16-letter words containing se
- reprocessed wool — wool cloth respun and rewoven from the raveled fibers of unused cloth, such as the waste or clippings from a garment factory
- research library — a general or specialized library that collects materials for use in intensive research projects.
- research quantum — the standard by which the contribution to a university of individual academics is measured and on the basis of which universities receive government funding and academics are promoted
- research student — a student studying for a doctoral award, that is, a PhD or an MPhil
- reservation desk — a desk in a hotel, office, etc, where an employee takes bookings for rooms, tickets, etc
- 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.
- return on assets — the amount of profit computed by dividing net income before interest and taxes by the cost of assets, usually expressed as a percentage. Abbreviation: ROA.
- reverse a charge — If you reverse a charge on a credit card, you put the amount you have charged back into the credit card account.
- reverse commuter — a commuter who lives in a city and commutes to a job in the suburbs.
- reverse engineer — to study or analyze (a device, as a microchip for computers) in order to learn details of design, construction, and operation, perhaps to produce a copy or an improved version.
- reverse mortgage — a type of home mortgage under which an elderly homeowner is allowed a long-term loan in the form of monthly payments against his or her paid-off equity as collateral, repayable when the home is eventually sold. Abbreviation: RAM.
- 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.
- reverse takeover — the purchase of a larger company by a smaller company, esp of a public company by a private company
- reverse-engineer — to study or analyze (a device, as a microchip for computers) in order to learn details of design, construction, and operation, perhaps to produce a copy or an improved version.
- revised algol 60 — ALGOL 60 Revised
- roosevelt island — Formerly Welfare Island, Blackwells Island. an island in the East River, New York City: residential community. 1½ miles (2½ km) long.
- safeguard clause — a clause in a contract, etc, that ensures the protection of something against problems, etc
- saint-john perse — (Alexis Saint-Léger Léger) 1887–1975, French diplomat and poet: Nobel Prize in literature 1960.
- 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.
- sandlot baseball — a form of baseball played by children on an area of vacant ground
- sea fish farming — the farming of saltwater fish
- seal of approval — royal stamp of endorsement
- sealyham terrier — one of a Welsh breed of small terriers having short legs, a docked tail, and a wiry, mostly white coat.
- seaside knotweed — See under knotweed.
- seat of learning — People sometimes refer to a university or a similar institution as a seat of learning.
- seating capacity — the number of people a place can seat
- sebaceous glands — any of the cutaneous glands that secrete oily matter for lubricating hair and skin.
- second adventist — Adventist (def 1).
- second amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms as necessary to maintain a state militia.
- second childhood — senility; dotage.
- second intention — See under intention (def 5b).
- second messenger — any of various intracellular chemical substances, as cyclic AMP, that transmit and amplify the messages delivered by a first messenger to specific receptors on the cell surface.
- second world war — World War II.
- 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.
- secondhand smoke — smoke from a cigarette, cigar, or pipe that is involuntarily inhaled, especially by nonsmokers.
- secular humanism — any set of beliefs that promotes human values without specific allusion to religious doctrines.