20-letter words containing a, b, s, o, l
- checkbook journalism — the practice of paying for a news story or an interview, or for exclusive broadcasting or publishing rights.
- colorado blue spruce — blue spruce.
- compensating balance — Also, compensated balance, compensation balance. a balance wheel in a timepiece, designed to compensate for variations in tension in the hair spring caused by changes in temperature.
- constituent assembly — A constituent assembly is a body of representatives that is elected to create or change their country's constitution.
- controlled substance — a drug regulated by the Federal Controlled Substances Acts, including opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens
- devil's bit scabious — a similar and related Eurasian marsh plant, Succisa pratensis
- diisobutyl phthalate — a clear, colorless liquid, C 14 H 26 O 4 , used chiefly as a plasticizer for nitrocellulose.
- disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
- distribution channel — trade: retailer
- district of columbia — a federal area in the E United States, on the Potomac, coextensive with the federal capital, Washington. 69 sq. mi. (179 sq. km). Abbreviation: DC (for use with zip code), D.C.
- double-aspect theory — a monistic theory that holds that mind and body are not distinct substances but merely different aspects of a single substance
- drum and bugle corps — a marching band of drum players and buglers.
- duck-billed dinosaur — hadrosaur.
- electoral boundaries — the way that a country or area is divided for the purposes of voting in an election
- employer's liability — an employer's legal responsibility to pay damages to an employee who has been injured or who has contracted an illness because of the work he or she does
- enabling legislation — legislation conferring certain specified powers on a person or organization
- endorsement in blank — an endorsement on a bill of exchange, cheque, etc, naming no payee and thus making the endorsed sum payable to the bearer
- equilibrium constant — The equilibrium constant is the ratio between the amount of reactants and the amount of product for a particular chemical reaction, used to calculate chemical behavior.
- feast of tabernacles — Sukkoth.
- five-a-side football — a version of soccer with five players in each team
- fold-and-thrust belt — a linear or arcuate region of the earth's surface that has been subjected to severe folding and thrust faulting
- fontainebleau school — a group of artists, many of them Italian and Flemish, who worked on the decorations of the palace of Fontainebleau in the 16th century.
- football hooliganism — the actions or behaviour of a football hooligan
- for sb's delectation — If you do something for someone's delectation, you do it to give them enjoyment or pleasure.
- good loser/bad loser — If someone is a good loser, they accept that they have lost a game or contest without complaining. If someone is a bad loser, they hate losing and complain about it.
- greatest lower bound — a lower bound that is greater than or equal to all the lower bounds of a given set: 1 is the greatest lower bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbreviation: glb.
- grievous bodily harm — law: serious injury
- hudson's bay blanket — a woollen blanket with wide stripes
- information builders — Distributors of LEVEL5 OBJECT. Telephone +1 800 969 INFO.
- justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
- laboratory assistant — laboratory technician, lab assistant
- laboratory diagnosis — scientific analysis of a disease
- labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
- lampbrush chromosome — a chromosome with looped projections resembling a brush
- land-office business — a lively, booming, expanding, or very profitable business.
- law of large numbers — the theorem in probability theory that the number of successes increases as the number of experiments increases and approximates the probability times the number of experiments for a large number of experiments.
- like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
- love's labour's lost — a comedy (1594–95?) by Shakespeare.
- massachusetts ballot — a ballot on which the candidates, with their party designations, are listed alphabetically in columns under the office for which they were nominated.
- membranous labyrinth — an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit. Synonyms: maze, network, web.
- miliary tuberculosis — tuberculosis in which the bacilli are spread by the blood from one point of infection, producing small tubercles in other parts of the body.
- nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
- objective relativism — the doctrine that knowledge of real objects is relative to the individual.
- operational database — (database) A database containing up-to-date, modifiable data, in contrast to a decision support database.
- pass in one's marble — to die
- peasecod breastplate — a breastplate having a long central ridge terminating in a raised area overhanging the waistline.
- pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
- physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- planned obsolescence — a method of stimulating consumer demand by designing products that wear out or become outmoded after limited use.
- potassium binoxalate — a white, crystalline, hygroscopic, poisonous solid, KHC 2 O 4 , that is usually hydrated: used chiefly for removing ink stains, cleaning metal and wood, and in photography.