17-letter words containing w, a, n
- reading knowledge — the ability to read a language, but not speak it
- ready and waiting — If you want to emphasize that a person is properly prepared for something, or that something can now be used, you can say that they are ready and waiting.
- renaissance woman — a woman who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field.
- revolutionary war — American Revolution.
- roll with a punch — to move in the same direction as a punch thrown at one so as to lessen its force
- rub the wrong way — to subject the surface of (a thing or person) to pressure and friction, as in cleaning, smoothing, polishing, coating, massaging, or soothing: to rub a table top with wax polish; to rub the entire back area.
- russian wolfhound — borzoi.
- saint john's wort — any of various plants or shrubs of the genus Hypericum, having yellow flowers and transparently dotted leaves.
- sandwich compound — any of a class of organometallic compounds whose molecules have a metal atom or ion bound between two plane parallel organic rings
- sanitation worker — a person employed to collect, haul away, and dispose of garbage.
- sawatch mountains — range of the Rocky Mountains, in central Colo.: highest peak, Elbert
- sawed-off shotgun — rifle with a short barrel
- scentless mayweed — a similar and related plant, Matricaria maritima, with scentless leaves
- second balkan war — Balkan War (def 2).
- secondary rainbow — a faint rainbow formed by light rays that undergo two internal reflections in drops of rain, appearing above the primary rainbow and having its colors in the opposite order.
- secondary winding — A secondary winding is the winding of a transformer that receives its energy by electromagnetic induction from the primary winding.
- self-acknowledged — widely recognized; generally accepted: an acknowledged authority on Chinese art.
- shower attachment — a device fixed to taps to make a shower
- sidewall sampling — Sidewall sampling is the process of taking a sample from the wall of the borehole.
- sino-japanese war — the war (1894–95) between China and Japan over the control of Korea that resulted in the nominal independence of Korea and the Chinese cession to Japan of Formosa and the Pescadores.
- slap on the wrist — a sharp blow or smack, especially with the open hand or with something flat.
- slings and arrows — Slings and arrows are unpleasant things that happen to you and that are not your fault.
- snowmass mountain — a mountain in W central Colorado, in the Elk Mountains, in the S Rocky Mountains: ski resorts. 14,092 feet (4295 meters).
- social networking — the development of social and professional contacts; the sharing of information and services among people with a common interest.
- social notworking — the practice of spending time unproductively on social networking websites, esp when one should be working
- software engineer — a person who writes computer programs
- southampton water — an inlet of the English Channel in S England
- spaghetti western — a low-budget western movie shot in Italy or Spain, usually with Italian actors and an American star.
- spanish civil war — the civil war in Spain 1936–39.
- spiny-headed worm — any of a small group of endoparasites of the phylum Acanthocephala, as larvae parasitic in insects and crustaceans and as adults in various vertebrates.
- spread your wings — if you spread your wings, you do something new and rather difficult or move to a new place, because you feel more confident in your abilities than you used to and you want to gain wider experience
- spring cankerworm — the striped, green caterpillar of any of several geometrid moths: a foliage pest of various fruit and shade trees, as Paleacrita vernata (spring cankerworm) and Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm)
- st. swithin's day — July 15, superstitiously regarded as a day that, should it rain or be fair, will be followed by 40 consecutive days of like weather.
- stonewall jackson — Andrew ("Old Hickory") 1767–1845, U.S. general: 7th president of the U.S. 1829–37.
- store and forward — to store (information) in a computer for later forward transmission through a telecommunication network
- straw in the wind — If you say that an incident or piece of news is a straw in the wind, you mean that it gives an indication of what might happen in the future.
- strawberry blonde — woman: with reddish fair hair
- sun-2 workstation — (computer) A Unix workstation produced by Sun Microsystems, Inc., based on the Motorola 68000. Followed by the Sun-3 Workstation.
- sun-3 workstation — (computer) A Unix workstation produced by Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the 1980s, based on the Motorola 68020. Successor to the Sun-2 Workstation, followed by the Sun-4 Workstation. The Sun-3 had a custom MMU. A couple of mutant models used an entirely different architecture.
- sun-4 workstation — (computer) A Unix workstation produced by Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the late 1980s[?], based on SPARC processors. The Sun-4 followed the Sun-3 Workstation. Later SPARC-based workstations were called "SPARCstations".
- swaddling clothes — cloth for wrapping around a baby
- swainson's thrush — a North American thrush, Catharus ustulatus, having olive upper parts and wintering south to Argentina.
- sweating sickness — a febrile epidemic disease that appeared in the 15th and 16th centuries: characterized by profuse sweating and frequently fatal in a few hours.
- sweet mock orange — the syringa, Philadelphus coronarius.
- switching station — A switching station is equipment used to tie together two or more electric circuits through switches.
- sword and sorcery — a genre of literature and film, usually set in days of old with magic as well as sword fighting
- tanenbaum, andrew — Andrew Tanenbaum
- teaching software — computer software for use in providing online education
- technical drawing — the study and practice, esp as a subject taught in school, of the basic techniques of draughtsmanship, as employed in mechanical drawing, architecture, etc
- tell its own tale — to be self-evident