16-letter words containing y, e, a
- saint-barthelemy — (Saint Bartholomew; Saint Barts; Saint Barths) a resort island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands, part of the French department of Guadeloupe. 6900; 8 sq. mi. (21 sq. km).
- 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.
- sandstone quarry — a quarry from which sand is extracted
- 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
- saxifrage family — the plant family Saxifragaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and small trees having alternate or opposite leaves, clustered or solitary flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry or capsule, and including the astilbe, currant, deutzia, gooseberry, hydrangea, mock orange, piggy-back plant, saxifrage, and strawberry geranium.
- sclerenchymatous — supporting or protective tissue composed of thickened, dry, and hardened cells.
- sealyham terrier — one of a Welsh breed of small terriers having short legs, a docked tail, and a wiry, mostly white coat.
- seating capacity — the number of people a place can seat
- second-story man — a burglar who enters through an upstairs window.
- secondary accent — a stress accent weaker than primary accent but stronger than lack of stress.
- secondary cancer — a cancerous growth in some part of the body away from the site of the original tumour
- secondary colour — a colour formed by mixing two primary colours
- secondary growth — an increase in the thickness of the shoots and roots of a vascular plant as a result of the formation of new cells in the cambium.
- secondary market — the market that exists for an issue after large blocks of shares have been publicly distributed.
- secondary modern — Secondary moderns were schools which existed until recently in Britain for children aged between about eleven and sixteen, where more attention was paid to practical skills and less to academic study than in a grammar school.
- secondary phloem — phloem derived from the cambium during secondary growth.
- secondary school — a high school or a school of corresponding grade, ranking between a primary school and a college or university.
- secondary source — next after the first in order, place, time, etc.
- secondary stress — Engineering. a stress induced by the elastic deformation of a structure under a temporary load.
- secondary tissue — tissue derived from cambium.
- security analyst — a person who specializes in evaluating information regarding stocks and bonds.
- security blanket — a blanket or other familiar item carried especially by a young child to provide reassurance and a feeling of psychological security.
- security manager — The security manager of a store is the person responsible for organizing all security in the store and to whom security guards report.
- security measure — a precaution taken against terrorism, espionage or other danger
- sedimentary rock — rock formed from compacted minerals
- self-complacency — pleased with oneself; self-satisfied; smug.
- self-deprecatory — belittling or undervaluing oneself; excessively modest.
- self-exculpatory — intended to excuse oneself from blame or guilt
- self-explanatory — explaining itself; needing no explanation; obvious.
- sensory overload — being overwhelmed by sights, sounds, etc.
- 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).
- share and enjoy! — 1. Commonly found at the end of software release announcements and README files, this phrase indicates allegiance to the hacker ethic of free information sharing (see hacker ethic). 2. The motto of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (the ultimate gaggle of incompetent suits) in Douglas Adams's "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The irony of using this as a cultural recognition signal appeals to freeware hackers.
- sharpe's grysbok — either of two small, usually solitary antelopes of southern Africa, Raphicerus melanotis, or R. sharpei (Sharpe's grysbok) having a light to dark reddish-brown coat speckled with white.
- 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
- shooting gallery — a place equipped with targets and used for practice in shooting.
- showy crab apple — a large Japanese bush or tree, Malus floribunda, of the rose family, having red fruit and rose-colored flowers that fade to white.
- silky flycatcher — any of several passerine birds of the family Ptilogonatidae, of the southwestern U.S. to Panama, related to the waxwings.
- simeon ben yohai — flourished 2nd century a.d, Palestinian rabbi.
- simonyi, charles — Charles Simonyi
- single occupancy — a type of travel accommodation, as at a hotel, for one person in a room.
- situation comedy — a comedy drama, especially a television series made up of discrete episodes about the same group of characters, as members of a family.
- sleep-wake cycle — Physiology. the species-specific biological pattern of alternating sleep and wakefulness, in humans roughly 8 hours of nocturnal sleep and 16 hours of daytime activity.
- smack in the eye — a snub or setback
- snakebite remedy — hard liquor.
- soapberry family — the plant family Sapindaceae, characterized by chiefly tropical trees, shrubs, or herbaceous vines having compound leaves, clustered flowers, and berrylike, fleshy, or capsular fruit, and including the balloon vine, golden rain tree, litchi, and soapberry.
- social democracy — a political ideology advocating a gradual transition to socialism or a modified form of socialism by and under democratic political processes.
- social secretary — a personal secretary employed to make social appointments and handle personal correspondence.
- sodium cyclamate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, NaC 6 NH 1 2 SO 3 , that has been used as a sweetening agent: banned by the FDA in 1970.