16-letter words containing a, n, s
- kingfisher daisy — a bushy southern African plant, Felicia bergerana, having grasslike leaves and solitary, bright-blue flowers.
- kiss and make up — be reconciled
- knapsack problem — the problem of determining which numbers from a given collection of numbers have been added together to yield a specific sum: used in cryptography to encipher (and sometimes decipher) messages.
- knights of labor — a secret workingmen's organization formed in 1869 to defend the interests of labor.
- knights of malta — the order of Hospitalers.
- know one's place — a particular portion of space, whether of definite or indefinite extent.
- know what's what — to know how one thing or things in general work
- knuckle sandwich — a punch in the mouth with a clenched fist.
- kolyma mountains — a mountain range in NE Siberia, Russia, near the Sea of Okhotsk, rising to over 6000 feet (1830 meters).
- kunlun mountains — mountain system in W China, between Tibet & Xinjiang: highest peak, c. 25,300 ft (7,711 m)
- labour relations — Labour relations refers to the relationship between employers and employees in industry, and the political decisions and laws that affect it.
- labour-intensive — Labour-intensive industries or methods of making things involve a lot of workers. Compare capital-intensive.
- lactovegetarians — Plural form of lactovegetarian.
- ladies'-earrings — lady's-earrings.
- lake saint clair — a lake between SE Michigan and Ontario: linked with Lake Huron by the St Clair River and with Lake Erie by the Detroit River. Area: 1191 sq km (460 sq miles)
- lancashire chair — a chair similar to a Windsor chair, having a rush seat and a back formed of spindles.
- language isolate — isolate (def 9).
- lapsang souchong — a large-leafed variety of China tea with a slightly smoky flavour
- larsen ice shelf — an ice barrier in Antarctica, in the NW Weddell Sea, on the E coast of the Antarctic Peninsula: first explored 1893.
- latter-day saint — a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- lattice constant — a parameter, either a measure of length or angle, that defines the size and shape of the unit cell of a crystal lattice.
- laughing jackass — kookaburra.
- laurentides park — a national park in SE Canada, in Quebec province between the St. Lawrence and Lake St. John.
- law of exponents — the theorem stating the elementary properties of exponents, as the property that the product of the same bases, each raised to an exponent, is equal to the base raised to the sum of the exponents: xa ⋅ xb = xa + b .
- law of parsimony — a principle according to which an explanation of a thing or event is made with the fewest possible assumptions.
- lawson criterion — (in a hypothetical nuclear fusion reactor) the requirement that in order for the energy produced by fusion to exceed the energy expended in causing the fusion, the product of the density of the fuel and the time during which it is confined at that density (Lawson product) must be greater than a certain number that depends on the kind of fuel used.
- lay oneself open — to make oneself vulnerable (to criticism, attack, etc)
- lazy standard ml — (language) (LSML) A lazy varient of SML, allowing cyclic val definitions, by Prateek Mishra <[email protected]>. Not to be confused with LML.
- lead by the nose — the part of the face or facial region in humans and certain animals that contains the nostrils and the organs of smell and functions as the usual passageway for air in respiration: in humans it is a prominence in the center of the face formed of bone and cartilage, serving also to modify or modulate the voice.
- leading question — a question so worded as to suggest the proper or desired answer.
- league champions — the team that has come top of the league
- leaps and bounds — You can use in leaps and bounds or by leaps and bounds to emphasize that someone or something is improving or increasing quickly and greatly.
- learner's permit — A learner's permit is a license that allows you to drive a vehicle before you have passed your driving test.
- learning process — a process of learning
- leave of absence — permission to be absent from duty, employment, service, etc.; leave.
- left parenthesis — (character) "(". ASCII character 40. Common names: left paren; left parenthesis; left; open; paren (")" = thesis); open paren; open parenthesis; left parenthesis; left banana. Rare: so (")" = already); lparen; ITU-T: opening parenthesis; open round bracket, left round bracket, INTERCAL: wax (")" = wane); parenthisey (")" = unparenthisey); left ear. Paired with right parenthesis (")").
- legal separation — judicial separation.
- leptosporangiate — (of ferns) having each sporangium developing from a single cell, rather than from a group, and normally with specialized explosive spore dispersal
- lesbian cymatium — cyma reversa.
- lesser celandine — a Eurasian plant, Ranunculus ficaria, of the buttercup family, having heart-shaped leaves and glossy yellow flowers, naturalized in North America.
- lesser sanhedrin — Sanhedrin (def 2).
- lever escapement — an escapement in which a pivoted lever, made to oscillate by the escape wheel, engages a balance staff and causes it to oscillate.
- lewis and harris — the northernmost island of the Hebrides, in NW Scotland. 825 sq. mi. (2135 sq. km).
- lexical analyser — (language) (Or "scanner") The initial input stage of a language processor (e.g. a compiler), the part that performs lexical analysis.
- lexical analysis — (programming) (Or "linear analysis", "scanning") The first stage of processing a language. The stream of characters making up the source program or other input is read one at a time and grouped into lexemes (or "tokens") - word-like pieces such as keywords, identifiers, literals and punctuation. The lexemes are then passed to the parser.
- libation-bearers — Choëphori.
- liberal unionist — a Liberal who opposed Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886 and after
- lightheartedness — carefree; cheerful; merry: a lighthearted laugh.
- lignin sulfonate — a brown powder consisting of a sulfonate salt made from waste liquor of the sulfate pulping process of soft wood: used in concrete, leather tanning, as an additive in oil-well drilling mud, and as a source of vanillin.
- like gangbusters — a law-enforcement officer who specializes in breaking up organized crime, often by forceful or sensational means.