18-letter words containing a, l, e
- lipopolysaccharide — any of a class of polysaccharides to which lipids are attached.
- liqueur chocolates — chocolates containing liqueur
- literae humaniores — (at Oxford University) the faculty concerned with Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and philosophy; classics
- literal-mindedness — the quality or state of tending to take words in their literal sense
- literary criticism — study and review of literature
- little namaqualand — an arid coastal region in the S part of Namibia, extending into the Cape of Good Hope province of the Republic of South Africa, divided by the Orange River into two regions, one in Namibia (Great Namaqualand) the other in South Africa (Little Namaqualand) inhabited by the Nama.
- little spotted cat — a small New World tiger cat, Felis tigrinus, ranging from Costa Rica to northern Argentina.
- 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.
- local area network — a system for linking private telecommunications equipment, as in a building or cluster of buildings.
- local examinations — (in the UK) any of various examinations, such as the GCE, set by university boards and conducted in local centres, schools, etc
- locally finite set — a collection of sets in a topological space in which each point of the space has a neighborhood that intersects a finite number of sets of the collection.
- logical complement — (logic) In Boolean algebra, the logical complement or negation of a Boolean value is the opposite value, given by the following truth table: A | -A --+--- T | F F | T -A is also written as A with a bar over it or with a small vertical line hanging from the right-hand end of the "-" (LaTeX \neg) or as A'. In the C programming language, it is !A and in digital circuit design, /A.
- logical shift left — logical shift
- logically possible — capable of being described without self-contradiction
- lone-parent family — a family in which there is only one parent
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- long-distance call — phone call: not local area
- look the other way — look in the opposite direction
- looking-glass self — the self-image an individual forms by imagining what others think of his or her behavior and appearance.
- loosestrife family — the plant family Lythraceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees having usually opposite or whorled, simple leaves, clusters of flowers, and fruit in the form of a capsule, and including the crape myrtle, loosestrifes of the genus Lythrum, and the henna shrub.
- lose one's marbles — If you say that someone has lost their marbles, you mean that their ideas or behaviour are very strange, as if they have become insane.
- louisiana purchase — a treaty signed with France in 1803 by which the U.S. purchased for $15,000,000 the land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
- low-level language — computer code
- low-start mortgage — a mortgage in which interest only is repaid for a fixed period at the outset, to make it more affordable
- lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
- lower klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
- lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
- lubber grasshopper — plains grasshopper.
- luminous emittance — luminous flux emitted per unit area.
- lunitidal interval — the period of time between the moon's transit and the next high lunar tide.
- maclaurin's series — an infinite sum giving the value of a function f(x) in terms of the derivatives of the function evaluated at zero: f(x) = f(0) + (f′(0)x)/1! + (f″(0)x2)/2! + …
- magnesium silicate — a white powder, 3MgSiO 3 ⋅5H 2 O, with variable hydration, insoluble in water or alcohol, used as a rubber filler, a bleaching agent, an odor absorbent, and in the manufacture of paints and resins.
- magnetic amplifier — an amplifier that applies the input signal to a primary winding and feeds an alternating current to a secondary winding where this current is modulated by the variations in the primary winding.
- magnetic potential — a scalar quantity, analogous to the electric potential, defined at each point in a given magnetic field to be equal to the work done in bringing a unit north pole from infinity to the point.
- magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
- magnetoelectricity — electricity developed by the action of magnets.
- magnetorheological — (physics) describing a substance whose rheological properties are modified by a magnetic field.
- maison-de-molieres — Comédie Française.
- major tranquilizer — antipsychotic (def 2).
- make a beeline for — head directly towards
- make a meal of sth — If you think someone is taking more time and energy to do something than is necessary, you can say that they are making a meal of it.
- make allowance for — the act of allowing.
- maksutov telescope — a reflecting telescope in which coma and spherical aberration are reduced to a minimum by a combination of a spherical mirror and a meniscus lens placed inside the radius of curvature of the mirror.
- malicious mischief — willful destruction of personal property motivated by ill will or resentment toward its owner or possessor.
- malignant melanoma — skin cancer
- malpighian tubules — one of a group of long, slender excretory tubules at the anterior end of the hindgut in insects and other terrestrial arthropods.
- mandelbrot, benoit — Benoit Mandelbrot
- margaret of valois — ("Queen Margot") 1533–1615, 1st wife of Henry IV of France: queen of Navarre; patron of science and literature (daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici).
- marine archaeology — the branch of archaeology that deals with the recovery of ancient objects found beneath the sea, as shipwrecks or remains from submerged islands, and with the techniques of underwater exploration, excavation, and retrieval.
- materials handling — the loading, unloading, and movement of goods, as within a factory or warehouse, especially by the aid of mechanical devices.