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15-letter words containing s, p, u, n

  • humpback salmon — a pink salmon inhabiting North Pacific waters: so-called because of the hump that appears behind the head of the male when it is ready for spawning.
  • hundred's place — hundred (def 8).
  • hunt the wumpus — (games, history)   (Or "Wumpus") /wuhm'p*s/ A famous fantasy computer game, created by Gregory Yob in about 1973. Hunt the Wumpus appeared in Creative Computing, Vol 1, No 5, Sep - Oct 1975, where Yob says he had come up with the game two years previously, after seeing the grid-based games Hurkle, Snark and Mugwump at People's Computing Company (PCC). He later delivered Wumpus to PCC who published it in their newsletter. ESR says he saw a version including termites running on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System in 1972-3. Magnus Olsson, in his 1992-07-07 USENET article <[email protected]>, posted the BASIC source code of what he believed was pretty much the version that was published in 1973 in David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games", by Digital Equipment Corporation. The wumpus lived somewhere in a cave with the topology of an dodecahedron's edge/vertex graph (later versions supported other topologies, including an icosahedron and M"obius strip). The player started somewhere at random in the cave with five "crooked arrows"; these could be shot through up to three connected rooms, and would kill the wumpus on a hit (later versions introduced the wounded wumpus, which got very angry). Unfortunately for players, the movement necessary to map the maze was made hazardous not merely by the wumpus (which would eat you if you stepped on him) but also by bottomless pits and colonies of super bats that would pick you up and drop you at a random location (later versions added "anaerobic termites" that ate arrows, bat migrations and earthquakes that randomly changed pit locations). This game appears to have been the first to use a non-random graph-structured map (as opposed to a rectangular grid like the even older Star Trek games). In this respect, as in the dungeon-like setting and its terse, amusing messages, it prefigured ADVENT and Zork and was directly ancestral to both (Zork acknowledged this heritage by including a super-bat colony). There have been many ports including one distributed with SunOS, a freeware one for the Macintosh and a C emulation by ESR.
  • hyperinsulinism — excessive insulin in the blood, resulting in hypoglycemia.
  • hypoinsulinemia — (medicine) An abnormally low level of insulin in the blood.
  • hypoinsulinemic — Having hypoinsulinemia.
  • i don't suppose — You can say 'I don't suppose' as a way of introducing a polite request.
  • immune response — any of the body's immunologic reactions to an antigen.
  • impecuniousness — The property of being impecunious.
  • implausibleness — The quality of being implausible.
  • importunateness — Quality of being importunate.
  • impulse turbine — a turbine moved by free jets of fluid striking the blades of the rotor together with the axial flow of fluid through the rotor.
  • in short supply — If something is in short supply, there is very little of it available and it is difficult to find or obtain.
  • incapaciousness — the quality of not having (sufficiently) great capacity
  • inconspicuously — not conspicuous, noticeable, or prominent.
  • indisputability — The property of being indisputable.
  • industrial park — an industrial complex, typically in a suburban or rural area and set in parklike surroundings with such facilities as parking lots, restaurants, and recreation areas.
  • ingush republic — a constituent republic of S Russia: part of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic from 1936 until 1992. Capital: Magas (formerly at Nazran). Pop: 468 900 (2002). Area: 3600 sq km (1390 sq miles)
  • inopportuneness — The quality of being inopportune.
  • insulating tape — adhesive tape, impregnated with a moisture-repelling substance, used to insulate exposed electrical conductors
  • insuperableness — The quality of being insuperable or insurmountable; insuperability.
  • insurance stamp — an insurance contribution
  • interior-sprung — (esp of a mattress) containing springs
  • introsusception — intussusception.
  • intussusception — a taking within.
  • intussusceptive — Relating to intussusception.
  • isotopic number — the number of neutrons minus the number of protons in an atomic nucleus.
  • jackass penguin — any of several boldly marked black and white penguins of the genus Spheniscus, especially S. demersus, of southern Africa, with a call resembling a donkey's bray.
  • japanese laurel — an eastern Asian evergreen shrub, Aucuba japonica, of the dogwood family, having dark-green, glossy leaves and scarlet berries.
  • japanese quince — a flowering quince, Chaenomeles speciosa, of Japan, having scarlet flowers and pear-shaped fruit.
  • japanese spurge — a low Japanese plant, Pachysandra terminalis, having evergreen leaves and spikes of white flowers, grown as a ground cover.
  • jurisprudential — the science or philosophy of law.
  • juristic person — a human being, whether an adult or child: The table seats four persons.
  • jus postliminii — postliminy.
  • juxtapositional — an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.
  • juxtapositioned — Simple past tense and past participle of juxtaposition.
  • keep open house — to be always ready to provide hospitality
  • kenai peninsula — peninsula in S Alas. between Cook Inlet & the main body of the Gulf of Alaska: c. 150 mi (241 km) long: site of one the world's largest ice fields
  • landeshauptmann — the head of government in an Austrian state
  • langres plateau — a calcareous plateau of E France north of Dijon between the Seine and the Saône, reaching over 580 m (1900 ft): forms a watershed between rivers flowing to the Mediterranean and to the English Channel
  • leptosporangium — (botany) A sporangium formed from a single epidermal cell.
  • lissencephalous — having the cephalic disorder of a lack of developed brain folds
  • lleyn peninsula — a peninsula in NW Wales between Cardigan Bay and Caernarfon Bay
  • lopez y fuentes — Gregorio [gre-gaw-ryaw] /grɛˈgɔ ryɔ/ (Show IPA), 1895–1966, Mexican writer.
  • loudspeaker van — a motor vehicle carrying a public address system
  • lung specialist — doctor specializing in lung conditions
  • lung transplant — a medical operation in which the lungs are taken out of someone who has died and are placed into another person's body
  • luster painting — a method of decorating glazed pottery with metallic pigment, originated in Persia, popular from the 9th through the mid-19th centuries.
  • macrosporangium — megasporangium.
  • malay peninsula — a peninsula in SE Asia, consisting of W (mainland) Malaysia and the S part of Thailand.
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