15-letter words containing s, p, l, a, n
- sauce espagnole — brown sauce.
- schlieffen plan — a plan intended to ensure German victory over a Franco-Russian alliance by holding off Russia with minimal strength and swiftly defeating France by a massive flanking movement through the Low Countries, devised by Alfred, Count von Schlieffen (1833–1913) in 1905
- self-absorption — preoccupation with oneself or one's own affairs.
- self-acceptance — the act of taking or receiving something offered.
- self-complacent — pleased with oneself; self-satisfied; smug.
- self-persuasion — the act of persuading or seeking to persuade.
- sensitive plant — Also called humble plant. a tropical American plant, Mimosa pudica, cultivated in greenhouses, having bipinnate leaves whose leaflets fold together when touched.
- septentrionally — northwards; in the direction of the north
- shark repellent — any tactic used by a corporation to prevent a takeover by a corporate raider.
- shoulder weapon — a firearm that is fired while being held in the hands with the butt of the weapon braced against the shoulder.
- shove-halfpenny — a shuffleboard game played with coins or brass disks that are pushed by the hand and thumb down a board toward a scoring pit.
- simple equation — linear equation
- simple fraction — a ratio of two integers.
- simple interval — an interval of an octave or less.
- simplicidentate — belonging or pertaining to the Simplicidentata, formerly regarded as a suborder or division of rodents having only one pair of upper incisor teeth.
- sinai peninsula — broad peninsula in NE Egypt, between the Gulf of Suez & the Gulf of Aqaba
- singapore sling — a cocktail of gin, cherry brandy, sugar, and water.
- slab plastering — coarse plastering, as between the studs in a half-timbered wall.
- slap and tickle — sexual play
- sleeping beauty — a beautiful princess, the heroine of a popular fairy tale, awakened from a charmed sleep by the kiss of the prince who is her true love.
- sleeping tablet — A sleeping tablet is the same as a sleeping pill.
- slumpflationary — of or relating to slumpflation
- snafu principle — /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ [WWII Army acronym for "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up"] "True communication is possible only between equals, because inferiors are more consistently rewarded for telling their superiors pleasant lies than for telling the truth." - a central tenet of Discordianism, often invoked by hackers to explain why authoritarian hierarchies screw up so reliably and systematically. The effect of the SNAFU principle is a progressive disconnection of decision-makers from reality. This lightly adapted version of a fable dating back to the early 1960s illustrates the phenomenon perfectly: In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification; And the plan was without form, and the specification was void. And darkness was on the faces of the implementors thereof; And they spake unto their leader, saying: "It is a crock of shit, and smells as of a sewer." And the leader took pity on them, and spoke to the project leader: "It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof." And the project leader spake unto his section head, saying: "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide it." The section head then hurried to his department manager, and informed him thus: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength." The department manager carried these words to his general manager, and spoke unto him saying: "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong." And so it was that the general manager rejoiced and delivered the good news unto the Vice President. "It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful." The Vice President rushed to the President's side, and joyously exclaimed: "This powerful new software product will promote the growth of the company!" And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good. After the subsequent disaster, the suits protect themselves by saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are demoted or fired.
- snapping beetle — click beetle.
- snapping turtle — either of two large, edible, freshwater turtles of the family Chelydridae, of North and Central America, having a large head and powerful hooked jaws, especially the common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina.
- social spending — the money that is spent on welfare payments
- sostenuto pedal — a pedal on a grand piano that raises the dampers, allowing the tone to be sustained for those strings struck at the time the pedal is depressed.
- spanish needles — (used with a singular or plural verb) a composite plant, Bidens bipinnata, having achenes with downwardly barbed awns.
- spanish trefoil — alfalfa.
- sparkling water — soda water (def 1).
- special edition — newspaper, magazine: extra issue
- special licence — a licence permitting a marriage to take place by dispensing with the usual legal conditions
- special partner — a partner whose liability for the firm's debts is limited to the amount that partner has invested in the firm.
- special session — a session, as of a legislature or council, called to meet in addition to those held regularly.
- special student — a student who is not seeking a degree but enrols in a course, esp to gain academic credits
- speckle pattern — the visual appearance of a star as viewed through a large telescope, with irregularities caused by the distorting effect of local turbulence in the earth's atmosphere.
- spherical angle — an angle formed by arcs of great circles of a sphere.
- spill the beans — the edible nutritious seed of various plants of the legume family, especially of the genus Phaseolus.
- spinal ganglion — a ganglion on the dorsal root of each spinal nerve, containing the cell bodies of sensory nerves.
- spiral notebook — a notebook held together by a coil of wire passed through small holes punched at the back edge of the covers and individual pages
- spit and polish — great care in maintaining smart appearance and crisp efficiency: The commander was concerned more with spit and polish than with the company's morale.
- splanchnopleure — the double layer formed by the association of the lower layer of the lateral plate of mesoderm with the underlying entoderm, which develops into the embryonic viscera.
- 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-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
- starting pistol — a pistol used to give the signal to start a race
- 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