18-letter words containing s, p, e, c, t, a
- reprocessing plant — a plant where materials are treated in order to make them reusable
- resistance plasmid — any of a group of bacterial plasmids carrying genetic information that provide resistance to antibiotic drugs: some resistance plasmids are able to transfer themselves, and hence resistance, during conjugation
- resurrection plant — a desert plant, Selaginella lepidophylla, occurring from Texas to South America, having stems that curl inward when dry.
- saskatchewan party — (in Canada) a Saskatchewan political party formed by former members of the provincial Progressive Conservative and Liberal Parties
- scissors-and-paste — designating or of a piece of writing that has been assembled from a variety of sources rather than by original research, often in a hasty or uninspired way
- scripting language — a language that is used to write scripts, or executable sections of code that automate tasks.
- self-contemplation — the act or process of thinking about oneself or one's values, beliefs, behavior, etc.
- self-deprecatingly — in a self-deprecating manner
- self-preoccupation — the state of being preoccupied.
- self-tapping screw — a screw designed to tap its corresponding female thread as it is driven.
- september massacre — (in the French Revolution) the massacre of royalists and other inmates of the prisons of Paris, September 2–6, 1792.
- septic sore throat — an acute, toxic, streptococcus infection of the throat producing fever, tonsillitis, and other serious effects.
- service department — a repair shop
- shipping container — a large, strong container, usually of metal, used to store goods in during shipment
- sit up like jackie — to sit bolt upright, esp cheekily
- software backplane — (programming, tool) A CASE framework from Atherton.
- sound spectrograph — an electronic device for recording a sound spectogram.
- spaghetti junction — an interchange, usually between motorways, in which there are a large number of underpasses and overpasses and intersecting roads used by a large volume of high-speed traffic
- special assessment — a tax levied by a local government on private property to pay the cost of local public improvements, as sidewalk construction or sewage disposal, that are of general benefit to the property taxed.
- special collection — a collection of materials segregated from a general library collection according to form, subject, age, condition, rarity, source, or value.
- special prosecutor — (formerly) an independent counsel.
- special relativity — the state or fact of being relative.
- specialist teacher — a teacher with expertise in working with children with special educational needs, such as dyslexia
- specimen signature — a signature to be compared to an original signature in order to verify someone's identity
- specrate_base_fp92 — (benchmark) A variant of SPECrate_fp92 that reports "baseline" results, using stricter run rules.
- spectroheliography — the process of obtaining an image of the sun in light of a particular wavelength, such as calcium or hydrogen, showing the distribution of the element over the surface and in the solar atmosphere, using a spectroheliograph
- spectropolarimeter — an instrument for determining the extent to which plane-polarized light of various wavelengths is rotated by certain solutions, consisting of a combination of a spectroscope and a polarimeter.
- spectropolariscope — an instrument combining the functions of a spectroscope with those of a polariscope.
- sperry corporation — (company) The company which merged with the Burroughs Corporation to form Unisys Corporation. Divisions included Sperry Univac, Sperry Flight Systems, and others. Some of these were sold off after the merger.
- spherical geometry — the branch of geometry that deals with figures on spherical surfaces.
- spherical triangle — a triangle formed by arcs of great circles of a sphere.
- spotted flycatcher — a European woodland songbird, Muscicapa striata, with a greyish-brown streaked plumage: family Muscicapidae (Old World flycatchers)
- st. james's palace — a palace in London, England: the royal residence from the time of Henry VIII until the accession of Victoria.
- status epilepticus — a condition in which repeated epileptic seizures occur without the patient gaining consciousness between them. If untreated for a prolonged period it can lead to long-term disability or death
- stepping-off place — jumping-off place (def 2).
- subatomic particle — physics:
- super royal octavo — a book size, 63⁄4 by 101⁄4 inches
- supporting actress — an actress playing a supporting role
- sweptwing aircraft — an aircraft which has wings that are swept (usually) backwards
- sympathetic strike — sympathy strike.
- sympathetic string — a thin wire string, as in various obsolete musical instruments, designed to vibrate sympathetically with the bowed or plucked strings to reinforce the sound.
- symphony orchestra — a large orchestra composed of wind, string, and percussion instruments and organized to perform symphonic compositions.
- systematic phoneme — a phonological unit in generative phonology representing an underlying form that takes into account the relationship between phonological patterns and morphological variation, as the unit underlying the second vowel in both derive and derivative.
- television company — a company that broadcasts programmes by television
- the baptist church — any of various Protestant churches that believe in the baptism of believers
- the practicalities — the real facts or details of a situation, as opposed to its theoretical aspects
- threatened species — a species likely, in the near future, to become an endangered species within all or much of its range.
- to all appearances — apparently
- to cast aspersions — If you cast aspersions on someone or something, you suggest that they are not very good in some way.
- to lick into shape — If you lick, knock, or whip someone or something into shape, you use whatever methods are necessary to change or improve them so that they are in the condition that you want them to be in.