15-letter words containing u, r, a, s
- quasihistorical — of, pertaining to, treating, or characteristic of history or past events: historical records; historical research.
- queen's pattern — a pattern of ceramic decoration consisting of bands of swirling radial lines, white on blue alternating with red on white.
- query expansion — (information science) Adding search terms to a user's search. Query expansion is the process of a search engine adding search terms to a user's weighted search. The intent is to improve precision and/or recall. The additional terms may be taken from a thesaurus. For example a search for "car" may be expanded to: car cars auto autos automobile automobiles. The additional terms may also be taken from documents that the user has specified as being relevant; this is the basis for the "more like this" feature of some search engines. The extra terms can have positive or negative weights.
- question master — quizmaster.
- quincentenaries — Plural form of quincentenary.
- quotation marks — one of the marks used to indicate the beginning and end of a quotation, in English usually shown as “ at the beginning and ” at the end, or, for a quotation within a quotation, of single marks of this kind, as “He said, ‘I will go.’ ” Frequently, especially in Great Britain, single marks are used instead of double, the latter being then used for a quotation within a quotation.
- qurnet es sauda — a mountain in N Lebanon, in the Lebanon Mountains: highest point in Lebanon. 10,131 feet (3090 meters).
- radio sono-buoy — a buoy equipped to detect underwater noises and transmit them by radio
- radiophosphorus — phosphorus 32.
- ranfurly shield — (in New Zealand) the premier rugby trophy, competed for annually by provincial teams
- rat-tail cactus — a cactus, Aporocactus flagelliformis, of Mexico, having slim, cylindrical stems that are easily trained into strange designs, and crimson flowers.
- ratafia biscuit — a macaroon.
- ray of sunshine — beam of sunlight
- rayside-balfour — a town in S Ontario, in S Canada.
- ready-furnished — (of a room, house, office, etc) fitted with furniture before being rented or sold
- reconstitutable — to constitute again; reconstruct; recompose.
- rediscount rate — the rate charged by the Federal Reserve Bank to member banks for rediscounting commercial paper.
- reduce to tears — If someone or something reduces you to tears, they make you feel so unhappy that you cry.
- refuse disposal — the act of disposing of rubbish and waste
- regulatory risk — a risk to which private companies are subject, arising from the possibility of legislation or regulations that will affect business being adopted by a government
- reindustrialize — to subject to reindustrialization.
- relative clause — a subordinate clause introduced by a relative pronoun, adjective, or adverb, either expressed or deleted, especially such a clause modifying an antecedent, as who saw you in He's the man who saw you or (that) I wrote in Here's the letter (that) I wrote.
- renal corpuscle — Malpighian body (sense 2)
- reported clause — A reported clause is a subordinate clause that indicates what someone said or thought. For example, in 'She said that she was hungry', 'she was hungry' is a reported clause.
- residual income — the remaining income (of a business or person) after necessary debts, expenses, etc, have been paid
- residual stress — a stress in a metal, on a microscopic scale and resulting from nonuniform thermal changes, plastic deformation, or other causes aside from temporary external forces or applications of heat.
- resurrectionary — pertaining to or of the nature of resurrection.
- retail business — a firm which sells goods to individual customers
- reuben sandwich — a grilled sandwich of corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut on rye bread.
- revenue sharing — the system of disbursing part of federal tax revenues to state and local governments for their use.
- revisualization — the act of visualizing or picturing something again
- rez-de-chaussee — street level; ground floor.
- rhesus negative — relating to blood not containing Rhesus antigen D
- rheumatism-root — spotted wintergreen.
- riemann surface — a geometric representation of a function of a complex variable in which a multiple-valued function is depicted as a single-valued function on several planes, the planes being connected at some of the points at which the function takes on more than one value.
- rigel kentaurus — Alpha Centauri.
- right of asylum — the right of alien fugitives to protection or nonextradition in a country or its embassy.
- rigil kentaurus — Astronomy. Alpha Centauri.
- rime suffisante — full rhyme.
- ritualistically — adherence to or insistence on ritual.
- robert guiscard — Robert [French raw-ber] /French rɔˈbɛr/ (Show IPA), (Robert de Hauteville) c1015–85, Norman conqueror in Italy.
- rocky mountains — mountain range in USA and Canada
- rogation sunday — the fifth Sunday after Easter; it sees the start of the supplications that are continued during the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
- rogues' gallery — a collection of portraits of criminals and suspects maintained by the police for purposes of identification.
- rough bluegrass — a grass, Poa trivialis, native to Eurasia and naturalized in North America, where it is used in mixtures for lawns and pasturage.
- roundheadedness — the state of having a round head
- royal enclosure — at the Royal Ascot horse-race meeting, an area of Ascot racecourse which is reserved for the Royal Family, members, and their guests
- rubaiyat stanza — a quatrain patterned after those in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, of iambic pentameter and rhyming aaba.
- rudimentariness — the state or quality of being rudimentary
- ruffle feathers — to cause upset or offence