15-letter words containing a, d, o, w
- upward mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
- upwardly mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- venetian window — Palladian window.
- völkerwanderung — the migration of peoples, esp of Germanic and Slavic peoples into S and W Europe from 2nd to 11th centuries
- w.h. richardson — Henry Handel (Henrietta Richardson Robertson) 1870–1946, Australian novelist.
- waddesdon manor — a mansion near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire: built (1880–89) in the French style for the Rothschild family: noted for its furnishings and collections of porcelain and paintings
- wage indexation — the linking of wages to an index representing the cost of living, so that they are automatically adjusted up or down as that rises or falls
- walking holiday — a holiday on which you walk a lot, esp in the countryside
- walking wounded — casualties, as of a military conflict, who are wounded but ambulatory.
- waterfall model — (programming) A software life-cycle or product life-cycle model, described by W. W. Royce in 1970, in which development is supposed to proceed linearly through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration and maintenance. The Waterfall Model is considered old-fashioned or simplistic by proponents of object-oriented design which often uses the spiral model instead. Earlier phases are sometimes called "upstream" and later ones "downstream". Compare: iterative model.
- waterford glass — fine cut or gilded glass made in Waterford, Ireland, having a slight blue cast due to the presence of cobalt.
- weatherboarding — an early type of board used as a siding for a building.
- weekend cottage — a cottage where people spend weekends
- weekend warrior — a reservist who attends weekend meetings of his or her unit in order to fulfill military obligations.
- well-accustomed — customary; usual; habitual: in their accustomed manner.
- well-elaborated — worked out with great care and nicety of detail; executed with great minuteness: elaborate preparations; elaborate care. Synonyms: perfected, painstaking. Antonyms: simple.
- well-formulated — to express in precise form; state definitely or systematically: He finds it extremely difficult to formulate his new theory.
- wheelchairbound — Confined to a wheelchair.
- wild and woolly — unrestrained; lawless: a wild-and-woolly frontier town.
- wild-and-woolly — unrestrained; lawless: a wild-and-woolly frontier town.
- wilderness road — a 300-mile (500-km) route from eastern Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, explored by Daniel Boone in 1769 and marked as a trail by him and other pioneers in 1775: a major route for early settlers moving west.
- wind-pollinated — being pollinated by airborne pollen.
- windfall profit — a profit that arises thanks to an external event over which the person profiting had no control
- window cleaning — the task of washing and shining windows
- winter holidays — a period of rest from work or studies taken in winter
- with good grace — elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action: We watched her skate with effortless grace across the ice. Synonyms: attractiveness, charm, gracefulness, comeliness, ease, lissomeness, fluidity. Antonyms: stiffness, ugliness, awkwardness, clumsiness; klutziness.
- with one accord — If a number of people do something with one accord, they do it together or at the same time, because they agree about what should be done.
- withholding tax — that part of an employee's tax liability withheld by the employer from wages or salary and paid directly to the government.
- working drawing — an accurately measured and detailed drawing of a structure, machine, etc., or of any part of one, used as a guide to workers in constructing it.
- working holiday — trip combining vacation with job experience
- world-wide wait — (humour) A pejorative expansion of WWW reflecting on the slowness of some network connections and sites.
- wraparound care — a childcare facility intended to help working parents, in which young children are looked after before and after school
- wreathed column — a column having a twisted or spiral form.
- wrongheadedness — The state of being wrongheaded.
- yellow lead ore — wulfenite.
- yellow mandarin — (in the Chinese Empire) a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button worn on the cap.