17-letter words containing s, t, a, r, c
- ascend the throne — to become king or queen
- ascertained goods — specific goods
- ask for the check — If you ask for the check, you ask the waitperson in a restaurant to bring you a piece of paper on which the price of your meal is written.
- assembly district — one of a fixed number of districts into which a state is divided, each district electing one member to the lower house of the state legislature.
- assessment centre — a set of selection procedures designed to recruit the best candidate or candidates to fill a job vacancy; it usually takes place over a day or two and is run by specialist staff
- assistant teacher — a person who assists a teacher in their work or who is not yet fully qualified as a teacher
- associate of arts — a degree granted especially by junior colleges after completion of two years of study. Abbreviation: A.A.
- association fiber — any of several nerve fibers connecting different areas of the cerebral cortex in the same hemisphere.
- associative array — (programming) (Or "hash", "map", "dictionary") An array where the indices are not just integers but may be arbitrary strings.
- astral projection — the departure of the astral body from the physical body, in order to travel to the astral plane
- astronomical unit — a unit of distance used in astronomy equal to the mean distance between the earth and the sun. 1 astronomical unit is equivalent to 1.495 × 1011 metres or about 9.3 × 107 miles
- astronomical year — year (def 4b).
- asymmetrical bars — a set of parallel bars, having one bar fixed at 230 cm (7 ft, 6 in) and the other at 150 cm (4 ft, 11 in), used by women gymnasts
- at close quarters — If you do something at close quarters, you do it very near to a particular person or thing.
- at cross purposes — an opposing or contrary purpose.
- at cross-purposes — If people are at cross-purposes, they do not understand each other because they are working towards or talking about different things without realizing it.
- at the service of — To be at the service of a person or organization means to be available to help or be used by that person or organization.
- attorneys-in-fact — a person authorized by power of attorney to act on the authorizer's behalf outside a court of law.
- attraction sphere — centrosphere (sense 1)
- audio description — a facility provided for visually impaired people in which a film, television programme, or play is described through audio technology
- aurea mediocritas — the golden mean.
- australia current — a branch of the South Equatorial Current flowing SW from around Fiji to the E coast of Australia and then S along the coast.
- australopithecine — any of various extinct apelike primates of the genus Australopithecus and related genera, remains of which have been discovered in southern and E Africa. Some species are estimated to be over 4.5 million years old
- avogadro constant — the number of atoms or molecules in a mole of a substance
- bachelor's button — any of several plants of a genus (Centaurea) of the composite family, that have scaly, vase-shaped bracts below the white, pink, or blue flowers; esp., the cornflower and knapweed
- bachelor's-button — any of various plants with round flower heads, especially the cornflower.
- back on the rails — If something is back on the rails, it is beginning to be successful again after a period when it almost failed.
- bacteriorhodopsin — a purple protein containing retinal and found in the plasma membrane of certain bacteria (genus Halobacterium): it directly supplies electrochemical energy from sunlight
- bankruptcy estate — all of the interests that a debtor has at the start of a bankruptcy case
- barchester towers — a novel (1857) by Anthony Trollope.
- barkhausen effect — the phenomenon of short, sudden changes in the magnetism of a ferromagnetic substance occurring when the intensity of the magnetizing field is continuously altered.
- barmecide (feast) — a pretended feast with no food
- base rate fallacy — the tendency, when making judgments of the probability with which an event will occur, to ignore the base rate and to concentrate on other information
- basic proposition — protocol (def 6).
- basic service set — (networking) (BSS) A wireless local area network and all the wireless devices (e.g. PCs and laptops) that are associated with it. A BSS may or may not include an access point and is identified by a BSSID.
- best first search — (algorithm) A graph search algorithm which optimises breadth first search by ordering all current paths according to some heuristic. The heuristic attempts to predict how close the end of a path is to a solution. Paths which are judged to be closer to a solution are extended first. See also beam search, hill climbing.
- black forest cake — a torte consisting typically of thin layers of chocolate cake spread with alternating layers of chocolate, cherry, and whipped-cream filling and covered with whipped cream
- black swallowwort — celandine (def 1).
- blackcurrant bush — a bush of the blackcurrant plant
- blackout curtains — thick, lined curtains designed to shut out all daylight and keep a room in complete darkness
- blessed sacrament — the consecrated elements of the Eucharist
- bluegrass country — region in central Ky. where there is much bluegrass
- boatswain's chair — a seat consisting of a short flat board slung from ropes, used to support a person working on the side of a vessel or in its rigging
- branch delay slot — delayed control-transfer
- bricks and mortar — You can use bricks and mortar to refer to houses and other buildings, especially when they are considered as an investment.
- british cameroons — a former British trust territory of West Africa
- british columbian — of or relating to British Columbia or its inhabitants
- british-cameroons — German Kamerun. a region in W Africa: a German protectorate 1884–1919; divided in 1919 into British and French mandates.
- brocot escapement — a type of anchor escapement.
- buncher resonator — See under Klystron.