16-letter words containing a, l, k
- buckwheat family — the plant family Polygonaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, vines, shrubs, and trees having stems with swollen joints, simple leaves, small, petalless flowers, and fruit in the form of an achene, and including the buckwheat, dock, knotweed, rhubarb, sea grape, and smartweed.
- bunker mentality — a defensive attitude in which others are seen as hostile or potentially hostile
- burkitt lymphoma — a rare type of tumour of the white blood cells, occurring mainly in Africa and associated with infection by Epstein-Barr virus
- calculate a risk — If you calculate a risk, you decide how likely an event is, whether the insurer should underwrite the risk, and at what cost.
- canadian hemlock — eastern hemlock.
- canandaigua lake — a lake in W central New York: one of the Finger Lakes.
- carnal knowledge — Chiefly Law. sexual intercourse.
- chain-link fence — a type of fence made of a mesh woven from steel wire
- chernobyl packet — (networking) /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, named in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ethernet address and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.
- chiclet keyboard — (hardware, abuse) A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of Chiclets chewing gum. Used especially to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop computers were launched with them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
- childcare worker — someone who takes care of children in return for money
- clackmannanshire — a council area and historical county of central Scotland; became part of the Central region in 1975 but reinstated as an independent unitary authority in 1996; mainly agricultural. Administrative centre: Alloa. Pop: 47 680 (2003 est). Area: 142 sq km (55 sq miles)
- clarke's gazelle — dibatag.
- class background — a person's background with reference to social class
- clbuttic mistake — the humorous effect created by anti-obscenity filters that automatically replace offensive words in online articles with more acceptable variants
- cloak-and-dagger — A cloak-and-dagger activity is one which involves mystery and secrecy.
- cloak-and-suiter — a manufacturer or seller of clothing.
- cloakroom ticket — a ticket given to someone who checks a coat or other personal item into a cloakroom and which is used to redeem that item at a later period
- cock of the walk — a person who asserts himself or herself in a strutting pompous way
- cocktail cabinet — a cupboard in which glasses and bottles are kept
- cocktail sausage — a small sausage served with drinks
- combination lock — A combination lock is a lock which can only be opened by turning a dial or a number of dials according to a particular series of letters or numbers.
- commercial break — A commercial break is the interval during a commercial television programme, or between programmes, during which advertisements are shown.
- commonplace book — a notebook in which quotations, poems, remarks, etc, that catch the owner's attention are entered
- contract killing — a murder carried out in fulfilment of a contract
- control freakery — an obsessive need to be in control of what is happening
- dakin's solution — a dilute solution containing sodium hypochlorite and boric acid, used as an antiseptic in the treatment of wounds
- dead man walking — a condemned man walking from his prison cell to a place of execution
- development bank — A development bank is a bank that provides money for projects in poor countries or areas.
- diacritical mark — any of various marks, as a macron or cedilla, added to a letter or symbol to indicate its pronunciation or to distinguish it in some way
- do like a dinner — to do for, overpower, or outdo
- ducktail-haircut — DA.
- educational park — a group of elementary and high schools, usually clustered in a parklike setting and having certain facilities shared by all grades, that often accommodates students from a large area.
- electric blanket — electrically-heated bedcover
- english-speaking — speaking English as a mother tongue
- erlenmeyer flask — conical container used in laboratory
- exclamation mark — (character) The character "!" with ASCII code 33. Common names: bang; pling; excl (/eks'kl/); shriek; ITU-T: exclamation mark, exclamation point (US). Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham; eureka; soldier; INTERCAL: spark-spot. The Commonwealth Hackish, "pling", is common among Acorn Archimedes owners. Bang is more common in the USA. The occasional CMU usage, "shriek", is also used by APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists. Exclamation mark is used in C and elsewhere as the logical negation operation (NOT).
- eyjafjallajökull — a cone-shaped ice cap in south Iceland that covers an active volcano. The volcano’s eruption in 2010 resulted in large high-altitude clouds of volcanic ash that caused major disruption to European passenger air traffic. Height: 1666 m (5466 ft)
- falkland islands — disputed islands in Atlantic Ocean
- falling sickness — epilepsy.
- feedback control — (electronics) A control system which monitors its effect on the system it is controlling and modifies its output accordingly. For example, a thermostat has two inputs: the desired temperature and the current temperature (the latter is the feedback). The output of the thermostat changes so as to try to equalise the two inputs. Computer disk drives use feedback control to position the read/write heads accurately on a recording track. Complex systems such as the human body contain many feedback systems that interact with each other; the homeostasis mechanisms that control body temperature and acidity are good examples.
- firework display — a public event at which fireworks are set alight
- first balkan war — Balkan War (def 1).
- fit like a glove — fit perfectly
- flat-track bully — a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents
- frankfurt school — a school of thought, founded at the University of Frankfurt in 1923 by Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and others, derived from Marxist, Freudian, and Hegelian theory
- frigate mackerel — a small, blue-green, black-striped fish, Auxis thazard, abundant in tropical seas, having dark, oily flesh that is sometimes used as food.
- gapless playback — audio or visual playback without any interruptions or silence between tracks or scenes
- golden handshake — a special incentive, as generous severance pay, given to an older employee as an inducement to elect early retirement.
- granville-barker — Harley, 1877–1946, English dramatist, actor, and critic.