
  • shortened form — an abbreviated form of a multisyllable word; clipped form.
  • sidereal month — Also called calendar month. any of the twelve parts, as January or February, into which the calendar year is divided.
  • simchath torah — a Jewish festival, celebrated on the 23rd day of Tishri, being the 9th day of Sukkoth, that marks the completion of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah in the synagogue and the beginning of the new cycle.
  • smooth-running — operating in a flowing and effective manner, without difficulties or obstructions
  • smothered mate — checkmate delivered by a knight when the king's mobility is restricted by his own pieces.
  • somerset house — a building in London, in the Strand, built (1776–86) by Sir William Chambers; formerly housed the General Register Office of births, marriages, and deaths: contains (from 1990) the art collections of the Courtauld Institute
  • south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
  • southern yemen — a former name of Yemen (def 1).
  • spermatorrhoea — abnormally frequent and involuntary nonorgasmic emission of semen.
  • spermatothecae — a female reproductive organ in some insects
  • sportfisherman — a motorboat fitted out for sportfishing.
  • staghorn sumac — a sumac, Rhus typhina, of eastern North America, having leaves that turn scarlet, orange, and purple in the autumn.
  • stealth bomber — a type of US military aircraft using advanced technology to render it virtually undetectable to sight, radar, or infrared sensors
  • stereochemical — of, relating to, stereochemistry
  • stoichiometric — of or relating to stoichiometry.
  • straw mushroom — a small brown mushroom, Volvariella volvacea, used in Asian cookery.
  • subatmospheric — (of a quantity) having a value lower than that of the atmosphere: subatmospheric temperatures.
  • sulphur-bottom — blue whale.
  • summer clothes — light clothes which are suitable for summer
  • symmetrophobia — an avoidance of symmetry, esp in Japanese art and Egyptian temples
  • systems theory — an approach to industrial relations which likens the enterprise to an organism with interdependent parts, each with its own specific function and interrelated responsibilities
  • tam-o'-shanter — a cap of Scottish origin, usually made of wool, having a round, flat top that projects all around the head and has a pompon at its center.
  • tetrachotomous — divided into four parts
  • the worm turns — If you say that the worm turns, you mean that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behaviour unexpectedly starts resisting that person or expresses their anger.
  • theriomorphism — the identification of animal characteristics with a supernatural being
  • thermoacoustic — pertaining to a method of cooling using air driven with acoustic power.
  • thermoanalysis — thermal analysis.
  • thermochromism — a phenomenon in which certain dyes made from liquid crystals change colour reversibly when their temperature is changed
  • thermodynamics — the science concerned with the relations between heat and mechanical energy or work, and the conversion of one into the other: modern thermodynamics deals with the properties of systems for the description of which temperature is a necessary coordinate.
  • thermophyllous — relating to deciduous plants or trees that bear leaves only during the warmer times of the year
  • thermostatting — a device, including a relay actuated by thermal conduction or convection, that functions to establish and maintain a desired temperature automatically or signals a change in temperature for manual adjustment.
  • thesaurismosis — storage disease.
  • thetford mines — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada: asbestos mining.
  • thomas rafflesSir Thomas Stamford, 1781–1826, English colonial administrator in the East Indies.
  • thomas youngerThomas Coleman ("Cole") 1844–1916, U.S. outlaw, associated with Jesse James.
  • thorium series — the radioactive series that starts with thorium and ends with a stable isotope of lead of mass number 208.
  • thromboplastic — causing or accelerating blood-clot formation.
  • thromboplastin — Biochemistry. a lipoprotein in the blood that converts prothrombin to thrombin.
  • to strike home — If something that is thrown or fired strikes home, it reaches its target.
  • trachyspermous — having seeds with a rough coat.
  • trichomoniasis — a sexually transmitted disease typically asymptomatic in men and resulting in vaginitis with a copious, frothy discharge and itching in women, caused by a trichomonad Trichomonas vaginalis.
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