17-letter words containing s, p, e, a
- developmentalists — an expert in or advocate of developmental psychology.
- diaphragm pessary — a device for inserting into the vagina to deliver a drug, such as a contraceptive
- diaphragm shutter — a camera shutter having a group of overlapping blades that open and close at the center when exposing film.
- dipped headlights — road vehicle headlights which have been switched from the main to the lower beam
- dipterocarpaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae, a family of trees chiefly native to tropical SE Asia, having two-winged fruits. Many species yield useful timber and resins
- disaster planning — disaster recovery
- dispassionateness — The state or quality of being dispassionate.
- dispensationalism — the interpreting of history as a series of divine dispensations.
- displacement hull — a hull that displaces a significant volume of water when under way.
- disposable income — the part of a person's income remaining after deducting personal income taxes.
- disproportionates — Third-person singular simple present indicative form of disproportionate.
- disrespectability — Lack of respectability.
- disruptive action — action performed by protestors, workers, etc that causes the disruption of a service
- dissociated press — [Play on "Associated Press"; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a marketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter. Emacs has a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of the Jargon File: wart: A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source: window sysIWYG: A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text and vgrep the output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, "window sysIWYG" and "informash" show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called "travesty generators" have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; see pseudo.
- doberman pinscher — one of a German breed of medium-sized, short-haired dogs having a black, brown, or blue coat with rusty brown markings.
- doorstep salesman — a door-to-door salesman
- dramatis personae — (used with a plural verb) the characters in a play.
- dressed up as sth — portrayed as
- east grand rapids — a town in W central Michigan, near Grand Rapids.
- east pacific rise — a long north-south elevation of the sea floor in the E Pacific Ocean extending southward from SW Mexico to the Antarctic Ocean.
- eastern townships — an area of central Canada, in S Quebec: consists of 11 townships south of the St Lawrence
- ectoparasiticides — Plural form of ectoparasiticide.
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- elliptical spring — An elliptical spring is a spring that is made from two springs in the shape of elongated ovals laid cut in half and back-to-back.
- encephalomyelitis — Inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, typically due to acute viral infection.
- enlarged prostate — disorder of male reproductive gland
- epistemologically — In a manner that pertains to epistemology.
- escaping tendency — a property of a gas, related to its partial pressure, that expresses its tendency to escape or expand, given by d(log ef) = dμ/ RT, where μ is the chemical potential, R the gas constant, and T the thermodynamic temperature
- esprit d'escalier — clever repartee one thinks of too late
- european standard — a specification to be used as a consistent rule or guideline in the manufacture or selling of a certain product or service traded within Europe
- exemplary damages — law: fine imposed as a deterrent
- experimental lisp — (language) (xlisp) An experimental programming language combining a subset of Common Lisp with an object-oriented extension capability (Class and Object types). It was implemented by David Micheal Betz at Apple to allow experimentation with object-oriented programming on small computers. The C source code has been ported to Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, and MS-DOS. Version 2.1 of the interpreter, by Tom Almy is closer to Common Lisp. E-mail: Tom Almy <[email protected]>.
- extrasolar planet — any other celestial body revolving around a star, illuminated by light from that star
- factory inspector — a person who inspects factories
- fancy dress party — a party at which the guests wear fancy dress
- fee-paying school — a school which charges fees to parents of pupils
- fiddleback spider — brown recluse spider.
- first performance — the first time that a play or concert is performed
- fitness programme — a plan to help someone improve their health and physical condition
- flat as a pancake — without any curves or bumps
- foolscap envelope — an envelope of dimensions suitable to hold an unfolded sheet of foolscap paper
- for the most part — a portion or division of a whole that is separate or distinct; piece, fragment, fraction, or section; constituent: the rear part of the house; to glue the two parts together.
- fourfold purchase — a tackle that is composed of a rope passed through two fourfold blocks in such a way as to provide mechanical power in the ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 4, depending on whether hauling is done on the running or the standing block and without considering friction. Compare tackle (def 2).
- frames per second — (unit) (fps) The unit of measurement of the frame rate of a moving image.
- garden apartments — a complex of low apartment buildings surrounded by lawn or landscaped areas
- gause's principle — the principle that similar species cannot coexist for long in the same ecological niche
- general paralysis — a syphilitic brain disorder characterized by chronic inflammation and degeneration of cerebral tissue resulting in mental and physical deterioration.
- get one's back up — the rear part of the human body, extending from the neck to the lower end of the spine.
- glymphatic system — Anatomy. the system or process by which cerebrospinal fluid moves through channels formed by glia, cleansing the mammalian brain of harmful waste.
- go-faster stripes — (jargon) chrome. Mainstream in some parts of UK.