17-letter words containing sp
- speech impediment — speaking disorder
- speed restriction — the maximum speed allowed for road vehicles, trains, or other vehicles
- spenserian sonnet — a sonnet employing the rhyme scheme abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee.
- spenserian stanza — the stanza used by Spenser in his Faerie Queene and employed since by other poets, consisting of eight iambic pentameter lines and a final Alexandrine, with a rhyme scheme of ababbcbcc.
- sperrin mountains — a mountain range in NW Northern Ireland
- spherical polygon — a closed figure formed by arcs of great circles on a spherical surface.
- spin one's wheels — a circular frame or disk arranged to revolve on an axis, as on or in vehicles or machinery.
- spinal anesthesia — interruption of conduction of nerve impulses by the injection of an anesthetic into the spinal canal that reduces sensitivity to pain without loss of consciousness.
- spinal meningitis — infection of spinal membrane
- 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.
- spiral bevel gear — a bevel gear having curved teeth tending to converge on the axis of rotation.
- spiritual bouquet — the spiritual presentation of a good work to another person.
- spiritual healing — faith healing
- spiritus frumenti — whiskey.
- spit in the ocean — a variety of poker in which four cards are dealt face down to each player and one card, forming the fifth for all hands, is dealt face up in the center of the table, the exposed card and others of its denomination being wild cards.
- spitting distance — a short space or distance
- split keyboarding — the act or practice of editing data from one terminal on another terminal
- split one's sides — to laugh very heartily
- split personality — multiple personality.
- spondylolisthesis — the forward displacement of a vertebra.
- spongy parenchyma — the lower layer of the ground tissue of a leaf, characteristically containing irregularly shaped cells with relatively few chloroplasts and large intercellular spaces.
- spoonbill catfish — flathead catfish.
- spore mother cell — a cell from which a spore is produced
- sports facilities — places and things for doing sports
- spot announcement — a brief radio or television announcement, usually an advertisement, made by an individual station during or after a network program.
- spot-illustration — a rounded mark or stain made by foreign matter, as mud, blood, paint, ink, etc.; a blot or speck.
- spotted sandpiper — a North American sandpiper, Actitis macularia, that has brownish-gray upper parts and white underparts, and is spotted with black in the summer.
- 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)
- springfield rifle — a single-shot, breechloading .45-caliber rifle used by the U.S. Army from 1867 to 1893.
- spruce gall aphid — any of various homopterous insects of the family Adelgidae, as Adelges abietis (spruce gall aphid) and Pineus pinifoliae (pine leaf aphid) that feed and form galls on conifers.
- st. crispin's day — October 25: anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (1415).
- steamboat springs — a town in NW Colorado: ski resort.
- stereospecificity — (of a reaction) producing a simple stereoisomer.
- subjective spirit — spirit, insofar as it falls short of the attainments of objective spirit.
- suspension bridge — a bridge having a deck suspended from cables anchored at their extremities and usually raised on towers.
- suspension points — a group of dots, usually three, used in written material to indicate the omission of a word or words
- synchronous speed — the speed at which an alternating-current machine must operate to generate electromotive force at a given frequency.
- teaching hospital — a hospital associated with a medical college and offering clinical and other facilities to those in various areas of medical study, as students, interns, and residents.
- the rail-splitter — Lincoln2
- till eulenspiegel — a legendary German peasant of the 14th century whose practical jokes yielded many stories.
- topological space — a set with a collection of subsets or open sets satisfying the properties that the union of open sets is an open set, the intersection of two open sets is an open set, and the given set and the empty set are open sets.
- vacuum aspiration — menstrual extraction.
- wage-price spiral — a situation in which wage and price increases drive each other upward and cause inflation
- war correspondent — a reporter or commentator assigned to send news or opinions directly from battle areas.
- weapons inspector — a person who inspects a country's weapons