24-letter words containing a, n, d, r, o, i
- shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
- shenandoah national park — a national park in N Virginia, including part of the Blue Ridge mountain range. 302 sq. mi. (782 sq. km).
- sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
- sign one's death warrant — to cause one's own destruction
- skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
- special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
- st.-bruno-de-montarville — a town in S Quebec, in E Canada, near Montreal.
- standard housing benefit — a rebate of a proportion of a person's eligible housing costs paid by a local authority and calculated on the basis of level of income and family size
- stratified random sample — a random sample of a population in which the population is first divided into distinct subpopulations, or strata, and random samples are then taken separately from each stratum.
- subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
- take sb under one's wing — If you take someone under your wing, you look after them, help them, and protect them.
- take someone at his word — to assume that someone means, or will do, what he or she says
- take/draw sb to one side — If you take someone to one side or draw them to one side, you speak to them privately, usually in order to give them advice or a warning.
- the second international — an international association of socialist parties and trade unions that began in Paris in 1889 and collapsed during World War I. The right-wing elements reassembled at Berne in 1919
- think (all) the world of — to admire or love greatly
- thousand island dressing — a seasoned mayonnaise, often containing chopped pickles, pimientos, sweet peppers, hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- trading standards office — an office of the local authority department that deals with trading standards
- turks and caicos islands — a UK Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, southeast of the Bahamas: consists of the eight Turks Islands, separated by the Turks Island Passage from the Caicos group, which has six main islands. Capital: Grand Turk. Pop: 47 754 (2013 est). Area: 430 sq km (166 sq miles)
- two/three/four of a kind — If you refer, for example, to two, three, or four of a kind, you mean two, three, or four similar people or things that seem to go well or belong together.
- united states of america — United States. Abbreviation: U.S.A., USA.
- van allen radiation belt — a broad, doughnut-shaped region surrounding the earth and composed of high-energy electrons and protons trapped in the earth's magnetic field at heights between c. 400 km (c. 250 mi) and c. 64,370 km (c. 40,000 mi)
- verrazano-narrows bridge — a suspension bridge connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island in New York City. 4260-foot (1298-meter) center span, the longest in North America.
- video cassette recording — a recording made using a tape recorder for vision and sound signals using magnetic tape in closed plastic cassettes: used for recording and playing back television programmes and films
- virtual storage extended — (operating system) (VSE, formerly DOS/VSE) is a multitasking, IBM 370-architected operating system similar to Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS). VSE run jobs in partitions rather than address spaces, and uses POWER for input/output rather than JES, but is largely similar to MVS. Subsequent VSE/ESA releases gave VSE the XA-370 channel architecture, 31-bit virtual and real storage support, and data spaces. VSE is the IBM operating system on one-third of installed IBM 4381s and a significant proportion of IBM 9370s as well. It offers transaction processing and batch processing capabilities well beyond Virtual Machine's current capabilities, and has a close affinity with MVS.
- voluntary aid detachment — (in World War I) an organization of British women volunteers who assisted in military hospitals and ambulance duties
- von willebrand's disease — an inherited autosomal recessive disease in which abnormally slow coagulation of blood may lead to spontaneous bleeding, excessive bleeding following an injury, and heavy menstrual flow.
- which stands for nothing — (language) (WSFN) A beginner's language with emphasis on graphics produced by Atari in 1983 for Atari home computers. There is also Advanced WSFN.
- world boxing association — the international organization which regulates the sport of boxing
- world trade organization — The World Trade Organization is an international organization that encourages and regulates trade between its member states. The abbreviation WTO is also used.
- you aren't gonna need it — (programming) (YAGNI) A motto of extreme programming expressing the principle that functionality should not be implemented until it is needed. The traditional waterfall model makes it difficult to add features after the specification has been signed off, tempting the specifier to add features that may never be used but which take time to program, debug, test and document.