12-letter words containing s, o, a, p, r
- radioisotope — a radioactive isotope, usually artificially produced: used in physical and biological research, therapeutics, etc.
- radiophonist — a person who produces radiophonic music
- rapeseed oil — a brownish-yellow oil obtained by expression from rapeseed and used chiefly as a lubricant, an illuminant, and in the manufacture of rubber substitutes.
- reabsorption — resorption (def 2).
- reassumption — the act or process of reassuming something
- reciprocates — to give, feel, etc., in return.
- recompensate — to recompense for something: They gave him ten dollars to compensate him for his trouble.
- relationship — a connection, association, or involvement.
- release copy — an article, notice, announcement, or the like, issued in advance for publication or broadcast, bearing a release date.
- repairperson — a person whose occupation is the making of repairs, readjustments, etc.
- report stage — the stage preceding the third reading in the passage of a bill through Parliament, at which the bill, as amended in committee, is reported back to the chamber considering it
- reproachless — irreproachable.
- respondentia — a loan upon a ship's cargo, which is repaid with interest if the ship reaches its destination, and if the ship does not, the loan is not repaid
- responsorial — of or relating to response; responsive
- resupination — a resupinate condition.
- rhabdosphere — a minute sphere made up of rhabdoliths
- rhizocarpous — having the root perennial but the stem annual, as perennial herbs.
- rhizophagous — feeding on roots.
- road sweeper — a person who sweeps roads
- rose campion — a plant, Lychnis coronaria, of the pink family, having reddish purple flowers, and leaves covered with whitish down.
- rose pogonia — a North American terrestrial orchid, Pogonia ophioglossoides, having a fragrant, usually solitary rose-pink or white flower.
- roselle park — a borough in NE New Jersey.
- rotary press — a printing press in which the type or plates to be printed are fastened upon a rotating cylinder and are impressed on a continuous roll of moving paper.
- sage sparrow — a small gray finch, Amphispiza belli, of dry, brushy areas of western North America.
- saint-tropez — a town in SE France, on the French Riviera: beach resort.
- sales report — a periodical report made by a salesperson to a manager giving details of amounts sold, existing and new accounts, etc
- saloonkeeper — a person who operates a saloon (sense 3)
- saprobiology — the branch of ecology that studies decaying organic matter or environments, especially saprophytes that derive nourishment in this way.
- saprophagous — (of an organism) feeding on dead or decaying animal matter.
- saprophytism — living and feeding on dead organic matter
- sarcophagous — carnivorous.
- sarrusophone — a metal double-reed wind instrument with a conical bore, related to the oboe and used especially in military bands.
- scatter plot — a graphic representation of bivariate data as a set of points in the plane that have Cartesian coordinates equal to corresponding values of the two variates.
- scenographic — the art of representing objects in accordance with the rules of perspective.
- schizocarpic — a dry, dehiscent fruit that at maturity splits into two or more one-seeded carpels.
- school prawn — a common olive-green prawn, Metapenaeus macleayi
- schopenhauer — Arthur [ahr-too r] /ˈɑr tʊər/ (Show IPA), 1788–1860, German philosopher.
- scopes trial — John Thomas, 1901–70, U.S. high-school teacher whose teaching of the Darwinian theory of evolution became a cause célèbre (Scopes Trial or Monkey Trial) in 1925.
- scouring pad — a small pad, as of steel wool or plastic mesh, used for scouring pots, pans, etc.
- scrapbooking — hobby: collaging
- scraperboard — scratchboard.
- scratchproof — resistant to scratches.
- scrophularia — a member of a genus of flowering plants which have a square stem and are known as figworts
- scsi adaptor — (hardware) (Or "host adaptor") A device that communicates between a computer and its SCSI peripherals. The SCSI adaptor is usually assigned SCSI ID 7. It is often a separate card that is connected to the computer's bus (e.g. PCI, ISA, PCMCIA) though increasinly, SCSI adaptors are built in to the motherboard. Apart from being cheaper, busses like PCI are too slow to keep up with the newer SCSI standards like Ultra SCSI and Ultra-Wide SCSI. There are several varieties of SCSI (and their connectors) and an adaptor will not support them all. The performance of SCSI devices is limited by the speed of the SCSI adaptor and its connection to the computer. An adaptor that plugs into a parallel port is unlikely to be as fast as one incorporated into a motherboard. Fast adaptors use DMA or bus mastering. Some SCSI adaptors include a BIOS to allow PCs to boot from a SCSI hard disk, if their own BIOS supports it. Note that it is not a "SCSI controller" - it does not control the devices, and "SCSI interface" is redundant - the "I" of "SCSI" stands for "interface".
- sea scorpion — scorpionfish.
- season creep — the gradual changing in the length of the seasons, as demonstrated by earlier flowering of plants, etc, thought by many to be caused by climate change
- seismography — the scientific measuring and recording of the shock and vibrations of earthquakes.
- selenography — the branch of astronomy that deals with the charting of the moon's surface.
- semi-popular — regarded with favor, approval, or affection by people in general: a popular preacher.
- semitropical — subtropical.