16-letter words containing a, r, t, n
- variable annuity — an annuity in which the premiums are invested chiefly in common stocks or other securities, the annuitant receiving payments based on the yield of the investments instead of in fixed amounts.
- vasoconstriction — constriction of the blood vessels, as by the action of a nerve.
- vasoconstrictive — causing vasoconstriction.
- vegetable garden — allotment
- velcro fastening — a fastening made of Velcro
- ventriculography — radiography of the ventricles of the heart after injection of a contrast medium
- vertebral column — spinal column.
- vertical farming — a proposed system of growing crops in urban areas using specially designed skyscrapers
- vertical tasting — a tasting of different vintages of one particular wine.
- vestibular nerve — the part of the auditory nerve in the inner ear that carries sensory information related to body equilibrium.
- 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
- virginia tobacco — a type of flue-cured tobacco grown originally in Virginia
- visiting fireman — an influential person accorded special treatment while visiting an organization, industry, city, etc.
- visiting teacher — a teacher in a public school system, assigned to give home instruction to sick or disabled pupils.
- 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.
- vitamin-enriched — having had vitamins added
- vitruvian scroll — a scroll forming a stylized wave pattern.
- vocabulary entry — (in dictionaries) a word, phrase, abbreviation, symbol, affix, name, etc., listed with its definition or explanation in alphabetical order or listed for identification after the word from which it is derived or to which it is related.
- voluntary helper — a person who aids or assists in a specified function of one's own accord and without compulsion or promise of remuneration
- 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
- voluntary worker — a person who serves or acts in a specified function of their own accord and without compulsion or promise of remuneration
- volunteer bureau — an agency that matches up people wishing to do voluntary work with appropriate voluntary organizations
- ward christensen — (person) The inventor of XMODEM and of the BBS. Ward did physics in college and programmed mainframes for IBM. Ward and friend Randy Suess set up their BBS on first on 1978-02-16 in Chicago. It ran on an S-100 computer with 64k RAM and two single-sided 8" 250kB diskettes.
- warminster broom — a European shrub, Cytisus praecox, of the legume family, having yellowish-white or yellow, pealike flowers.
- warning triangle — a triangle placed by a broken-down car to warn motorists to avoid it
- washing-up water — water used for washing dishes
- washington thorn — a dense tree, Crataegus phaenopyrum, of the rose family, native to the eastern coast of the U.S., having triangular leaves, small clusters of white flowers, and clusters of bright red fruit.
- water chinquapin — an American lotus, Nelumbo lutea, having pale-yellow flowers and an edible seed.
- water-base paint — latex paint.
- watson-wentworth — Charles, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham [rok-ing-uh m] /ˈrɒk ɪŋ əm/ (Show IPA), 1730–82, British statesman: prime minister 1765–66, 1782.
- weak interaction — the interaction between elementary particles and the intermediate vector bosons that carry the weak force from one particle to another.
- weatherstripping — A piece of weatherstrip material.
- welfare benefits — financial assistance; social security payment
- welfare payments — government benefits
- western sandwich — a sandwich with a western omelet for a filling.
- white propaganda — propaganda that comes from the source it claims to come from
- wholeheartedness — fully or completely sincere, enthusiastic, energetic, etc.; hearty; earnest: a wholehearted attempt to comply.
- willow ptarmigan — a ptarmigan, Lagopus lagopus, of arctic and subarctic regions of the New and Old Worlds, having brown, mottled plumage in summer and white plumage in winter.
- windchill factor — an estimated measurement of the cooling effect of air and wind, esp. when applied to the loss of body heat from exposed skin; chill factor
- windfall profits — Windfall profits are excessive profits with a non-business cause such as a natural disaster.
- wire-transferred — to transmit (money or credit) by wire transfer.
- with a free hand — with generosity; lavishly
- withdrawing room — a room to withdraw or retire to; drawing room.
- woman of letters — a woman engaged in literary pursuits, especially a professional writer.
- woodland culture — a long pre-Columbian tradition characterized by the corded pottery of a hunting and later agricultural people of the eastern U.S. noted for the construction of burial mounds and other structures and dating from c1000 b.c. to a.d. 1700.
- word association — stimulation of an associative pattern by a word.
- worth one's salt — a crystalline compound, sodium chloride, NaCl, occurring as a mineral, a constituent of seawater, etc., and used for seasoning food, as a preservative, etc.