18-letter words containing s, p, e, a
- autonomous phoneme — a phoneme that is defined or determined by its contrast in sound with other phonemes, without reference to its role in morphology or any other level of linguistic analysis beyond the phonetic level.
- avoirdupois weight — a British and American system of weights based on a pound of 16 ounces
- ballistic pendulum — a device consisting of a large mass hung from a horizontal bar by two rods, used to measure the velocity of an object, as a bullet, by retaining the object upon impact, its velocity being a function of the displacement of the mass.
- bankers-acceptance — a draft or bill of exchange that a bank has accepted. Abbreviation: BA. Also called banker's acceptance. Compare acceptance (def 6).
- barbershop quartet — a group of four singers who perform a style of music sung in four-part harmony
- baritone saxophone — the second lowest instrument in the family of saxophones
- basement apartment — an apartment below the ground floor of a building
- behaviour patterns — the characteristic ways in which a person or animal acts
- benchmark position — a public service job used for comparison with a similar position, such as a position in commerce, for wage settlements
- bichromate process — any of several methods of photography in which the light-sensitive medium is alkaline bichromate associated with a colloid such as gum, albumen, or gelatin.
- biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
- blue-plate special — an inexpensive restaurant meal served at a fixed price on a large plate, originally blue
- bore the pants off — to bore extremely
- brazilian sapphire — a blue variety of tourmaline used as a gem: not a true sapphire.
- calliper compasses — an instrument for measuring internal or external dimensions, consisting of two steel legs hinged together
- cape breton island — an island off SE Canada, in NE Nova Scotia, separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso: its easternmost point is Cape Breton. Pop: 132 298 (2006). Area: 10 280 sq km (3970 sq miles)
- cape saint vincent — a headland at the SW extremity of Portugal: scene of several important naval battles, notably in 1797, when the British defeated the French and Spanish
- capital allowances — the money spent by a company on fixed assets which can be taken off the profits of the company before tax is imposed
- capital investment — the money that is invested in something
- capital punishment — Capital punishment is punishment which involves the legal killing of a person who has committed a serious crime such as murder.
- captain james cook — Frederick Albert, 1865–1940, U.S. physician and polar explorer.
- cassiopeia's chair — the five brightest stars in the constellation Cassiopeia that seem to form the shape of a W or M
- castration complex — an unconscious fear of having one's genitals removed, as a punishment for wishing to have sex with a parent
- catastrophe theory — a mathematical theory that classifies surfaces according to their form
- cathode dark space — Crookes dark space.
- chagos archipelago — group of islands in the Indian Ocean 1,180 mi (1,899 km) northeast of Mauritius, comprising the British Indian Ocean Territory: chief island, Diego Garcia
- change one's spots — to reform one's character
- character graphics — ASCII art
- christine de pisan — ?1364–?1430, French poet and prose writer, born in Venice. Her works include ballads, rondeaux, lays, and a biography of Charles V of France
- citizenship papers — the document stating that a naturalized person has been formally declared a citizen
- clean up one's act — to start to behave in a responsible manner
- cleopatra's needle — either of two Egyptian obelisks, originally set up at Heliopolis about 1500 bc: one was moved to the Thames Embankment, London, in 1878, the other to Central Park, New York, in 1880
- closed corporation — a corporation the stock of which is owned by a small number of persons and is rarely traded on the open market
- closed scholarship — a scholarship for which only certain people, such as those from a particular school or with a particular surname, are eligible
- cock-a-leekie soup — a soup made from a fowl boiled with leeks
- color transparency — a positive color image photographically produced on transparent film or glass and viewed by transmitted light, usually by projection.
- compact video disc — a compact laser disc that plays both pictures and sound
- comparison shopper — an employee of a retail store hired to visit competing stores in order to gather information regarding styles, quality, prices, etc., of merchandise offered by competitors.
- compassion fatigue — the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster, etc, because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, etc
- compassionlessness — The quality, state, or condition of being compassionless; uncompassion.
- compensation award — an amount of money awarded as compensation in a court case
- compensation order — (in Britain) the requirement of a court that an offender pay compensation for injury, loss, or damage resulting from an offence, either in preference to or as well as a fine
- compensation point — the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide at which the rate of carbon dioxide uptake by a photosynthesizing plant is exactly balanced by its rate of carbon dioxide release in respiration and photorespiration
- complementarianism — The doctrine that genders in a society should have complementary roles.
- complementary base — either of the nucleotide bases linked by a hydrogen bond on opposite strands of DNA or double-stranded RNA: guanine is the complementary base of cytosine, and adenine is the complementary base of thymine in DNA and of uracil in RNA.
- complexity measure — (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation.
- compressor program — a computer program that compresses data
- compressor station — A compressor station is a facility with several compressors (= devices that increase the pressure of air or natural gas) and other equipment to pump natural gas under pressure over long distances.
- concentration span — the length of time a person can concentrate on something
- conceptual realism — the doctrine that universals have real and independent existence.