18-letter words containing a, l, k
- fall-back position — an alternative plan
- family-size packet — a packet large enough to be suitable for a family
- fantasy basketball — imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- feldenkrais method — a system of gentle movements that promote flexibility, coordination, and self-awareness
- firecracker flower — a plant, Dichelostemma ida-maia, of the amaryllis family, native to California and Oregon, having clusters of tubular scarlet flowers.
- flat on one's back — lying supine
- frederick douglass — Frederick, 1817–95, U.S. ex-slave, abolitionist, and orator.
- go off half-cocked — (of a firearm) at the position of half cock.
- gooseneck barnacle — goose barnacle
- great-circle track — the route of a ship following the arc of a great circle, appearing as a curved line on a Mercator chart and as a straight line on a gnomonic chart.
- greater periwinkle — a Eurasian apocynaceous evergreen plant of the genus Vinca, V. major, having trailing stems and blue flowers
- handkerchief table — corner table.
- hawksbill (turtle) — a medium-sized marine turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata, family Cheloniidae) having a hawklike beak and a horny shell from which tortoise shell is obtained
- head disk assembly — (hardware, storage) (HDA) A sealed, high capacity mainframe hard disk with integral heads, as opposed to a removable disk.
- health care worker — A health care worker is someone who works in a hospital or health centre.
- honeysuckle family — the plant family Caprifoliaceae, typified by shrubs and woody vines having opposite leaves, clusters of usually flaring, narrow, tubular flowers, and various types of fruit, and including the elder, honeysuckle, snowberry, twinflower, and viburnum.
- in black and white — without colour
- incremental backup — (operating system) A kind of backup that copies all files which have changed since the date of the previous backup. The first backup of a file system should include all files - a "full backup". Call this level 0. The next backup could also be a full level 0 backup but it is usually much quicker to do a level 1 backup which will include only those files which have changed since the level 0 backup. Together the level 0 and level 1 backups will include the latest version of every file. Level 1 backups can be made until, say, the backup tape is nearly full, after which we can switch to level 2. Each level includes those files which have changed since the last backup at a lower level. The more levels you use, the longer it will take to restore the latest version of a file (or all files) if you don't know when it was last modified. Compare differential backup.
- interbroker dealer — a specialist who matches the needs of different market makers and facilitates dealings between them
- interdealer broker — an agent who is paid a commission to bring buyers and sellers together
- jack of all trades — a person who is adept at many different kinds of work.
- jack-in-the-pulpit — A North American plant, Arisaema triphyllum, of the arum family, having an upright spadix arched over by a green or striped purplish-brown spathe.
- jack-of-all-trades — a person who is adept at many different kinds of work.
- jacksonville beach — a city in NE Florida.
- just (plain) folks — simple and unassuming; not snobbish
- kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
- killer application — a highly innovative, very powerful, or extremely useful computer application; esp one sufficiently important as to justify purchase of the equipment or software
- king of the castle — most powerful figure
- king william's war — the war (1689–97) in which England and its American colonies and Indian allies opposed France and its Indian allies and which constituted the American phase of the War of the Grand Alliance.
- king's regulations — (in Britain and the Commonwealth when the sovereign is male) the code of conduct for members of the armed forces that deals with discipline, aspects of military law, etc
- king-of-the-salmon — a ribbonfish, Trachypterus altivelis, of northern parts of the Pacific Ocean.
- 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.
- komsomolsk-on-amur — city in SE Russia, on the Amur River: pop. 309,000
- krause's corpuscle — any of numerous encapsulated nerve endings occurring in the skin and mucous membranes, functioning as sensory cold receptors.
- 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.
- lake pontchartrain — a shallow lagoon in SE Louisiana, linked with the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow channel, the Rigolets: resort and fishing centre. Area: 1620 sq km (625 sq miles)
- laugh like a drain — to laugh loudly and coarsely
- leatherback turtle — a sea turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, having the shell embedded in a leathery skin, reaching a length of more than 7 feet (2.1 meter) and a weight of more than 1000 pounds (450 kg): the largest living sea turtle; an endangered species.
- like a house afire — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- local area network — a system for linking private telecommunications equipment, as in a building or cluster of buildings.
- long-stay car park — a car park (eg at an airport) where cars can be left for a long time
- 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.
- lower klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
- 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.