18-letter words containing a, l, s, k
- 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.
- like a house afire — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- long-stay car park — a car park (eg at an airport) where cars can be left for a long time
- looking-glass self — the self-image an individual forms by imagining what others think of his or her behavior and appearance.
- 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.
- 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.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- optical disk drive — (hardware) (Or "optical disc drive", "optical storage") A generic term for any device that reads and/or writes optical media, i.e. compact discs, DVDs and/or Blu-ray discs or future media that uses light (from a small laser) to read data off a removable, rotating disk. At least one such drive is commonly installed in most personal computers to allow them to play and/or record audio and video media and load and store data such as program installers. The floppy disk has been replaced by optical media due to its vastly greater capacity, e.g. 50,000 megabytes for a dual-layer blu-ray disc compared with 1.5 megabytes for a floppy (over 30,000 times as much).
- optical soundtrack — the final soundtrack on a motion picture, which appears as a band of black and white serrations along a strip of film to the left of the composite print. Light is shined through the serrations and is converted to audible sound.
- percussion flaking — a method of forming a flint tool by striking flakes from a stone core with another stone or a piece of bone or wood.
- programming skills — the skills required to write a program so that data may be processed by a computer
- przewalski's horse — a wild horse, Equus caballus przevalskii, chiefly of Mongolia and Sinkiang, characterized by light yellow coloring and a stiff, upright black mane with no forelock: the only remaining breed of wild horse, it is now endangered and chiefly maintained in zoos.
- rattlesnake master — any of various plants of the genus Eryngium, especially E. yuccifolium, having spiny leaves and dense, rounded flower heads.
- right-to-work laws — a state law making it illegal to refuse employment to a person for the sole reason that he or she is not a union member.
- sale and leaseback — leaseback.
- schofield barracks — a town on central Oahu, in central Hawaii.
- scottish blackface — a common breed of hardy mountain sheep having horns and a black face, kept chiefly on the mainland of Scotland
- sickle cell anemia — a chronic hereditary blood disease, occurring primarily among Africans or persons of African descent, in which abnormal hemoglobin causes red blood cells to become sickle-shaped and nonfunctional, characterized by enlarged spleen, chronic anemia, lethargy, weakness, joint pain, and blood clot formation.
- sickle-cell anemia — Sickle-cell anemia is an inherited illness in which the red blood cells become curved, causing a number of health problems.
- sierra blanca peak — a mountain in S New Mexico: highest peak in the Sacramento Mountains. 11,997 feet (3651 meters).
- sit up like jackie — to sit bolt upright, esp cheekily
- slow on the uptake — slow to understand or learn
- snakes and ladders — Snakes and ladders is a British children's game played with a board and dice. When you go up a ladder, you progress quickly. When you go down a snake, you go backwards.
- social bookmarking — the practice of saving bookmarked Web pages to a public website as a way to share the links with other Internet users: Social bookmarking is a tool that allows you to add tags and comments to your bookmarks.
- societal marketing — marketing that takes into account society's long-term welfare
- software backplane — (programming, tool) A CASE framework from Atherton.
- spackling compound — spackle
- speak for yourself — If you say 'Speak for yourself' when someone has said something, you mean that what they have said is only their opinion or applies only to them.
- stinking chamomile — mayweed.
- stokely carmichael — Hoagland Howard [hohg-luh nd] /ˈhoʊg lənd/ (Show IPA), ("Hoagy") 1899–1981, U.S. songwriter and musician.
- take sth literally — If you take something literally, you think that a word or expression is being used with its most simple or basic meaning.
- take to one's legs — to run away
- talk a blue streak — speak rapidly and incessantly
- talk between ships — TBS (def 1).
- task control block — (architecture) An MVS control block used to communicate information about tasks within an address space that are connected to an MVS subsystem such as MQSeries for MVS/ESA or CICS.
- the black and tans — a specially recruited armed auxiliary police force sent to Ireland in 1921 by the British Government to combat Sinn Féin
- the masurian lakes — a group of lakes in Masuria in NE Poland: scene of Russian defeats by the Germans (1914, 1915) during World War I
- thorfinn karlsefni — 980–after 1007, Icelandic navigator, explorer, and leader of early colonizing expedition to Vinland, in North America.
- tick all the boxes — to satisfy all of the apparent requirements for success
- timber rattlesnake — a rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus horridus, of the eastern U.S., usually having the body marked with dark crossbands.
- to clear the decks — If you clear the decks, you get ready to start something new by finishing any work that has to be done or getting rid of any problems that are in the way.
- to lick into shape — If you lick, knock, or whip someone or something into shape, you use whatever methods are necessary to change or improve them so that they are in the condition that you want them to be in.
- watson-crick model — a widely accepted model for the three-dimensional structure of DNA, featuring a double-helix configuration for the molecule's two hydrogen-bonded complementary polynucleotide strands.
- western meadowlark — any of several American songbirds of the genus Sturnella, of the family Icteridae, especially S. magna (eastern meadowlark) and S. neglecta (western meadowlark) having a brownish and black back and wings and a yellow breast, noted for their clear, tuneful song.