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14-letter words containing s, k, e, t, c

  • salt lake city — a state in the W United States. 84,916 sq. mi. (219,930 sq. km). Capital: Salt Lake City. Abbreviation: UT (for use with zip code), Ut.
  • schlockmeister — a person who deals in or sells inferior or worthless goods; junk dealer.
  • schottky noise — shot effect.
  • 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.
  • security check — the process of checking that a person is not armed, or carrying something dangerous
  • seebeck effect — thermoelectric effect.
  • serrated wrack — the seaweed Fucus serratus
  • shield cricket — the interstate cricket competition held for the Sheffield Shield
  • sick and tired — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
  • sickle feather — one of the paired, elongated, sickle-shaped, middle feathers of the tail of the rooster.
  • single-sticker — a sailboat, esp. a sloop, having only one mast
  • skew-symmetric — noting a square matrix that is equal to the negative of its transpose.
  • skull practice — a meeting for the purpose of discussion, exchange of ideas, solving problems, etc.
  • smoke detector — an electronic fire alarm that is activated by the presence of smoke.
  • smoking jacket — a loose-fitting jacket for men, often of a heavy fabric and trimmed with braid, worn indoors, especially as a lounging jacket.
  • social network — a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts: Strong social networks can encourage healthy behaviors.
  • spark spectrum — a spectrum formed from the light produced by an electric spark, characteristic of the gas or vapor through which the spark passes.
  • speckled trout — brook trout (def 1).
  • square bracket — bracket (def 3).
  • stack the deck — a more or less orderly pile or heap: a precariously balanced stack of books; a neat stack of papers.
  • stadium jacket — an insulated, parkalike jacket that reaches to the mid thigh or the knees and often has a drawstring around the bottom edge, worn outdoors in cold weather.
  • starch blocker — a substance ingested in the belief that it inhibits the body's ability to metabolize starch and thereby promotes weight loss: declared illegal in the U.S. by the FDA.
  • steam cracking — Steam cracking is the main method of breaking down large molecules of hydrocarbons, in which a gaseous or liquid hydrocarbon is diluted with steam and then heated.
  • stick together — be united
  • sticking place — Also called sticking point. the place or point at which something stops and holds firm.
  • sticky fingers — an inclination or tendency to steal or pilfer
  • stinking cedar — an evergreen tree, Torreya taxifolia, of the yew family, native to Florida, having rank-smelling foliage and dark-green, egg-shaped fruit.
  • stock dividend — a form of dividend collected by a stockholder in extra shares of the corporation's stock rather than in cash.
  • stock exchange — a building or place where stocks and other securities are bought and sold.
  • stock in trade — the requisites for carrying on a business, especially goods kept on hand for sale in a store.
  • stock transfer — Stock transfer is the act of moving goods from one part of the distribution chain to another.
  • stock turnover — the rate at which stock is sold and replenished
  • stock watering — the creation of more new shares in a company than is justified by its assets
  • stock-in-trade — items used in performing a job
  • stockade fence — a fence of closely fitted vertical boards with pointed tops.
  • stockbrokerage — a stockbroker's work or business
  • stocking frame — a type of knitting machine
  • stop the clock — an instrument for measuring and recording time, especially by mechanical means, usually with hands or changing numbers to indicate the hour and minute: not designed to be worn or carried about.
  • straddle truck — a self-propelled vehicle, having a chassis far above the ground, for carrying loads of lumber or the like beneath the chassis and between the wheels.
  • straightjacket — to put in or as in a straitjacket: Her ambition was straitjacketed by her family.
  • streuselkuchen — coffeecake topped with streusel.
  • strike it rich — to deal a blow or stroke to (a person or thing), as with the fist, a weapon, or a hammer; hit.
  • striking price — in an option contract, the specified price at which a stock, commodity, etc. may be bought or sold; the price at which an investor can exercise profitably a put or call
  • struck measure — a measure, especially of grain, level with the top of a receptacle.
  • suicide attack — a terrorist attack which someone undertakes knowing that he or she will die in the attack
  • summer kitchen — an extra kitchen, usually detached from a house, for use in warm weather.
  • telescope peak — a mountain in SE California: highest peak in the Panamint Range, above Death Valley. 11,049 feet (3368 meters).
  • the all blacks — the international Rugby Union football team of New Zealand
  • the black caps — the international cricket team of New Zealand
  • the black isle — a peninsula in NE Scotland, in Highland council area, between the Cromarty and Moray Firths
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