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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)
sine ira ac studio
(la)
"without anger and fondness" or "without hate and zealousness"; coined by Roman historian Tacitus
sine qua non
(la)
something that is absolutely needed
sincerity, straightforwardness, lacking in metafictional irony or subtlety
Situationism
(en)
referring to the Situationist International, an org of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, prominent in Europe from 1957-1972; schools of thought: anti-authoritarian Marxism, Dadaism, Surrealism
skeins
(en)
a length of thread or yarn, loosely coiled and knotted
skeletal narrative
(en)
destabilising a narrative by means of elements embedded within the narrative itself
skirling
(en)
(verb) to emit the high shrill tone of the chanter / (verb) to give forth music / (verb) to play (music) on the bagpipe
slipshod
(en)
(adjective) wearing loose shoes or slippers / (adjective) down at the heel; shabby / (adjective) careless slovenly
sobriquet
(en)
(noun) a descriptive name or epithet; nickname
social justice
(en)
justice that follows collective ideas of fairness, correctness and reciprocity, concedes demands for a minimum livelihood irrespective of economic performance or productivity, and recognizes civil and human rights to such things as health, social security, participation in the life of the community, employment protection and trade union organization; determined by cultural norms and is based on status rather than contract
sodality
(en)
(noun) brotherhood community / (noun) an organized society or fellowship / (noun) a devotional or charitable association of Roman Catholic laity