scuttlebutt (en)

rumor or gossip (deriving from the nautical term for the cask used to serve water)

sectile (en)

(adjective) capable of being severed by a knife with a smooth cut

secular stagnation (en)

a condition of negligible or no economic growth in a market-based economy ("secular" as in "long-term", in contrast to "cyclical" or "short-term")

sedulous (en)

(adjective) involving or accomplished with careful perseverance / (adjective) diligent in application or pursuit

self-aggrandizing (en)

the act of enhancing or exaggerating one's own importance, power, or reputation

semioclasm (en)

"sign breaking" or the defiling of the sacred status of signs (a term defined by Roland Barthes)

semiotics (en)

the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation (adj: semiotic)

senescent (en)

(noun) the state of being old; the process of becoming old / (noun) the growth phase in a plant or plant part (as a leaf) from full maturity to death

sensu eminentiori (la)

in the eminent sense

sententia (en)

a brief moral saying taken from ancient or popular or other sources, often quoted without context; as an adjective, means either given to aphoristic expression, or just referring to an aphoristic expression. or: 'in a way that tries to sound important or intelligent, especially by expressing moral judgements'

sequor ad absurdum (la)

follow to absurdity

serried (en)

(adjective) crowded or pressed together; compact / (adjective) marked by ridges; serrate / (verb) to press together especially in ranks / (verb) to crowd together

sestina (en)

(noun) a lyrical fixed form consisting of six 6-line usually unrhymed stanzas in which the end words of the first stanza recur as end words of the following five stanzas in a successively rotating order and as the middle and end words of the three verses of the concluding tercet

sforzando (en)

played with prominent stress or accent —used as a direction in music

sfumato (en)

(noun) the definition of form in painting without abrupt outline by the blending of one tone into another

shale (en)

(noun) a fissile rock that is formed by the consolidation of clay, mud, or silt, has a finely stratified or laminated structure, and is composed of minerals essentially unaltered since deposition / (noun) a crude dark oil obtained from oil shale by heating / (noun) a rock (as shale) from which oil can be recovered by distillation

shareholder value (en)

a concept popularized by Jack Welch in a speech in 1981; in 2009, he came out against the idea

Sherwood Anderson (en)

an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works

shoal (en)

(adjective) shallow / (noun) shallow / (noun) a sandbank or sandbar that makes the water shallow / (verb) to become shallow / (verb) to come to a shallow or less deep part of / (verb) to cause to become shallow or less deep / (noun) a large group or number; crowd / (verb) throng school

shtetl (en)

small towns with large Jewish populations, which existed in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust

shunt (en)

to disarm an alarm system by creating a new circuit for the electricity

sibylline (en)

(noun) any of several prophetesses usually accepted as 10 in number and credited to widely separate parts of the ancient world (as Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy) / (noun) prophetess / (noun) fortune-teller

Sierpinski gasket (en)

a fractal and attractive fixed set with the overall shape of an equilateral triangle, subdivided recursively into smaller equilateral triangles

simony (en)

(noun) the buying or selling of a church office or ecclesiastical preferment

simulacrum (en)

(noun) image representation / (noun) an insubstantial form or semblance of something; trace (plural: simulacra)