18-letter words containing a, l, d, r
- interdealer broker — an agent who is paid a commission to bring buyers and sellers together
- interdependability — capable of being depended on; worthy of trust; reliable: a dependable employee.
- interlacing arcade — an arcade, especially a blind one, composed of arches (interlacing arches) so arranged and cut that each arch seems to intersect and be intersected by one or more other arches.
- international code — a code used at sea by the navies of certain nations, using a series of flags representing digits from zero through nine.
- italian corn salad — a southern European plant, Valerianella eriocarpa, of the valerian family, having edible, spoon-shaped, hairy leaves and dense clusters of pale-blue flowers.
- jack of all trades — a person who is adept at many different kinds of work.
- jack-of-all-trades — a person who is adept at many different kinds of work.
- jerusalem syndrome — a delusive condition affecting some visitors to Jerusalem in which the sufferer identifies with a major figure from his or her religious background
- jet-enamelled ware — English Worcester porcelain ware of the 18th century, transfer-printed in black.
- kirtland's warbler — a wood warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, breeding only in north-central Michigan and wintering in the Bahamas, bluish gray above, striped with black and pale yellow below: an endangered species.
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- known lazy bastard — (abuse) (KLB) A term, used among technical support staff, for a user who repeatedly asks for help with problems whose solutions are clearly explained in the documentation, and persists in doing so after having been told to RTFM. KLBs are singled out for special treatment (i.e. ridicule), especially if they have been heard to say "It's so boring to read the manual! Why don't you just tell me?". The deepest pit in Hell is reserved for KLBs whose questions reveal total ignorance of the basic concepts (e.g., "How do I make a font in Excel?", "Where do I turn on my RAM?"), and who refuse to accept that their questions are neither simple nor well-formed.
- labeled bracketing — a representation of the constituent structure of a string, as a word or sentence, comparable to a tree diagram, in which each constituent is shown in brackets and given a subscript grammatical label, with each bracketed item corresponding to a node in a tree diagram.
- labrador retriever — one of a breed of retrievers having a short, thick, oily, solid black or yellow coat, raised originally in Newfoundland.
- lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
- land grant college — a state university established with a grant of public land
- land-grant college — a U.S. college or university (land-grant university) entitled to support from the federal government under the provisions of the Morrill Acts.
- landscape gardener — sb who designs gardens
- laning and zierler — (language) Possibly the first true working algebraic compiler. Written by J.H. Laning Jr and N. Zierler in 1953-1954 to run on MIT's Whirlwind computer.
- laugh like a drain — to laugh loudly and coarsely
- lay at the door of — to blame (a person) for
- lay down your arms — If soldiers lay down their arms, they stop fighting and give up their weapons.
- learned profession — any of the three vocations of theology, law, and medicine, commonly held to require highly advanced learning. Compare profession (def 1).
- lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- lipopolysaccharide — any of a class of polysaccharides to which lipids are attached.
- literal-mindedness — the quality or state of tending to take words in their literal sense
- little st. bernard — Great, a mountain pass between SW Switzerland and NW Italy, in the Pennine Alps: Napoleon led his army through it in 1800; location of a hospice. 8108 feet (2470 meters) high.
- logarithmus dualis — (mathematics) (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2". Roughly the number of bits required to represent an integer.
- lunitidal interval — the period of time between the moon's transit and the next high lunar tide.
- maison-de-molieres — Comédie Française.
- mandelbrot, benoit — Benoit Mandelbrot
- marsilius of padua — c1280–1343? Italian scholar and political theorist.
- materials handling — the loading, unloading, and movement of goods, as within a factory or warehouse, especially by the aid of mechanical devices.
- mato grosso do sul — a state of W central Brazil: formed in 1979 from part of Mato Grosso state. Capital: Campo Grande. Pop: 2 140 624 (2002). Area: 350 548 sq km (135 318 sq miles)
- mechanical drawing — drawing, as of machinery, done with the aid of rulers, scales, compasses, etc.
- medical dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering terms used in the health professions by doctors, nurses, and others involved in allied health care services. A dictionary with authoritative spellings and definitions is a particularly crucial resource in medicine, where a misspelling or misunderstanding can have unfortunate consequences for people under care. Print dictionaries in this field may be sorted alphabetically or may be categorized according to medical specializations or by the various systems in the body, as the immune system and the respiratory system. The online Medical Dictionary on Dictionary.com allows alphabetical browsing in the combined electronic versions of more than one authoritative medical reference, insuring access to correct spellings, as well as immediate, direct access to a known search term typed into the search box on the site: A medical dictionary reveals that large numbers of medical terms are formed from the same Latin and Greek parts combined and recombined.
- medical profession — the body of people who work as doctors of medicine
- mendel's first law — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
- mental retardation — Usually Offensive. a developmental disorder characterized in varying degrees by a subnormal ability to learn, a substantially low IQ, and impaired social adjustment.
- mercury delay line — (storage, history) An archaic first-in first-out fixed time period data storage device using acoustic transducers to transmit data as waves in a trough or tube of mercury. EDSAC (Cambridge) and UNIVAC I used delay lines.
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- methylated spirits — ethyl alcohol denatured with methyl alcohol for the purpose of preventing its use as an alcoholic beverage.
- mid-atlantic ridge — a north-south suboceanic ridge in the Atlantic Ocean from Iceland to Antarctica on whose crest are several groups of islands; shown by plate tectonics to be the axis along which North America has split away from Eurasia, and along which South America has split away from Africa.
- middle high german — the High German language of the period 1100–1500. Abbreviation: MHG.
- middle-of-the-road — favoring, following, or characterized by an intermediate position between two extremes, especially in politics; moderate.
- mineralocorticoids — Plural form of mineralocorticoid.
- misplaced modifier — Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause that seems to refer to or modify an unintended word because of its placement in a sentence, as when young in When young, circuses appeal to all of us.
- mixed martial arts — Mixed martial arts is a sport in which two people fight by hitting, kicking, and holding each other, both in a standing position and on the ground.
- modular arithmetic — arithmetic in which numbers that are congruent modulo a given number are treated as the same. Compare congruence (def 2), modulo, modulus (def 2b).
- molecular medicine — the study of disease or injury at the molecular or cellular level.