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17-letter words containing a, v, o, y

  • negative polarity — the grammatical character of a word or phrase, such as ever or any, that may normally be used only in a semantically or syntactically negative or interrogative context
  • negative theology — a theological approach or tradition in which the nature of God is thought to be unknowable and is only understood through negative statements. See also apophasis (def 2).
  • non-retroactivity — operative with respect to past occurrences, as a statute; retrospective: a retroactive law.
  • on the heavy side — tending to be too heavy
  • over my dead body — expressing complete refusal
  • paratyphoid fever — Also called paratyphoid fever. an infectious disease, similar in some of its symptoms to typhoid fever but usually milder, caused by any of several bacilli of the genus Salmonella other than S. typhi.
  • particle velocity — the velocity of a point in a medium that is undergoing wave motion.
  • polyvinyl acetate — a colorless, odorless, nontoxic, transparent, thermoplastic, water-insoluble resin used as an adhesive in certain paints and as an intermediate in the synthesis of polyvinyl acetal and polyvinyl alcohol.
  • polyvinyl alcohol — a colorless, water-soluble, thermoplastic resin, derived by the hydrolysis of polyvinyl acetate: used chiefly as an adhesive and as a sizing agent in the manufacture of textiles, paper, and plastics.
  • polyvinyl butyral — a white, water-insoluble, polyvinyl acetal made with butyraldehyde, used chiefly as an interlayer in the manufacture of safety glass.
  • positive polarity — the grammatical characteristic of a word or phrase, such as delicious or rather, that may normally only be used in a semantically or syntactically positive or affirmative context
  • pre-revolutionary — of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of a revolution, or a sudden, complete, or marked change: a revolutionary junta.
  • probability curve — a curve that describes the distribution of probability over the values of a random variable.
  • progressive party — a political party formed in 1912 under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, advocating popular control of government, direct primaries, the initiative, the referendum, woman suffrage, etc.
  • quantity surveyor — A quantity surveyor is a person who calculates the cost and amount of materials and workers needed for a job such as building a house or a road.
  • radioactive decay — decay (def 8).
  • recursive acronym — (convention)   A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also mung.
  • relative majority — the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent
  • revealed theology — theology based on the doctrine that all religious truth is derived exclusively from the revelations of God to humans.
  • revolutionary war — American Revolution.
  • rotary cultivator — a machine for breaking up and tilling soil, consisting of a series of blades mounted on a revolving power-driven shaft
  • sunday observance — the fact of keeping Sunday as a special day when people go to church
  • supervisory board — a board of management of which nonmanagerial workers are members, having supervisory powers over some aspects of management decision-making
  • synovial membrane — anatomy: connective tissue
  • terminal velocity — Physics. the velocity at which a falling body moves through a medium, as air, when the force of resistance of the medium is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force of gravity. the maximum velocity of a body falling through a viscous fluid.
  • the evil day/hour — If someone is putting off the evil day or the evil hour, they have to do something unpleasant and are trying to avoid doing it for as long as possible.
  • to have it in you — If you have it in you, you have abilities and skills which you do not usually use and which only show themselves in a difficult situation.
  • unconventionality — disregard for convention; the state or quality of being inconsistent with customs, rules, etc.; originality.
  • variable-geometry — denoting an aircraft in which the wings are hinged to give the variable aspect ratio colloquially known as a swing-wing
  • vasovagal syncope — a faint brought on by excessive activity of the vagus nerve, causing the heart to slow and the blood pressure to fall. It can be caused by fear, choking, or stomach cramps and has no lasting effects
  • verkhoyansk range — a mountain range in the Sakha Republic, in E Siberia, Russia. About 600 miles (970 km) long.
  • vertical mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
  • very large memory — (architecture)   (VLM) A processor and operating system that can use more than 4GB of RAM, which is the limit for systems using 32-bit addresses. VLM architectures allow application programs and Very Large Databases with more than 4GB of data to be placed entirely in physical memory, with large performance enhancements. Some recent processors like the DEC Alpha can process 64 bits of data at a time and use addresses wider than 32 bits. (Solaris http://sun.com/solaris/64bit.html). (SGI http://sgi.com/Technology/standard/faq.html). (Unix 98 http://UNIX-systems.org/version2/whatsnew/login_64bit.html).
  • video disk player — a device that reads the information on a video disc
  • village community — an early form of community organization in which land belonged to the village, the arable land being allotted to the members or households of the community by more or less permanent arrangements and the waste or excess land remaining undivided.
  • visitors' gallery — a balcony in a building such as a parliament or court where members of the public can sit
  • volleyball player — sportsperson: plays volleyball
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