14-letter words containing s, y, n, t, a
- sauropterygian — any of various Mesozoic marine reptiles of the superorder Sauropterygia, including the suborder Plesiosauria.
- scaly anteater — pangolin.
- scientifically — of or relating to science or the sciences: scientific studies.
- scratch monkey — (humour) As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
- secure tenancy — the letting of a dwelling by a nonprivate landlord, usually a local council or housing association, under an agreement that allows security of tenure, subletting, improvements made to the property by the tenant without consequent rent increase, and the right to buy the dwelling at a discount after three years' occupancy
- sentimentality — the quality or state of being sentimental or excessively sentimental.
- seronegativity — the quality or state of being seronegative
- shabby-genteel — trying to maintain dignity and self-respect despite shabbiness.
- shoo-fly plant — apple of Peru.
- shooting party — a social gathering when people shoot game together
- silky anteater — an arboreal, tropical American anteater, Cyclopes didactylus, about the size of a rat, having a prehensile tail, glossy, golden fur, and two toes on each forelimb.
- simultaneously — existing, occurring, or operating at the same time; concurrent: simultaneous movements; simultaneous translation.
- sinistrorsally — in a sinistrorsal manner
- snowy mountain — of or relating to the Snowy Mountains of Australia or their inhabitants
- socratic irony — pretended ignorance in discussion.
- spiny anteater — echidna.
- st. john's day — the saint's day of St. John the Baptist, celebrated on June 24, being one of the four quarter days in England.
- st. marylebone — former metropolitan borough of London: since 1965, part of Westminster
- stagflationary — of, caused by, or relating to, stagflation
- standard money — money made of a metal that has utility and value apart from its use as a unit of monetary exchange.
- stanley dancer — Stanley, 1927–2005, U.S. harness racer and trainer.
- start-up money — money that is spent on setting up a new business or other project
- state attorney — (in judicial proceedings) the legal representative of the state.
- stay stitching — a line of stitches made in the seam allowance to prevent the edges from stretching
- stay the night — If you stay the night in a place, you sleep there for one night.
- stay-in strike — sit-down strike.
- stony tunguska — one of three rivers in Russia, in central Siberia, that is a tributary of the Yenisei and is 1550 km (960 miles) long
- storming party — a group deployed to make the first assault on a position or building
- strange to say — surprisingly
- subcontrariety — the quality or state of being subcontrary
- subcutaneously — situated or lying under the skin, as tissue.
- subinfeudatory — a person who holds by subinfeudation.
- substantiality — of ample or considerable amount, quantity, size, etc.: a substantial sum of money.
- sunday painter — a nonprofessional painter, usually unschooled and generally painting during spare time.
- sunday trading — the fact of opening a shop or business on a Sunday
- supernaturally — of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
- supplementally — supplementary.
- supplicatingly — in a pleading manner
- sustainability — the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed.
- sycophantishly — in a sycophantish manner
- symmetry plane — reflection plane.
- synaposematism — the display of common warning colours between different organisms inhabiting the same region
- synaptic cleft — the small gap, measured in nanometers, between an axon terminal and any of the cell membranes in the immediate vicinity.
- sync-generator — an electronic generator that supplies synchronizing pulses to television scanning and transmitting equipment.
- synoptic chart — a chart showing the distribution of meteorological conditions over a wide region at a given moment.
- syntactic foam — any of several buoyant materials made up of tiny hollow spheres embedded in a surrounding plastic
- synthesization — to form (a material or abstract entity) by combining parts or elements (opposed to analyze): to synthesize a statement.
- syrian hamster — golden hamster.
- systematicness — having, showing, or involving a system, method, or plan: a systematic course of reading; systematic efforts.
- take one's way — to go on a journey; travel