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14-letter words containing a, c, n, t, h

  • scotch furnace — ore hearth.
  • scrap merchant — dealer in discarded materials
  • scratch monkey — (humour)   As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
  • search warrant — a court order authorizing the examination of a dwelling or other private premises by police officials, as for stolen goods.
  • segmental arch — a shallow arch not including a complete semicircle
  • servant church — the attitude or practices of a church whose avowed purpose is to serve the world.
  • shadow cabinet — (in the British Parliament) a group of prominent members of the opposition who are expected to hold positions in the cabinet when their party assumes power.
  • shalach manoth — the practice of giving gifts to one another or to the needy on Purim.
  • shooting match — a contest in marksmanship.
  • shouting match — a loud, often abusive quarrel or argument.
  • shower curtain — waterproof sheet around a shower
  • sistine chapel — the chapel of the pope in the Vatican at Rome, built for Pope Sixtus IV and decorated with frescoes by Michelangelo and others.
  • slanging match — A slanging match is an angry quarrel in which people insult each other.
  • son of a bitch — a contemptible or thoroughly disagreeable person; scoundrel.
  • sophisticating — a sophisticated person.
  • sophistication — sophisticated character, ideas, tastes, or ways as the result of education, worldly experience, etc.: the sophistication of the wealthy.
  • south american — a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).
  • south carolina — a state in the SE United States, on the Atlantic coast. 31,055 sq. mi. (80,430 sq. km). Capital: Columbia. Abbreviation: SC (for use with zip code), S.C.
  • southern ocean — that part of the Indian Ocean south of Australia
  • sparring match — a practice boxing match
  • speed merchant — a person who habitually drives too fast in a motor vehicle
  • spinthariscope — an instrument that detects ionizing radiation by picking up sparks of light from alpha particles.
  • st. catharines — a city in SE Ontario, in SE Canada.
  • staghorn coral — staghorn coral.
  • staghorn sumac — a sumac, Rhus typhina, of eastern North America, having leaves that turn scarlet, orange, and purple in the autumn.
  • stand a chance — (of a person) to be in an upright position on the feet.
  • stand the pace — to keep up with the speed or rate of others
  • standard pitch — concert pitch
  • station church — any of the churches in Rome that have been used from ancient times as points of assembly for religious processions
  • stay stitching — a line of stitches made in the seam allowance to prevent the edges from stretching
  • steeplechasing — a horse race over a turf course furnished with artificial ditches, hedges, and other obstacles over which the horses must jump.
  • steganographic — of, or pertaining to, steganography
  • stegocephalian — an extinct, pre-Jurassic amphibian
  • stock exchange — a building or place where stocks and other securities are bought and sold.
  • stomachfulness — the quality of being stomachful
  • straight chain — an open chain of atoms, usually carbon, with no side chains attached to it.
  • straight-chain — an open chain of atoms, usually carbon, with no side chains attached to it.
  • straining arch — an arch for resisting thrusts, as in a flying buttress.
  • sycophantishly — in a sycophantish manner
  • synoptic chart — a chart showing the distribution of meteorological conditions over a wide region at a given moment.
  • tacking stitch — a long, loose, temporary stitch used in dressmaking, etc
  • take the count — to be unable to continue after a count of ten
  • teach a lesson — give a class, give instruction
  • teaching elder — a minister in a Presbyterian church.
  • teaching staff — those members of staff in a school, college, or university who teach
  • technical area — the area at the side of the pitch to which managers, trainers, coaches, etc are restricted during play
  • technical foul — a foul committed by a player or coach, usually not involving physical contact with an opponent, called often for unsportsmanlike conduct, as holding on to the basket or using profanity, that gives the opposing team one or two free throws and sometimes, if the foul was flagrant, requires the ejection of the offending player or coach from the game.
  • technicalities — technical methods and vocabulary
  • telephone call — contact by phone
  • telephonically — of, relating to, or happening by means of a telephone system.
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