16-letter words containing s, p, e, y
- postcode lottery — a situation in which the standard of medical care, education, etc, received by the public varies from area to area, depending on the funding policies of various health boards, local authorities, etc
- poverty-stricken — suffering from poverty; extremely poor: poverty-stricken refugees.
- primary consumer — (in the food chain) an animal that feeds on plants; a herbivore.
- primary meristem — primary tissue derived from an apical meristem.
- proboscis monkey — a reddish, arboreal monkey, Nasalis larvatus, of Borneo, the male of which has a long, flexible nose: an endangered species.
- process industry — business of treating raw materials
- process theology — a form of theology that emphasizes the close relation of human beings, nature, and God.
- proficiency test — an exam which test how proficient or skilled someone is in a particular activity, field of study, language, etc
- progress payment — an instalment of a larger payment made to a contractor for work carried out up to a specified stage of the job
- proteus syndrome — a condition caused by malfunction in cell growth, in which bone and flesh tissue overgrow in localized areas of the body
- pseudo-dionysius — flourished c4th or 5th century a.d, author of a number of mystical works: identified, during the Middle Ages, with Dionysius the Areopagite.
- pseudoparenchyma — (in certain fungi and red algae) a compact mass of tissue, made up of interwoven hyphae or filaments, that superficially resembles plant tissue.
- psychic distance — the degree of emotional detachment maintained toward a person, group of people, event, etc.
- psychogeriatrics — the psychology of old age.
- psychotechnology — the body of knowledge, theories, and techniques developed for understanding and influencing individual, group, and societal behavior in specified situations.
- ptolemaic system — a system elaborated by Ptolemy and subsequently modified by others, according to which the earth was the fixed center of the universe, with the heavenly bodies moving about it.
- pyloric stenosis — an abnormal narrowing of the valve at the outlet from the stomach, preventing normal passage of food into the small intestine.
- ramsden eyepiece — an eyepiece consisting of two plano-convex crown-glass lenses of equal focal length, placed with the convex sides facing each other and with a separation between the lenses of about two-thirds of the focal length of each.
- raspberry sawfly — a black sawfly, Monophadnoides geniculatus, the larvae of which feed on the leaves of the raspberry and blackberry.
- representatively — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- reserve capacity — the capacity of a battery, measured in minutes, to keep a vehicle operating if the charging system fails.
- restriction play — a limited number of opening moves that are predetermined by their chance selection from an accepted list.
- schneider trophy — a trophy for air racing between seaplanes of any nation, first presented by Jacques Schneider (1879–1928) in 1913; won outright by Britain in 1931
- seating capacity — the number of people a place can seat
- secondary phloem — phloem derived from the cambium during secondary growth.
- selenomorphology — the study of the lunar surface and landscape
- self-complacency — pleased with oneself; self-satisfied; smug.
- self-deprecatory — belittling or undervaluing oneself; excessively modest.
- self-exculpatory — intended to excuse oneself from blame or guilt
- self-explanatory — explaining itself; needing no explanation; obvious.
- sharpe's grysbok — either of two small, usually solitary antelopes of southern Africa, Raphicerus melanotis, or R. sharpei (Sharpe's grysbok) having a light to dark reddish-brown coat speckled with white.
- shopping trolley — A shopping trolley is a large metal basket on wheels which is provided by shops such as supermarkets for customers to use while they are in the shop.
- showy crab apple — a large Japanese bush or tree, Malus floribunda, of the rose family, having red fruit and rose-colored flowers that fade to white.
- shutter priority — of or relating to a semiautomatic exposure system in which the photographer presets the shutter speed and the camera selects the aperture.
- shutter-priority — of or relating to a semiautomatic exposure system in which the photographer presets the shutter speed and the camera selects the aperture.
- simply-connected — (of a set or domain) having a connected complement.
- single occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as at a hotel, for one person in a room.
- sleep-wake cycle — Physiology. the species-specific biological pattern of alternating sleep and wakefulness, in humans roughly 8 hours of nocturnal sleep and 16 hours of daytime activity.
- soapberry family — the plant family Sapindaceae, characterized by chiefly tropical trees, shrubs, or herbaceous vines having compound leaves, clustered flowers, and berrylike, fleshy, or capsular fruit, and including the balloon vine, golden rain tree, litchi, and soapberry.
- special delivery — (in the U.S. Postal Service) delivery of mail outside the regularly scheduled hours, by a special messenger, upon the payment of an extra fee.
- specific gravity — the ratio of the density of any substance to the density of some other substance taken as standard, water being the standard for liquids and solids, and hydrogen or air being the standard for gases.
- spectrochemistry — the branch of chemistry that deals with the chemical analysis of substances by means of the spectra of light they absorb or emit.
- speech community — the aggregate of all the people who use a given language or dialect.
- speech pathology — the scientific study and treatment of defects, disorders, and malfunctions of speech and voice, as stuttering, lisping, or lalling, and of language disturbances, as aphasia or delayed language acquisition.
- speech synthesis — computer-generated audio output that imitates human speech
- sphygmomanometer — an instrument, often attached to an inflatable air-bladder cuff and used with a stethoscope, for measuring blood pressure in an artery.
- sphygmomanometry — an instrument, often attached to an inflatable air-bladder cuff and used with a stethoscope, for measuring blood pressure in an artery.
- spiny-rayed fish — any of various fishes, as basses and perches, that have sharp, often pointed and usually rigid fin spines.
- spongy-mesophyll — the lower layer of the ground tissue of a leaf, characteristically containing irregularly shaped cells with relatively few chloroplasts and large intercellular spaces.
- spraying machine — a device for spraying large volumes of liquid, such as insecticide onto crops