15-letter words containing s, i, e, m
- st. elmo's fire — St. Elmo's fire.
- st. ulmo's fire — St. Elmo's fire.
- stamford bridge — a village in N England, east of York: site of a battle (1066) in which King Harold of England defeated his brother Tostig and King Harald Hardrada of Norway, three weeks before the Battle of Hastings
- start something — to cause a disturbance or trouble
- state socialism — the theory, doctrine, and movement advocating a planned economy controlled by the state, with state ownership of all industries and natural resources.
- statutory crime — a wrong punishable under a statute, rather than at common law.
- steam reforming — a process in which methane from natural gas is heated, with steam, usually with a catalyst, to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen used in organic synthesis and as a fuel
- steamed pudding — a traditional pudding containing fat, sugar, eggs, flour, and other ingredients, which is steamed
- steering column — the shaft that connects the steering wheel to the steering gear assembly of an automotive vehicle.
- stereochemistry — the branch of chemistry that deals with the determination of the relative positions in space of the atoms or groups of atoms in a compound and with the effects of these positions on the properties of the compound.
- stereoisomerism — the isomerism ascribed to different relative positions of the atoms or groups of atoms in the molecules of organic compounds.
- stony meteorite — any of various meteorites composed mainly of rock-forming silicates, especially olivine, plagioclase, and pyroxene, and classified as achondrites or chondrites.
- storm insurance — insurance cover against damage caused by windstorms
- straight matter — the body text of an article, story, etc., as distinguished from the title, subhead, and other display matter.
- streamline flow — the flow of a fluid past an object such that the velocity at any fixed point in the fluid is constant or varies in a regular manner.
- street ministry — the vocation of a church worker, clergyman, or the like who frequents public places in an attempt to help runaways, prostitutes, or others on the margins of society.
- strephosymbolia — a condition of perceiving objects as their mirror image and, specifically, having difficulty in distinguishing letters in words
- strombuliferous — having organs coiled as spirals
- strontium oxide — a white insoluble solid substance used in making strontium salts and purifying sugar. Formula: SrO
- sub-machine gun — a lightweight automatic or semiautomatic gun, fired from the shoulder or hip.
- subalimentation — hypoalimentation.
- subcommissioner — a member of a subcommission
- subminimum wage — See example at subminimum (def 1).
- succes d'estime — success won by reason of merit and critical respect rather than by popularity.
- suicide attempt — bid to kill oneself
- suicide bombing — a terrorist bomb attack in which the perpetrator knows that he or she will be killed in the explosion
- suicide machine — a device designed to permit a terminally ill person to commit suicide, as by the automatic injection of a lethal drug.
- summer diarrhea — an acute condition of diarrhea, occurring during the hot summer months chiefly in infants and children, caused by bacterial contamination of food and associated with poor hygiene.
- summer holidays — the time when children do not go to school in the summer
- summer solstice — the solstice on or about June 21st that marks the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
- summer triangle — a group of three first-magnitude stars (Deneb, Vega, and Altair) visible during the summer in the N skies
- super-committee — a committee with members from two or more organizations or political groups
- superimposition — to impose, place, or set over, above, or on something else.
- supernaturalism — supernatural character or agency.
- superparasitism — the parasitic deposit of eggs on a host already parasitized by a different member of the same species
- superpatriotism — the quality of being superpatriotic
- supplementation — the act or process of supplementing.
- supreme council — the legislature of the former Soviet Union and its successor states, consisting of an upper house (Soviet of the Union or Council of the Union) whose delegates are elected on the basis of population, and a lower house (Soviet of Nationalities or Council of Nationalities) whose delegates are elected to represent the various nationalities.
- swamp white oak — an oak, Quercus bicolor, of eastern North America, yielding a hard, heavy wood used in shipbuilding, for making furniture, etc.
- sweating system — the practice of employing workers in sweatshops.
- swedish massage — a massage employing techniques of manipulation and muscular exercise systematized in Sweden in the 19th century.
- swiss army code — (programming, humour) Code for an application that is suffering from feature creep. Swiss Army Code does many things, but does none of them well.
- symbol retailer — any member of a voluntary group of independent retailers, often using a common name or symbol, formed to obtain better prices from wholesalers or manufacturers in competition with supermarket chains
- symmetric group — the group of all permutations of a finite set.
- sympathetic ink — a fluid for producing writing that is invisible until brought out by heat, chemicals, etc.; invisible ink.
- sympathetically — characterized by, proceeding from, exhibiting, or feeling sympathy; sympathizing; compassionate: a sympathetic listener.
- sympathomimetic — mimicking stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system.
- sympathy strike — a strike by a body of workers, not because of grievances against their own employer, but by way of endorsing and aiding another group of workers who are on strike or have been locked out.
- symphony writer — a composer of an extended large-scale orchestral composition, usually with several movements, at least one of which is in sonata form
- system building — a method of building in which prefabricated components are used to speed the construction of buildings