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20-letter words containing s, u, r, n, o

  • return on investment — the amount of profit, before tax and after depreciation, from an investment made, usually expressed as a percentage of the original total cost invested. Abbreviation: ROI.
  • return on net assets — the amount of profit computed by dividing net income before interest and taxes by the cost of net assets, usually expressed as a percentage. Abbreviation: RONA.
  • reversionary annuity — an annuity payable to a beneficiary during the period of time he or she survives the insured.
  • rocky mountain basic — (language)   The BASIC language used by Hewlett Packard on their 680x0-based computers. Rocky Mountain Basic is good for interfaces to IEEE 488 controls and contains many mathematical and matrix functions. It has about 600 commands. Typical applications include automatic test stations.
  • rocky mountain sheep — bighorn.
  • roller-blind shutter — curtain shutter.
  • rotations per minute — revolutions per minute
  • rough-winged swallow — either of two New World swallows of the genus Stelgidopteryx, having outer primary feathers with small barblike hooks on the margins.
  • rub sb's nose in sth — To rub someone's nose in something that they do not want to think about, such as a failing or a mistake they have made, means to remind them repeatedly about it.
  • santa cruz operation — (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. SCO maintains its world headquarters in Santa Cruz, California, USA; a European headquarters in Watford, England; a Government Systems Group in Reston, Virginia; and offices in Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, and throughout Europe and the United States. In February 1993, SCO acquired IXI Limited of Cambridge, England, the leading supplier of Unix System windowing software.
  • scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
  • schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
  • second-degree murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
  • secure accommodation — an institution where young offenders are kept in custody
  • security association — (networking)   The relationship between two or more entities (typically, a computer, but could be a user on a computer, or software component) which describes how the entities will use security services, such as encryption, to communicate. See RFC 1825.
  • shoulder-length hair — hair that reaches a person's shoulders
  • sing for your supper — If someone has to sing for their supper, they have to do a job before they are allowed to do something they want to do.
  • skull and crossbones — a representation of a front view of a human skull above two crossed bones, originally used on pirates' flags and now used as a warning sign, as in designating substances as poisons.
  • slip through the net — If criminals slip through the net, they avoid being caught by the system or trap that was meant to catch them.
  • sodium meta-arsenite — sodium arsenite.
  • sound motion picture — a motion picture with a soundtrack.
  • south american plate — a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the continent of South America and several ocean basins and bounded on the north by the Caribbean Plate, on the east by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on the west by a submarine trench that borders the western coast of the continent, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate.
  • south orkney islands — an uninhabited group of islands in the S Atlantic, southeast of Cape Horn: formerly a dependency of the Falkland Islands; part of the British Antarctic Territory since 1962 (claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty). Area: 621 sq km (240 sq miles)
  • south temperate zone — the part of the earth's surface between the tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle.
  • southern oscillation — a low-latitude fluctuation of atmospheric pressure closely linked with El Niño events, specifically the periods of El Niño warming and La Niña cooling.
  • spontaneous abortion — miscarriage (def 1).
  • spontaneous recovery — the reappearance of a response after its extinction has been followed by a period of rest
  • spontaneous-abortion — Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
  • square cross-section — If a kelly has a square cross-section, it has a surface area with four equal sides, when looked at as if has been sliced through.
  • square of opposition — a diagrammatic representation of the opposition of categorical propositions.
  • squatter sovereignty — (used contemptuously by its opponents) popular sovereignty (def 2).
  • squirrel's-foot fern — ball fern.
  • standard book number — International Standard Book Number. Abbreviation: SBN.
  • state enrolled nurse — a nurse with training and examinations enabling him or her to perform many nursing services
  • strong nuclear force — an interaction between elementary particles responsible for the forces between nucleons in the nucleus. It operates at distances less than about 10–15 metres, and is about a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic interaction
  • subscription edition — an edition of one or more volumes for which a number of prospective purchasers place orders, usually in advance of publication.
  • subscription library — a commercial lending library
  • summary jurisdiction — the right a court has to adjudicate immediately upon some matter arising during its proceedings
  • superior conjunction — the alignment of an inferior planet and the sun in which the planet is at the far side of the sun from the earth.
  • supersonic transport — a commercial jet airplane that can fly faster than the speed of sound. Abbreviation: SST.
  • surveillance society — a society where surveillance technology is widely used to monitor people's everyday activities
  • synchronous rotation — rotation of a satellite in which the period of rotation is equal to the period of orbit around its primary, leaving the same face always pointing toward the primary: The moon is in synchronous rotation about the earth.
  • systemic circulation — the circulatory system in general.
  • telephone subscriber — a person who subscribes to a telephone service
  • the course of nature — the ordinary course of events
  • the founding fathers — any of the men who were members of the U.S. Constituional Convention of 1787
  • the gnomes of zurich — Swiss bankers and financiers
  • thomas of erceldoune — Thomas of, Thomas of Erceldoune.
  • thought transference — transference of thought by extrasensory means from the mind of one individual to another; telepathy.
  • three-quarter nelson — a hold in which a wrestler, from a kneeling position behind a prone opponent, applies a half nelson with one arm, passes the other arm under the opponent's body on the near side, and locks the arms at the fingers or wrist on the back of the opponent's neck.
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