21-letter words containing s, u, o, l
- special court-martial — a court-martial established to try violations of military law less serious than those tried by a general court-martial but more serious than those tried by a summary court-martial.
- spicebush swallowtail — a swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus, having a dark body with yellow spots on the forewings and greenish hind wings.
- spin angular momentum — to make (yarn) by drawing out, twisting, and winding fibers: Pioneer women spun yarn on spinning wheels.
- sport utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- sport-utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- statutory declaration — a declaration made under statutory authority before a justice of the peace or commissioner for oaths which may in certain cases be substituted for a statement on oath
- stop loss reinsurance — Stop loss reinsurance is a form of reinsurance under which the reinsurer pays the cedant's losses in any year over a particular percentage of the earned premium.
- structural psychology — psychology centering on the analysis of the structure or content of conscious mental states by introspective methods.
- subjective complement — subject complement.
- subliminal perception — perception of or reaction to a stimulus that occurs without awareness or consciousness
- subsistence allowance — money given in advance to a new soldier, employee, etc., to buy food, clothing, and pay for other necessities while awaiting a first pay.
- summary court-martial — a court-martial composed of one commissioned officer, authorized to try minor offenses against military law.
- sunday school teacher — someone who teaches at a Sunday school
- supergranulation cell — one of a number of large convection cells in the photosphere and chromosphere of the sun, each having a diameter of 10,000–20,000 miles (16,000–32,000 km) and lasting longer than a day.
- supply-side economics — a school of economic thought that emphasizes the importance to a strong economy of policies that remove impediments to supply
- surface of revolution — a surface formed by revolving a plane curve about a given line.
- take sb/sth seriously — If you take someone or something seriously, you believe that they are important and deserve attention.
- tartarian honeysuckle — an Asian honeysuckle, Lonicera tatarica, having fragrant, white to pink flowers.
- tetrabromofluorescein — eosin (def 1).
- the household cavalry — a group of British soldiers on horseback who have the job of protecting the king or queen and their family
- the jury is still out — it has not yet been decided or agreed on
- the slough of despond — a state of extreme despondency, depression or degradation
- throw sb a curve ball — If someone throws you a curve or throws you a curve ball, they surprise you by doing something that you do not expect.
- to be hard luck on sb — to be unfortunate or unlucky for someone
- to pull someone's leg — If you are pulling someone's leg, you are teasing them by telling them something shocking or worrying as a joke.
- to pull your socks up — If you tell someone to pull their socks up, you mean that they should start working or studying harder, because they have been lazy or careless.
- to rear its ugly head — If something unpleasant rears its head or rears its ugly head, it becomes visible or noticeable.
- to rub shoulders with — If you rub shoulders with famous people, you meet them and talk to them. You can also say that you rub elbows with someone, especially in American English.
- to sow your wild oats — If a young person sows their wild oats, they behave in a rather uncontrolled way, especially by having a lot of sexual relationships.
- toussaint l'ouverture — François Dominique [frahn-swa dawmee-neek] /frɑ̃ˈswa dɔmiˈnik/ (Show IPA), 1743–1803, Haitian patriot and leader of the Haitian Revolution slave rebellion.
- transformational rule — Linguistics. a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts deep structures into surface structures.
- triangulation station — a point used in triangulation as a basis for making maps. Triangulation stations are marked in a number of ways, such as by a tapering stone pillar on a hilltop
- triple superphosphate — superphosphate (def 2).
- triple-superphosphate — Also called acid phosphate. a mixture of calcium acid phosphate and calcium sulfate prepared by treating phosphate rock with sulfuric acid: used chiefly as a fertilizer.
- ulm's modula-2 system — (language) A Modula-2 compiler, library and tools by Andreas Borchert <[email protected]>. The compiler is derived from the ETHZ compiler for the Lilith system. Version 2.2.1 conforms to PIM3. It requires gas version 1.36 (to be found in the same directory). Commercial use requires a licence. It runs on Sun-3, Nixdorf Targon/31, Concurrent 3200 Series.
- ulster unionist party — a Northern Irish political party advocating the maintenance of union with the UK
- ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
- universal disk format — (storage, standard) (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- up close and personal — face to face, intimately
- up to the elbows with — busily occupied with; deeply immersed in
- vasco nunez de balboa — Vasco Núñez de [bahs-kaw noo-nyeth th e] /ˈbɑs kɔ ˈnu nyɛθ ðɛ/ (Show IPA), 1475?–1517, Spanish adventurer and explorer who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513.
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- venus's flower basket — a glass sponge of the genus Euplectella, inhabiting deep waters off the Philippines and Japan, having a cylindrical skeleton formed of an intricate latticework of siliceous spicules.
- venus's looking glass — a purple-flowered campanulaceous plant, Legousia hybrida, of Europe, W Asia, and N Africa
- virtual memory system — (operating system) (VMS) DEC's proprietary operating system originally produced for its VAX minicomputer. VMS V1 was released in August 1978. VMS was renamed "OpenVMS" around version 5.5. The first version of VMS on DEC Alpha was known as OpenVMS for AXP V1.0, and the correct way to refer to the operating system now is OpenVMS for VAX or OpenVMS for Alpha. The renaming also signified the fact that the X/Open consortium had certified OpenVMS as having a high support for POSIX standards. VMS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market (making it popular in financial institutions). It currently (October 1997) has the best clustering capability (both number and distance) and is very scalable with binaries portable from small desktop workstations up to huge mainframes. Many Unix fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favourite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.
- voluntary association — a group of individuals joined together on the basis of mutual interest or common objectives, especially a business group that is not organized or constituted as a legal entity.
- volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.
- west lothian question — the apparent inconsistency that members of parliament who represent Scottish constituencies are eligible to vote at Westminster on matters that relate only to England, whereas members of parliament from English constituencies are not eligible to vote on Scottish matters
- what the future holds — If you wonder what the future holds, you wonder what will happen in the future.