20-letter words containing a, r, d, w
- paint the town (red) — to go on a boisterous spree; carouse
- pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
- portuguese water dog — one of a breed of medium-sized dogs originally developed to assist Portuguese fishermen and having a profuse black or brown coat with or without white markings and webbed feet.
- powhatan confederacy — a network of Algonquian-speaking Indian settlements in Virginia that was ruled by Powhatan.
- prince edward island — an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, forming a province of Canada: 2184 sq. mi. (5655 sq. km). Capital: Charlottetown.
- prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
- put the hard word on — to ask or demand something from
- queensland arrowroot — a South American and West Indian herb, Canna edulis, having large sheathing leaves, red flowers, and edible rhizomes.
- red-winged blackbird — a North American blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus, the male of which is black with scarlet patches, usually bordered with buff or yellow, on the bend of the wing.
- redheaded woodpecker — a North American woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), with a bright-red head and neck, black back, and white underparts
- ring wall foundation — A ring wall foundation is a base made of concrete, used to put large tanks on.
- rough-winged swallow — either of two New World swallows of the genus Stelgidopteryx, having outer primary feathers with small barblike hooks on the margins.
- saint andrew's cross — a low evergreen shrub, Ascyrum hypericoides, native to temperate and subtropical America, having flowers in clusters of three: often cultivated.
- schwarzschild radius — the radius at which a gravitationally collapsing celestial body becomes a black hole.
- schwarzschild sphere — the sphere which surrounds a non-rotating uncharged black hole, from within which no information can escape because of gravitational forces
- sellers screw thread — a thread form in a system of standard sizes proposed by Sellers in 1884 and later accepted as standard in the USA, having a 60° flank angle with a flat top and foot
- sharp-tailed sparrow — a sparrow, Ammospiza caudacuta, inhabiting salt marshes in North America, having narrow, sharply pointed tail feathers.
- software methodology — (programming) The study of how to navigate through each phase of the software process model (determining data, control, or uses hierarchies, partitioning functions, and allocating requirements) and how to represent phase products (structure charts, stimulus-response threads, and state transition diagrams).
- spread like wildfire — If something, especially news or a rumour, spreads like wildfire, it spreads extremely quickly.
- switchboard operator — a person who operates an installation in a telephone exchange, office, hotel, etc, at which the interconnection of telephone lines is manually controlled
- the (great) unwashed — The unwashed or the great unwashed is a way of referring to poor or ordinary people.
- the last word in sth — If you say that something is the last word in luxury, comfort, or some other quality, you are emphasizing that it has a great deal of this quality.
- the luck of the draw — If you say that something is the luck of the draw, you mean that it is the result of chance and you cannot do anything about it.
- the other way around — reversed
- the whole nine yards — everything that is required; the whole thing
- third-party software — software created by programmers or publishers independent of the manufacturer of the hardware for which it is intended.
- throw up one's hands — the terminal, prehensile part of the upper limb in humans and other primates, consisting of the wrist, metacarpal area, fingers, and thumb.
- to spread your wings — If you spread your wings, you do something new and rather difficult or move to a new place, because you feel more confident in your abilities than you used to and you want to gain wider experience.
- townsend's solitaire — a brownish, slender-billed songbird, Myadestes townsendi, of western North America.
- twisted stomach worm — stomach worm.
- unified screw thread — a screw thread system introduced for defence equipment (1939–44), in which the thread form and pitch were a compromise between British Standard Whitworth and American Standard Sellers: adopted by the International Standards Organization
- van der waals forces — weak electrostatic forces between atoms and molecules caused by transient distortions in the distribution of electrons in the interacting atoms or molecules
- walking-around money — money that is carried on the person for routine expenses and minor emergencies; pocket money.
- walton and weybridge — a city in Surrey, SE England: a London suburb.
- war production board — the board (1942–45) that supervised and regulated the production and sale of matériel essential to the logistics of World War II. Abbreviation: WPB, W.P.B.
- wardrobe malfunction — an embarrassing situation caused by the clothes a person is wearing
- webster's dictionary — Informal. a dictionary of the English language, especially American English, such as Dictionary.com.
- weights and measures — units or standards of measurement
- western india states — a former association of states in W India, largely on Kathiawar Peninsula.
- weston standard cell — a primary cell used as a standard of emf, producing 1.018636 volts: consists of a mercury anode and a cadmium amalgam cathode in an electrolyte of saturated cadmium sulphate
- white-lipped peccary — a piglike artiodactyl mammal, Tayassu albirostris, of forests of southern North America, Central and South America: family Tayassuidae
- wide-angle converter — a person or thing that converts.
- william westmoreland — William Childs [chahyldz] /tʃaɪldz/ (Show IPA), 1914–2005, U.S. army officer: commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam and Thailand 1964–68.
- wilson cloud chamber — cloud chamber.
- with all due respect — despite my regard for you
- woolsorters' disease — pulmonary anthrax in humans, caused by inhaling the spores of Bacillus anthracis, which may contaminate wool fleece.
- working-capital fund — a fund established to finance operating activities in an industrial enterprise.
- write-once read-many — (storage) (WORM) Any type of storage medium to which data can be written to only a single time, but can be read from any number of times. Typically this is an optical disk whose surface is permanently etched using a laser in order to record information. WORM media have a significantly longer shelf life than magnetic media and thus are used when data must be preserved for a long time.
- yellow-breasted chat — an American warbler, Icteria virens, having a yellow throat and breast and greenish-brown upper parts and noted for imitating the songs of other species.