15-letter words containing s, p, i, r, a, n
- sporting chance — an even or fair opportunity for a favorable outcome in an enterprise, as winning in a game of chance or in any kind of contest: They gave the less experienced players a sporting chance by handicapping the experts.
- spratly islands — a widely-scattered group of uninhabited islets and reefs in the S South China Sea, the subject of territorial claims wholly or in part by six neighbouring nations
- spread sampling — the selection of a corpus for statistical analysis by selecting a number of short passages at random throughout the work and considering their aggregation
- spring mattress — a mattress containing an arrangement of spiral springs
- spring training — a program of physical exercise, practice, and exhibition games followed by a baseball team in the late winter and early spring, before the start of the regular season.
- spring-cleaning — a complete cleaning of a place, as a home, done traditionally in the spring of the year.
- sprinkler dance — a celebratory dance in which participants extend one arm and shake it to imitate the action of a rotating water sprinkler
- stamping ground — a habitual or favorite haunt.
- starting pistol — a pistol used to give the signal to start a race
- straining piece — (in a queen-post roof) a horizontal beam uniting the tops of the two queen posts, and resisting the thrust of the roof.
- stretch a point — a sharp or tapering end, as of a dagger.
- sub-corporation — an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members. See also municipal corporation, public corporation.
- sublapsarianism — infralapsarianism.
- subprofessional — being below professional standards: subprofessional health care.
- sulphinpyrazone — a uricosuric drug with molecular formula C23H20N2O3S, used in the treatment of chronic gout
- superexaltation — extreme or supreme exaltation; the act of superexalting; the process or condition of being superexalted
- superexcitation — the act of exciting.
- superficialness — being at, on, or near the surface: a superficial wound.
- supergiant star — Astronomy. an exceptionally luminous star whose diameter is more than 100 times that of the sun, as Betelgeuse or Antares.
- superindividual — greater than the individual
- superior planet — any of the five planets whose orbits are outside the orbit of the earth, namely, the planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
- supernaturalism — supernatural character or agency.
- supernaturalist — supernatural character or agency.
- supernaturality — the quality or state of being supernatural; supernaturalism.
- supernaturalize — to make supernatural; give supernatural character or qualities to.
- superordination — Logic. the relation between a universal proposition and a particular proposition of the same quality containing the same terms in the same order.
- surface-ripened — (of cheese) ripened on the surface by molds or other microorganisms.
- tetrasporangium — a sporangium containing four asexual spores.
- trading profits — profits made from the buying and selling of goods and services
- trainspotterish — obsessed with trivial details, esp of a subject generally considered uninteresting
- transplantation — to remove (a plant) from one place and plant it in another.
- trypanosomiasis — any infection caused by a trypanosome.
- unapprehensible — not able to be understood or comprehended
- uncompromisable — that cannot or should not be compromised
- university park — a city in N Texas.
- unix conspiracy — [ITS] According to a conspiracy theory long popular among ITS and TOPS-20 fans, Unix's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the back door entry. In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see virus) - but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this "Unix virus" theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "Unix is snake oil" was uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promoting its own family of Unix workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)
- unpractisedness — the quality or state of being unpractised
- unprotestantize — to make something (e.g. a church, country, etc) a religion other than Protestant
- unsportsmanlike — a man who engages in sports, especially in some open-air sport, as hunting, fishing, racing, etc.
- upper peninsula — a peninsula in the northern US between Lakes Superior and Michigan, constituting the N part of the state of Michigan
- vanishing spray — a substance that disperses without trace shortly after it is sprayed onto a surface, used in football to mark a temporary line behind which defenders must stand when a free kick is taken
- vernier compass — a compass on a transit (vernier transit) having a vernier for adjusting magnetic bearings to read as true bearings.
- vindhya pradesh — a former state in central India: now part of Madhya Pradesh.
- walpurgis night — (especially in medieval German folklore) the evening preceding the feast day of St. Walpurgis, when witches congregated, especially on the Brocken.
- weapons carrier — a light truck for transporting weapons or munitions in the field.
- whiplash injury — the lash of a whip.
- whippersnappers — Plural form of whippersnapper.
- winter purslane — a plant, Montia perfoliata, native to western North America, of the purslane family, having edible, egg-shaped leaves and clusters of small, white flowers.
- yorke peninsula — a peninsula in S Australia between Spencer Gulf and the Gulf of St. Vincent. 160 miles (257 km) long and 20–35 miles (32–56 km) wide.