16-letter words containing v, y, s
- phytosuccivorous — feeding on sap, as certain sucking insects.
- poverty-stricken — suffering from poverty; extremely poor: poverty-stricken refugees.
- relative density — specific gravity.
- relativistically — of or relating to relativity or relativism.
- representatively — a person or thing that represents another or others.
- reserve buoyancy — the difference between the volume of a hull below the designed waterline and the volume of the hull below the lowest opening incapable of being made watertight.
- reserve capacity — the capacity of a battery, measured in minutes, to keep a vehicle operating if the charging system fails.
- reserve currency — any currency, as the U.S. dollar, used as a medium to settle international debts.
- reverse snobbery — a person overly proud of being one of or sympathetic to the common people, and who denigrates or shuns those of superior ability, education, social standing, etc.
- salivary amylase — an enzyme in the saliva that converts starch into dextrin and maltose.
- same-day service — (humour, operating system) An ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with respect to MS-DOS system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write programs that are not well-behaved. See also PC-ism.
- save as you earn — (in Britain) a savings scheme which offers a tax-free bonus and allows employees to buy shares in the company they work for at a fixed price
- security vetting — the process of investigating somebody to establish their trustworthiness
- selective memory — an ability to remember some facts while apparently forgetting others, especially when they are inconvenient
- self-sovereignty — the quality or state of being sovereign, or of having supreme power or authority.
- send to coventry — to ostracize or ignore
- sensory overload — being overwhelmed by sights, sounds, etc.
- service industry — business providing a service
- seven years' war — the war (1756–63) in which England and Prussia defeated France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony.
- severnaya zemlya — an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, between the Kara Sea and Laptev Sea, in N Russia. 14,175 sq. mi. (36,712 sq. km).
- shoemaker-levy 9 — a comet that was captured into an orbit around Jupiter and later broke up, the fragments colliding with Jupiter in July 1995
- special delivery — (in the U.S. Postal Service) delivery of mail outside the regularly scheduled hours, by a special messenger, upon the payment of an extra fee.
- specific gravity — the ratio of the density of any substance to the density of some other substance taken as standard, water being the standard for liquids and solids, and hydrogen or air being the standard for gases.
- state university — a university maintained by the government of a state.
- strawberry guava — a shrub or small tree, Psidium littorale, of the myrtle family, native to Brazil, having smooth, grayish-brown bark, leathery leaves, white flowers, and edible, white-fleshed, purplish-red fruit.
- superheavyweight — an amateur boxer weighing more than 91 kg
- supersensitivity — extremely or excessively sensitive; hypersensitive: a supersensitive smoke detector.
- surveyor's chain — a series of objects connected one after the other, usually in the form of a series of metal rings passing through one another, used either for various purposes requiring a flexible tie with high tensile strength, as for hauling, supporting, or confining, or in various ornamental and decorative forms.
- surveyor's level — level (def 8a).
- thanksgiving day — a national holiday celebrated as a day of feasting and giving thanks for divine favors or goodness, observed on the fourth Thursday of November in the U.S. and in Canada on the second Monday of October.
- time sovereignty — control by an employee of the use of his or her time, involving flexibility of working hours
- tinnevelly senna — any plant, shrub, or tree belonging to the genus Cassia, of the legume family, having pinnate leaves and large clusters of flowers.
- to pay dividends — If something pays dividends, it brings advantages at a later date.
- top drive system — A top drive system is a system which includes a motor that turns the drill string, used instead of the kelly.
- vegetable oyster — salsify.
- videodisc player — an electronic device for playing videodiscs through a television set.
- vinylidene resin — any synthetic resin in which the basic structure consists of the H2C:CR2 group, where R usually is a halogen
- visibility meter — any instrument for measuring the visual range through the atmosphere, as a transmissometer.
- voluntary muscle — muscle whose action is normally controlled by an individual's will; mainly skeletal muscle, composed of parallel bundles of striated, multinucleate fibers.
- voluntary school — a school that promotes specific religious beliefs and which is funded by a local education authority but was not established by the authority
- voluntary sector — the part of the economy that consists of non-profit-making organizations, as opposed to the public and private sectors
- weather advisory — advisory (def 5).
- west valley city — city in NC Utah, near Salt Lake City: pop. 109,000
- yeoman's service — good, useful, or workmanlike service: His trusty sword did him yeoman's service.