16-letter words containing a, t, e, n
- led page printer — LED printer
- 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 (")").
- left-hand dagger — a dagger of the 16th and 17th centuries, held in the left hand in dueling and used to parry the sword of an opponent.
- legal department — the department that deals with legal matters
- legal dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering terms used in the various branches of the legal profession, as civil law, criminal law, and corporate law. A comprehensive legal dictionary adds to its body of standard English entries many words and phrases that have made their way into modern legal practice from law French and Latin and are rarely found in a general English monolingual dictionary. Such a specialized dictionary is useful not only for law students and for attorneys themselves, but for members of the lay public who require legal services. Legal dictionaries published in print follow the normal practice of sorting entry terms alphabetically, while electronic dictionaries, such as the online Dictionary of Law on Dictionary.com, allow direct, immediate access to a search term.
- legal separation — judicial separation.
- lenticular cloud — a very smooth, round or oval, lens-shaped cloud that is often seen, singly or stacked in groups, near a mountain ridge.
- 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.
- lethal injection — dose of deadly chemical into a vein
- lettre de change — bill of exchange.
- 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.
- libation-bearers — Choëphori.
- liberal unionist — a Liberal who opposed Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886 and after
- life-threatening — endangering life: a life-threatening illness.
- lighter than air — (of an aircraft) weighing less than the air it displaces, hence obtaining lift from aerostatic buoyancy.
- lighter-than-air — (of an aircraft) weighing less than the air it displaces, hence obtaining lift from aerostatic buoyancy.
- 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 cat and dog — quarrelling savagely
- like gangbusters — a law-enforcement officer who specializes in breaking up organized crime, often by forceful or sensational means.
- limited monarchy — a monarchy that is limited by laws and a constitution.
- limited-monarchy — a limited train, bus, etc.
- line of latitude — an imaginary line on a globe, map, etc, indicating latitude
- lipstick lesbian — a lesbian who is feminine in manner or appearance; a femme.
- listen to reason — be persuaded
- little black ant — a widely distributed ant, Monomorium minimum, sometimes a household pest.
- little brown bat — any of several small to medium-sized common bats of the genera Myotis and Eptesicus, found worldwide in caves, trees, and buildings, including M. lucifugus (little brown bat) and E. fuscus (big brown bat) a widespread North American species.
- little englander — an English person who believes the best interests of Britain are served by attention to Britain itself, rather than to the concerns of the empire.
- live in the past — If you accuse someone of living in the past, you mean that they think too much about the past or believe that things are the same as they were in the past.
- local government — the administration of the civic affairs of a city, town, or district by its inhabitants rather than by the state or country at large.
- logical relation — A relation R satisfying f R g <=> For all a, b, a R b => f a R g b This definition, by Plotkin, can be used to extend the definition of a relation on the types of a and b to a relation on functions.
- loire-atlantique — a department in NW France. 2695 sq. mi. (6980 sq. km). Capital: Nantes.
- lonely hearts ad — an advertisement placed by someone who is trying to find a lover or a friend
- long-established — having a long history; old
- long-nosed skate — a fish; Raja oxyrinchus
- lorenz attractor — (mathematics) (After Edward Lorenz, its discoverer) A region in the phase space of the solution to certain systems of (non-linear) differential equations. Under certain conditions, the motion of a particle described by such as system will neither converge to a steady state nor diverge to infinity, but will stay in a bounded but chaotically defined region. By chaotic, we mean that the particle's location, while definitely in the attractor, might as well be randomly placed there. That is, the particle appears to move randomly, and yet obeys a deeper order, since is never leaves the attractor. Lorenz modelled the location of a particle moving subject to atmospheric forces and obtained a certain system of ordinary differential equations. When he solved the system numerically, he found that his particle moved wildly and apparently randomly. After a while, though, he found that while the momentary behaviour of the particle was chaotic, the general pattern of an attractor appeared. In his case, the pattern was the butterfly shaped attractor now known as the Lorenz attractor.
- lost river range — a mountain range in E central Idaho. Highest peak, Borah Peak (also highest in the state), 12,662 feet (3862 meters).
- low-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.04 and 0.25 per cent carbon
- lower palatinate — See under Palatinate (def 1).
- lump sum payment — money: one-off payment
- lymphangiectasia — (medicine) dilation of the lymphatic vessels.
- lymphangiectasis — Alt form lymphangiectasia.
- machine operator — someone who operates mechanical equipment
- machinist's mate — a petty officer trained to operate, repair, etc. ships' engines
- mackinaw blanket — a thick woolen blanket, often woven with bars of color, formerly used in the northern and western U.S. by Indians, loggers, etc.
- macpherson strut — an automobile suspension-system component that consists of a strut combined with a spring and shock absorber and connects the wheel to the frame of the vehicle.
- macroenvironment — (biology) The large-scale and long-term environment and conditions that affect an organism.
- macrorestriction — In physical gene mapping, the digestion of DNA of high molecular weight with a restriction enzyme having a low number of restriction sites.
- magazine section — a magazinelike section in the Sunday editions of many newspapers, containing articles rather than news items and often letters, reviews, stories, puzzles, etc.