14-letter words containing s, p, e, i
- asthenospermic — (medicine) Characterised by or pertaining to asthenospermia, hence infertile.
- asthenospheric — relating to the asthenosphere
- astigmatoscope — an instrument for determining the presence and severity of astigmatism.
- at one's peril — If you say that someone does something at their peril, you are warning them that they will probably suffer as a result of doing it.
- attention span — the period of time during which someone's attention is held by something in particular
- audio response — a computer response that is audible rather than textual or graphical
- auspiciousness — The state or quality of being auspicious or successful.
- bacteriophages — Plural form of bacteriophage.
- balance spring — hairspring.
- ballet slipper — a heelless cloth or leather slipper worn by ballet dancers.
- baptismal name — Christian name (def 1).
- barbados pride — Also called bead tree. a tropical African and Asian tree, Adenanthera pavonina, of the legume family, having feathery foliage and bearing red seeds that are used in beadwork.
- bare ownership — ownership of a piece of property without the right to use and derive profit from that property
- beyond dispute — not open to dispute or question; settled
- biceps brachii — See under biceps.
- biceps femoris — See under biceps.
- bicuspid valve — mitral valve
- bioprospecting — searching for plant or animal species for use as a source of commercially exploitable products, such as medicinal drugs
- bishop's mitre — a European heteropterous bug, Aelia acuminata, whose larvae are a pest of cereal grasses: family Pentatomidae
- bishops' bible — an English translation of the Bible made under the direction of Matthew Parker and published in 1568: the recognized translation of the Bible in England until the Authorized (King James) Version of 1611.
- bisphosphonate — any drug of a class that inhibits the resorption of bone; used in treating certain bone disorders, esp osteoporosis
- bite one's lip — If you bite your lip or your tongue, you stop yourself from saying something that you want to say, because it would be the wrong thing to say in the circumstances.
- bits per pixel — (hardware, graphics) (bpp) The number of bits of information stored per pixel of an image or displayed by a graphics adapter. The more bits there are, the more colours can be represented, but the more memory is required to store or display the image. A colour can be described by the intensities of red, green and blue (RGB) components. Allowing 8 bits (1 byte) per component (24 bits per pixel) gives 256 levels for each component and over 16 million different colours - more than the human eye can distinguish. Microsoft Windows [and others?] calls this truecolour. An image of 1024x768 with 24 bpp requires over 2 MB of memory. "High colour" uses 16 bpp (or 15 bpp), 5 bits for blue, 5 bits for red and 6 bits for green. This reduced colour precision gives a slight loss of image quality at a 1/3 saving on memory. Standard VGA uses a palette of 16 colours (4 bpp), each colour in the palette is 24 bit. Standard SVGA uses a palette of 256 colours (8 bpp). Some graphics hardware and software support 32-bit colour depths, including an 8-bit "alpha channel" for transparency effects.
- blister copper — an impure form of copper having a blister-like surface due to the release of gas during cooling
- blister-packed — presented in a blister pack
- bomb explosion — an explosion caused by the detonation of a bomb
- border dispute — a disagreement between countries about where the border between them should be drawn
- bottomless pit — If you describe a supply of something as bottomless, you mean that it seems so large that it will never run out.
- bowstring hemp — a hemplike fibre obtained from the sansevieria
- breast implant — an object such as a sachet filled with gel introduced surgically into a woman's breast to enlarge it
- bridge passage — bridge1 (def 7).
- british empire — (formerly) the United Kingdom and the territories under its control, which reached its greatest extent at the end of World War I when it embraced over a quarter of the world's population and more than a quarter of the world's land surface
- britney spears — beers
- brood parasite — a young bird hatched and reared by birds of a different species as a result of brood parasitism.
- brownie points — a credit toward advancement or good standing gained especially by currying favor.
- bumper sticker — A bumper sticker is a small piece of paper or plastic with words or pictures on it, designed for sticking onto the back of your car. It usually has a political, religious, or humorous message.
- business reply — a form of mail, as a postcard, letter, or envelope, usually sent as an enclosure, and which can be mailed back by respondents without their having to pay postage.
- businesspeople — a person regularly employed in business, especially a white-collar worker, executive, or owner.
- businessperson — Businesspeople are people who work in business.
- caller display — a facility which shows the number of an incoming call
- cambridge lisp — A flavour of Lisp using BCPL. Sources owned by Fitznorman partners.
- camelopardalis — a N constellation between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia; the Giraffe
- campaign chest — money collected and set aside for use in a campaign, especially a political one; a campaign fund.
- cape peninsula — (in South Africa) the peninsula and the part of the mainland on which Cape Town and most of its suburbs are located
- capital assets — any assets, tangible or intangible, that are held for long-term investment
- capparidaceous — of, relating to, or belonging to the Capparidaceae (or (Capparaceae), a family of plants, mostly shrubs including the caper, of warm tropical regions
- capriciousness — subject to, led by, or indicative of a sudden, odd notion or unpredictable change; erratic: He's such a capricious boss I never know how he'll react.
- carpet slipper — Carpet slippers are soft, comfortable slippers.
- cash dispenser — A cash dispenser is a machine built into the wall of a bank or other building, which allows people to take out money from their bank account using a special card.
- catastrophized — Simple past tense and past participle of catastrophize.