16-letter words containing a, l, s, c
- transcontinental — passing or extending across a continent: a transcontinental railroad.
- transcrystalline — situated within or passing through the crystals of a substance.
- transculturation — acculturation.
- transport police — the national police force for railways in Britain, which protects rail operators, staff and passengers
- transverse colon — the middle portion of the colon, lying across the upper abdominal cavity between the ascending colon on the right and the descending colon on the left.
- travel insurance — insurance which covers losses that may be incurred while travelling, such as medical expenses, flight cancellations, lost luggage, etc
- traveler's check — a check issued in any of various denominations by a bank, travel agency, etc., that is signed by the purchaser upon purchase and again, in the presence of the payee, when cashing the check or using it to pay for goods or services.
- twin-lens camera — a camera having two separately mounted lenses coordinated to eliminate parallax errors or for making stereoscopic photographs.
- twofold purchase — a purchase using a double standing block and a double running block so as to give a mechanical advantage of four or five, neglecting friction, depending on whether the hauling is on the standing block or the running block.
- typhoid bacillus — the bacterium Salmonella typhosa, causing typhoid fever.
- ultramicroscopic — an instrument that uses scattering phenomena to detect the position of objects too small to be seen by an ordinary microscope.
- unaccomplishable — to bring to its goal or conclusion; carry out; perform; finish: to accomplish one's mission.
- uncircumstantial — of pertaining to, or derived from circumstances: a circumstantial result.
- unconstitutional — not constitutional; unauthorized by or inconsistent with the constitution, as of a country.
- unconversational — of, relating to, or characteristic of conversation: a conversational tone of voice.
- unissued capital — authorized capital that has not yet been issued as shares
- unsystematically — having, showing, or involving a system, method, or plan: a systematic course of reading; systematic efforts.
- upsilon particle — the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet (Υ, υ).
- urinary calculus — a calcareous concretion in the urinary tract.
- vancouver island — an island of SW Canada, off the SW coast of British Columbia: separated from the Canadian mainland by the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Sound, and from the US mainland by Juan de Fuca Strait; the largest island off the W coast of North America. Chief town: Victoria. Pop: 706 243 (2001). Area: 32 137 sq km (12 408 sq miles)
- vascular cambium — cambium.
- vegetable slicer — a device with a sharp blade for slicing vegetables finely;
- velcro fastening — a fastening made of Velcro
- verruca vulgaris — the common wart.
- vertical tasting — a tasting of different vintages of one particular wine.
- viceregal assent — the formal signing of an act of parliament by a governor general, by which it becomes law
- victorian values — qualities considered to characterize the Victorian period, including enterprise and initiative and the importance of the family
- videodisc player — an electronic device for playing videodiscs through a television set.
- virginia cowslip — a perennial woodland plant (Mertensia virginica) of the borage family, native to E North America and having clusters of blue or purple, bell-shaped flowers
- visual interface — (tool, text) (vi) /V-I/, /vi:/, *never* /siks/ A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. vi became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favourite outside of MIT until the rise of Emacs after about 1984. It tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even some Emacs fans resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of Emacs). See holy wars.
- vital statistics — The vital statistics of a population are statistics such as the number of births, deaths, or marriages which take place in it.
- vitruvian scroll — a scroll forming a stylized wave pattern.
- voluntary muscle — muscle whose action is normally controlled by an individual's will; mainly skeletal muscle, composed of parallel bundles of striated, multinucleate fibers.
- voluntary school — a school that promotes specific religious beliefs and which is funded by a local education authority but was not established by the authority
- voluntary sector — the part of the economy that consists of non-profit-making organizations, as opposed to the public and private sectors
- walking distance — distance that can easily be walked
- walrus moustache — a long thick moustache drooping at the ends
- waterless cooker — a tight-lidded kitchen utensil in which food can be cooked using only a small amount of water or only the juices emitted while cooking.
- welfare services — services that provide help with people's living conditions and financial problems
- well-compensated — to recompense for something: They gave him ten dollars to compensate him for his trouble.
- west valley city — city in NC Utah, near Salt Lake City: pop. 109,000
- whatchamacallits — Plural form of whatchamacallit.
- whole-tone scale — a scale progressing entirely by whole tones, as C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯, C.
- wild goose chase — a wild or absurd search for something nonexistent or unobtainable: a wild-goose chase looking for a building long demolished.
- wild-goose chase — a wild or absurd search for something nonexistent or unobtainable: a wild-goose chase looking for a building long demolished.
- with clean hands — innocently
- yah-boo politics — adversarial politics in which politicians constantly deride their opponents and dismiss everything suggested by them
- ziegler catalyst — any of a group of catalysts, such as titanium trichloride (TiCl3) and aluminium alkyl (Al(CH3)3), that produce stereospecific polymers