Words whose 12th letter is S

Adventitious (a.) Accidentally or sparingly spontaneous in a country or district; not fully naturalized; adventive; -- applied to foreign plants.

Agreeableness (n.) Resemblance; concordance; harmony; -- with to or between.

Amphicoelous (a.) Having both ends concave; biconcave; -- said of vertebrae.

Ampullaceous (a.) Like a bottle or inflated bladder; bottle-shaped; swelling.

Anthophagous (a.) Eating flowers; -- said of certain insects.

Arreptitious (a.) Snatched away; seized or possessed, as a demoniac; raving; mad; crack-brained.

Asynchronous (a.) Not simultaneous; not concurrent in time; -- opposed to synchronous.

Bleareyedness (n.) The state of being blear-eyed.

Cacophonious (a.) Harsh-sounding.

Carpophagous (a.) Living on fruits; fruit-consuming.

Catastrophism (n.) The doctrine that the geological changes in the earth's crust have been caused by the sudden action of violent physical causes; -- opposed to the doctrine of uniformism.

Collectedness (n.) A collected state of the mind; self-possession.

Covetousness (n.) A strong or inordinate desire of obtaining and possessing some supposed good; excessive desire for riches or money; -- in a bad sense.

Crepusculous (a.) Flying in the twilight or evening, or before sunrise; -- said certain birds and insects.

Cultrivorous (a.) Devouring knives; swallowing, or pretending to swallow, knives; -- applied to persons who have swallowed, or have seemed to swallow, knives with impunity.

Cupuliferous (a.) Of, pertaining to, or resembling, the family of plants of which the oak and the chestnut are examples, -- trees bearing a smooth, solid nut inclosed in some kind of cup or bur; bearing, or furnished with, a cupule.

Disciflorous (a.) Bearing the stamens on a discoid outgrowth of the receptacle; -- said of a subclass of plants. Cf. Calycifloral.

Elasmosaurus (n.) An extinct, long-necked, marine, cretaceous reptile from Kansas, allied to Plesiosaurus.

Exalbuminous (a.) Having no albumen about the embryo; -- said of certain seeds.

Geodephagous (a.) Living in the earth; -- applied to the ground beetles.

Gymnocarpous (a.) Naked-fruited, the fruit either smooth or not adherent to the perianth.

Heteroecious (a.) Passing through the different stages in its life history on an alternation of hosts, as the common wheat-rust fungus (Puccinia graminis), and certain other parasitic fungi; -- contrasted with autoecious.

Hederiferous (a.) Producing ivy; ivy-bearing.

Heterogynous (a.) Having females very unlike the males in form and structure; -- as certain insects, the males of which are winged, and the females wingless.

Heterologous (a.) Characterized by heterology; consisting of different elements, or of like elements in different proportions; different; -- opposed to homologous; as, heterologous organs.

Heteromerous (a.) Having the femoral artery developed as the principal artery of the leg; -- said of certain birds, as the cotingas and pipras.

Heteronereis (n.) A free-swimming, dimorphic, sexual form of certain species of Nereis.

Hippophagous (a.) Feeding on horseflesh; -- said of certain nomadic tribes, as the Tartars.

Histogenesis (n.) The formation and development of organic tissues; histogeny; -- the opposite of histolysis.

Homoeomerous (a.) Having the main artery of the leg parallel with the sciatic nerve; -- said of certain birds.

Homothermous (a.) Warm-blooded; homoiothermal; haematothermal.

Hyperapophysis (n.) A lateral and backward-projecting process on the dorsal side of a vertebra.

Idiomorphous (a.) Apperaing in distinct crystals; -- said of the mineral constituents of a rock.

Impressionism (n.) The theory or method of suggesting an effect or impression without elaboration of the details; -- a disignation of a recent fashion in painting and etching.

Inauspicious (a.) Not auspicious; ill-omened; unfortunate; unlucky; unfavorable.

Individualism (n.) An excessive or exclusive regard to one's personal interest; self-interest; selfishness.

Karyokinesis (n.) The indirect division of cells in which, prior to division of the cell protoplasm, complicated changes take place in the nucleus, attended with movement of the nuclear fibrils; -- opposed to karyostenosis. The nucleus becomes enlarged and convoluted, and finally the threads are separated into two groups which ultimately become disconnected and constitute the daughter nuclei. Called also mitosis. See Cell development, under Cell.

Laticiferous (a.) Containing the latex; -- applied to the tissue or tubular vessels in which the latex of the plant is found.

Ligniperdous (a.) Wood-destroying; -- said of certain insects.

Lithophagous (a.) Eating or destroying stone; -- applied to various animals which make burrows in stone, as many bivalve mollusks, certain sponges, annelids, and sea urchins. See Lithodomus.

Melanocomous (a.) Having very dark or black hair; black-haired.

Metagnathous (a.) Cross-billed; -- said of certain birds, as the crossbill.

Monomorphous (a.) Having but a single form; retaining the same form throughout the various stages of development; of the same or of an essentially similar type of structure; -- opposed to dimorphic, trimorphic, and polymorphic.

Monophyllous (a.) One-leaved; composed of a single leaf; as, a monophyllous involucre or calyx.

Nonuniformist (n.) One who believes that past changes in the structure of the earth have proceeded from cataclysms or causes more violent than are now operating; -- called also nonuniformitarian.

Occasionalism (n.) The system of occasional causes; -- a name given to certain theories of the Cartesian school of philosophers, as to the intervention of the First Cause, by which they account for the apparent reciprocal action of the soul and the body.

Onagrarieous (a.) Pertaining to, or resembling, a natural order of plants (Onagraceae or Onagrarieae), which includes the fuchsia, the willow-herb (Epilobium), and the evening primrose (/nothera).

Ophiophagous (a.) Feeding on serpents; -- said of certain birds and reptiles.

Orthodromics (n.) The art of sailing in a direct course, or on the arc of a great circle, which is the shortest distance between any two points on the surface of the globe; great-circle sailing; orthodromy.

Perichaetous (a.) Surrounded by setae; -- said of certain earthworms (genus Perichaetus).

Photophilous (n.) Light-loving; growing in strong light, as many plants.

Photosynthesis (n.) The process of constructive metabolism by which carbohydrates are formed from water vapor and the carbon dioxide of the air in the chlorophyll-containing tissues of plants exposed to the action of light. It was formerly called assimilation, but this is now commonly used as in animal physiology. The details of the process are not yet clearly known. Baeyer's theory is that the carbon dioxide is reduced to carbon monoxide, which, uniting with the hydrogen o> Phycomycetes (n. pl.) A large, important class of parasitic or saprophytic fungi, the algal or algalike fungi. The plant body ranges from an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm to a well-developed and much-branched mycelium. Reproduction is mainly sexual, by the formation of conidia or sporangia; but the group shows every form of transition from this method through simple conjugation to perfect sexual reproduction by egg and sperm in the higher forms.

Phaneroglossal (a.) Having a conspicious tongue; -- said of certain reptiles and insects.

Pharmacognosis (n.) That branch of pharmacology which treats of unprepared medicines or simples; -- called also pharmacography, and pharmacomathy.

Phryganeides (n. pl.) A tribe of neuropterous insects which includes the caddice flies; -- called also Trichoptera. See Trichoptera.

Planifolious (a.) Flat-leaved.

Polychromous (a.) Of or pertaining to polychromy; many-colored; polychromatic.

Polymorphous (a.) Having, or occurring in, several distinct forms; -- opposed to monomorphic.

Polyphyllous (a.) Many-leaved; as, a polyphyllous calyx or perianth.

Redemptionist (n.) A monk of an order founded in 1197; -- so called because the order was especially devoted to the redemption of Christians held in captivity by the Mohammedans. Called also Trinitarian.

Rhizocarpous (a.) Having perennial rootstocks or bulbs, but annual flowering stems; -- said of all perennial herbs.

Rhizophagous (a.) Feeding on roots; root-eating.

Sanguivorous (a.) Subsisting upon blood; -- said of certain blood-sucking bats and other animals. See Vampire.

Sarcophagous (a.) Feeding on flesh; flesh-eating; carnivorous.

Seminiferous (a.) Seed-bearing; producing seed; pertaining to, or connected with, the formation of semen; as, seminiferous cells or vesicles.

Serpentarius (n.) A constellation on the equator, lying between Scorpio and Hercules; -- called also Ophiuchus.

Shortclothes (n.) Coverings for the legs of men or boys, consisting of trousers which reach only to the knees, -- worn with long stockings.

Spiritualness (n.) The quality or state of being spiritual or spiritual-minded; spirituality.

Standergrass (n.) A plant (Orchis mascula); -- called also standerwort, and long purple. See Long purple, under Long.

Subconscious (a.) Occurring without the possibility or the fact of an attendant consciousness; -- said of states of the soul.

Tardigradous (a.) Moving slowly; slow-paced.

Telotrochous (a.) Having both a preoral and a posterior band of cilla; -- applied to the larvae of certain annelids.

Temporariness (n.) The quality or state of being temporary; -- opposed to perpetuity.

Tentaculocyst (n.) One of the auditory organs of certain medusae; -- called also auditory tentacle.

Thaumaturgus (n.) A miracle worker; -- a title given by the Roman Catholics to some saints.

Thomsonianism (n.) An empirical system which assumes that the human body is composed of four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, and that vegetable medicines alone should be used; -- from the founder, Dr. Samuel Thomson, of Massachusetts.

Thorough bass () The representation of chords by figures placed under the base; figured bass; basso continuo; -- sometimes used as synonymous with harmony.

Timothy grass () A kind of grass (Phleum pratense) with long cylindrical spikes; -- called also herd's grass, in England, cat's-tail grass, and meadow cat's-tail grass. It is much prized for fodder. See Illustration in Appendix.

Trichotomous (a.) Divided into three parts, or into threes; three-forked; as, a trichotomous stem.

Zygomorphous (a.) Symmetrical bilaterally; -- said of organisms, or parts of organisms, capable of division into two symmetrical halves only in a single plane.

About the author

Mark McCracken Author: Mark McCracken is a corporate trainer and author living in Higashi Osaka, Japan. He is the author of thousands of online articles as well as the Business English textbook, "25 Business Skills in English".

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