23-letter words containing s, t, o, r

st. pierre and miquelon — two small groups of islands off the S coast of Newfoundland: an overseas territory of France; important base for fishing. 3 sq. mi. (240 sq. km). Capital: St. Pierre.
staggered directorships — a defence against unwelcome takeover bids in which a company resolves that its directors should serve staggered terms of office and that no director can be removed from office without just cause, thus preventing a bidder from controlling the board for some years
standard widget toolkit — (graphics, programming, standard) (SWT) The Eclipse Foundation's framework for developing graphical user interfaces in Java. SWT is written in explicitly standard Java but uses the Java Native Interface to talk to a platform-native GUI library. SWT is the third major attempt to give Java a decent GUI framework, following AWT and Swing. Of the three, SWT is the most consistent with the native GUIs but its programming model is hard to port to non-Windows platforms.
state coordinate system — a system of right-angled planar coordinates established by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for each state in the United States.
state-trading countries — countries whose export and import trading is government controlled
statutory maternity pay — the maternity pay a woman is legally entitled to
steal someone's thunder — to strike, drive, inflict, give forth, etc., with loud noise or violent action.
stereoscopic microscope — a microscope that produces a three-dimensional image of an object by focusing on the object from slightly different positions in each of two lenses.
stereospecific catalyst — a catalyst for stereospecific chemical reactions
sterling software, inc. — (company) A software company which was bought out by Computer Associates International, Inc.
stick to someone's ribs — to be nourishing and satisfying
stimulus generalization — generalization (def 4a).
stimulus-generalization — the act or process of generalizing.
straight bill of lading — a bill of lading that is issued to a specified consignee for the delivery of the goods and that cannot be endorsed to another party.
stream of consciousness — unpunctuated prose
stream-of-consciousness — of, relating to, or characterized by a manner of writing in which a character's thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality, or the like: a stream-of-consciousness novel; a stream-of-consciousness technique.
structural anthropology — a school of anthropology founded by Claude Lévi-Strauss and based loosely on the principles of structural linguistics.
structural unemployment — unemployment caused by basic changes in the overall economy, as in demographics, technology, or industrial organization.
subscription television — pay television.
suit down to the ground — the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground.
superposition principle — principle of superposition.
suprasegmental phonemes — phonemes or features of speech, as pitch, stress, and juncture, that may extend over and modify series of segmental phonemes
survival of the fittest — (not in technical use) natural selection.
symbolic interactionism — a theory that human interaction and communication is facilitated by words, gestures, and other symbols that have acquired conventionalized meanings.
system control language — (language) (SCL) The command language for the VME/B operating system on the ICL2900. SCL was block structured and supported strings, lists of strings ("superstrings"), integer, Boolean, and array types. You could trigger a block whenever a condition on a variable value occured. It supported macros and default arguments. Commands were treated like procedure calls.
take into consideration — take account of, allow for
take sth in your stride — In British English, if you take a problem or difficulty in your stride, you deal with it calmly and easily. The American expression is take something in stride.
tennessee walking horse — an American breed of horse, marked by its stamina and trained to move at a fast running walk
text processing utility — (language) (TPU) A DEC language for creation of text-processing interfaces, used to implement DEC's Extensible VAX Editor (EVE).
thank one's lucky stars — any of the heavenly bodies, except the moon, appearing as fixed luminous points in the sky at night.
the best of both worlds — advantages of two different things
the chamber of deputies — the lower legislative assembly in some parliaments
the department of state — the United States federal department concerned with foreign policy
the lesser of two evils — If you have two choices, but think that they are both bad, you can describe the one which is less bad as the lesser of two evils, or the lesser evil.
the library of congress — the official library of the United States in Washington, DC. It houses extensive collections in all subject areas and formats, important historical documents, and is also a depository for copyrighted materials.
the royal naval reserve — the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom
the scottish parliament — the devolved national legislature of Scotland, located in Edinburgh
the taming of the shrew — a comedy (1594?) by Shakespeare.
the teaching profession — the profession of a teacher
the thrill of the chase — If you talk about the thrill of the chase, you are referring to the excitement that people feel when they are trying hard to get something.
the whys and wherefores — The whys and wherefores of something are the reasons for it.
there is no holding him — he is so spirited or resolute that he cannot be restrained
there is nothing for it — If you say that there is nothing for it but to take a particular action, you mean that it is the only possible course of action that you can take, even though it might be unpleasant.
there's no need/no need — You can tell someone that there's no need for them to do something as a way of telling them not to do it or of telling them to stop doing it, for example because it is unnecessary.
to add insult to injury — You say to add insult to injury when mentioning an action or fact that makes an unfair or unacceptable situation even worse.
to be at your wit's end — If you say that you are at your wits' end, you are emphasizing that you are so worried and exhausted by problems or difficulties that you do not know what to do next.
to be in short trousers — to be a little boy
to blow someone's cover — To blow someone's cover means to cause their true identity or the true nature of their work to be revealed.
to bring the house down — If a person or their performance or speech brings the house down, the audience claps, laughs, or shouts loudly because the performance or speech is very impressive or amusing.
to change for the worse — If a situation changes for the worse, it becomes more unpleasant or more difficult.

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