16-letter words containing a, v, i, r, u, l
- relative-maximum — maximum (def 4a).
- republican river — a river flowing E from E Colorado through Nebraska and Kansas into the Kansas River. 422 miles (680 km) long.
- saturation level — carrying capacity.
- slugging average — a measure of the effectiveness of a batter in making base hits, obtained by dividing the total bases reached by hitting by the number of official times at bat and carrying out the result to three decimal places. A batter making 275 total bases in 500 times at bat has a slugging average of .550.
- superserviceable — overly disposed to be of service; officious.
- texas revolution — a revolutionary movement, 1832–36, in which U.S. settlers asserted their independence from Mexico and established the republic of Texas.
- travel insurance — insurance which covers losses that may be incurred while travelling, such as medical expenses, flight cancellations, lost luggage, etc
- unconversational — of, relating to, or characteristic of conversation: a conversational tone of voice.
- underpitch vault — a construction having a central vault intersected by vaults of lower pitch.
- unimproved value — the valuation of land for rating purposes, disregarding the value of buildings or other development
- universalization — to make universal.
- vancouver island — an island of SW Canada, off the SW coast of British Columbia: separated from the Canadian mainland by the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Sound, and from the US mainland by Juan de Fuca Strait; the largest island off the W coast of North America. Chief town: Victoria. Pop: 706 243 (2001). Area: 32 137 sq km (12 408 sq miles)
- 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.
- vascular cambium — cambium.
- ventriculography — radiography of the ventricles of the heart after injection of a contrast medium
- verbal auxiliary — an auxiliary verb, especially when considered as a member of a separate class of words used with verbs rather than as a special subclass of verbs.
- verruca vulgaris — the common wart.
- vestibular nerve — the part of the auditory nerve in the inner ear that carries sensory information related to body equilibrium.
- victorian values — qualities considered to characterize the Victorian period, including enterprise and initiative and the importance of the family
- video journalism — the techniques, methods, etc., of preparing and broadcasting informational, social, political, and other nonfiction subjects via news and documentary programs.
- virtual particle — an elementary particle of transitory existence that does not appear as a free particle in a particular situation but that can transmit a force from one particle to another.
- 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.
- vitruvian scroll — a scroll forming a stylized wave pattern.
- vulcanized fiber — a leatherlike substance made by compression of layers of paper or cloth that have been treated with acids or zinc chloride, used chiefly for electric insulation.