17-letter words containing t, e, n, s, a
- shit on a shingle — creamed chipped beef or ground beef in a sauce, served on toast.
- shoestring tackle — a tackle made around the ankles of the ball carrier.
- shooting practice — practice in shooting for soldiers or other people who shoot guns
- shorthold tenancy — letting of a dwelling for between one and five years at a fair rent
- shouting distance — hailing distance.
- shower attachment — a device fixed to taps to make a shower
- significance test — (in hypothesis testing) a test of whether the alternative hypothesis achieves the predetermined significance level in order to be accepted in preference to the null hypothesis
- significant other — Sociology. a person, as a parent or peer, who has great influence on one's behavior and self-esteem.
- silk manufacturer — a person or business that is involved in the manufacture of silk thread and fabric
- similar triangles — triangles that are similar due to the equality of corresponding angles and the proportional similarity of the corresponding sides
- sinbad the sailor — a merchant in The Arabian Nights who makes seven adventurous voyages
- single-track road — a road that is only wide enough for one vehicle
- sir arthur harden — Sir Arthur, 1865–1940, English biochemist: Nobel Prize 1929.
- sixth commandment — “Thou shalt not kill”: sixth of the Ten Commandments.
- skate on thin ice — to place oneself in a dangerous or delicate situation
- slap on the wrist — a sharp blow or smack, especially with the open hand or with something flat.
- sleep deprivation — a condition in which you have not had enough sleep
- sleeping quarters — the rooms where people sleep in a large building or complex or on a boat etc
- slenderness ratio — aspect ratio (def 4a).
- slenderness-ratio — Aeronautics. the ratio of the span of an airfoil to its mean chord.
- snatch one's time — to leave a job, taking whatever pay is due
- social assistance — welfare program
- social enterprise — a business organization that works to benefit society as a whole
- social networking — the development of social and professional contacts; the sharing of information and services among people with a common interest.
- social settlement — settlement (def 14).
- socratic elenchus — the drawing out of the consequences of a position in order to show them to be contrary to some accepted position
- sodium propionate — a transparent, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 3 H 5 NaO 2 , used in foodstuffs to prevent mold growth, and in medicine as a fungicide.
- software engineer — a person who writes computer programs
- soil conservation — any of various methods to achieve the maximum utilization of the land and preserve its resources through such controls as crop rotation, prevention of soil erosion, etc.
- solicitor general — a law officer who maintains the rights of the state in suits affecting the public interest, next in rank to the attorney general.
- sound effects man — a man who produces sounds artificially or reproduces them from a recording, etc, to create a theatrical effect, such as the bringing together of two halves of a hollow coconut shell to simulate a horse's gallop. Such sound effects are used in plays, films, etc
- sound spectrogram — a graphic representation, produced by a sound spectrograph, of the frequency, intensity, duration, and variation with time of the resonance of a sound or series of sounds.
- south farmingdale — a town on central Long Island, in SE New York.
- south lanarkshire — a council area of S Scotland, comprising the S part of the historical county of Lanarkshire: included within Strathclyde Region from 1975 to 1996: has uplands in the S and part of the Glasgow conurbation in the N: mainly agricultural. Administrative centre: Hamilton. Pop: 303 010 (2003 est). Area: 1771 sq km (684 sq miles)
- south sea company — a British joint stock company that traded in South America in the 18th century. The South Sea Company took over the national debt in return for a monopoly of trade with the South Seas, causing feverish speculation in their stocks, and a financial crash in 1720 (the South Sea Bubble)
- south sea islands — the islands in the S Pacific that constitute Oceania
- southampton water — an inlet of the English Channel in S England
- southern rhodesia — a former name (until 1964) of Zimbabwe (def 1).
- southern sporades — a group of Greek islands in the Aegean, including the Dodecanese, lying off the SW coast of Turkey
- southern triangle — the constellation Triangulum Australe.
- spaghetti western — a low-budget western movie shot in Italy or Spain, usually with Italian actors and an American star.
- spaghettification — the theoretical stretching of an object as it encounters extreme differences in gravitational forces, especially those associated with a black hole.
- span of attention — attention span.
- sparc xterminal 1 — (computer) Sun's lowest cost networked Unix desktop, it is board-upgradeable to a SPARC 4. It comes with a choice of frame buffers: 8-bit colour, Turbo GX, or Turbo GX plus. This product was expected to replace the SPARCclassic X. UK availability was planned for March 1995.
- spark transmitter — a transmitting set that generates electromagnetic waves by the oscillatory discharge from a capacitor through an inductor and a spark gap.
- spatial frequency — the measure of fine detail in an optical image in terms of cycles per millimetre
- special constable — a person recruited for temporary or occasional police duties, esp in time of emergency
- special education — education that is modified or particularized for those with singular needs, as disabled or maladjusted people, slow learners, or gifted children.
- spectrum analyser — an instrument that splits an input waveform into its frequency components, which are then displayed
- spectrum analysis — the determination of the constitution or condition of bodies and substances by means of the spectra they produce.