13-letter words containing a, y, n
- kentucky lake — reservoir in SW Ky. & W Tenn., on the Tennessee River: 247 sq mi (640 sq km); 184 mi (296 km) long
- kenyapithecus — a genus of fossil hominoids of middle Miocene age found in Kenya and having large molars, small incisors, and powerful chewing muscles.
- keratinocytes — Plural form of keratinocyte.
- key signature — (in notation) the group of sharps or flats placed after the clef to indicate the tonality of the music following.
- kidney-shaped — having the general shape of a long oval indented at one side; reniform: a kidney-shaped swimming pool.
- kim young sam — born 1927, president of South Korea 1993–98.
- kindheartedly — In a kindhearted manner.
- kinematically — the branch of mechanics that deals with pure motion, without reference to the masses or forces involved in it.
- kinesitherapy — a movement-based therapy
- kingsley amis — Kingsley, 1922–95, English novelist.
- knickknackery — Various trinkets or novelties; bric-a-brac.
- know by heart — have memorized
- knowledgeably — possessing or exhibiting knowledge, insight, or understanding; intelligent; well-informed; discerning; perceptive.
- kootenay lake — a lake in W Canada, in S British Columbia. 64 miles (103 km) long.
- labyrinthical — Labyrinthine; like or relating to a labyrinth.
- labyrinthitis — inflammation of the inner ear, or labyrinth, characterized by dizziness, nausea, and visual disturbances.
- lady's mantle — any of various rosaceous plants of the N temperate genus Alchemilla, having small green flowers
- land registry — In Britain, a land registry is a government office where records are kept about each area of land in a country or region, including information about who owns it.
- landed gentry — land-owning class
- landing party — a component of a ship's company detached for special duty ashore.
- languishingly — In a languishing manner.
- laryngectomee — someone who has had a laryngectomy
- laryngologist — A person who studies or specializes in laryngology; a subspeciality of otorhinolaryngology.
- laryngoscopes — Plural form of laryngoscope.
- laryngoscopic — Of or pertaining to laryngoscopy.
- laryngotomies — Plural form of laryngotomy.
- latitudinally — of or relating to latitude.
- laundry-woman — laundress.
- lay about one — to put or place in a horizontal position or position of rest; set down: to lay a book on a desk.
- legionary ant — army ant
- levy en masse — the conscription of the civilian population in large numbers in the face of impending invasion
- libyan desert — a desert in N Africa, in E Libya, W Egypt, and NW Sudan, W of the Nile: part of the Sahara. About 650,000 sq. mi. (1,683,500 sq. km).
- like anything — of the same form, appearance, kind, character, amount, etc.: I cannot remember a like instance.
- linden family — the plant family Tiliaceae, characterized by deciduous trees or shrubs having simple, usually alternate leaves, fibrous bark, fragrant flowers, and dry, woody fruit, and including the basswood, jute, and linden.
- lingayen gulf — a gulf in the Philippines, on the NW coast of Luzon.
- listenability — pleasant to listen to: soft, listenable music.
- little cayman — an island in the W Caribbean: smallest of the Cayman Islands, NE of Grand Cayman. 10 sq. mi. (26 sq. km).
- logarithmancy — Divination using logarithms.
- lonely hearts — of or for people seeking counseling or companionship to bring love or romance into their lives: a lonely-hearts column in the newspaper.
- lonely-hearts — of or for people seeking counseling or companionship to bring love or romance into their lives: a lonely-hearts column in the newspaper.
- lycanthropous — Lycanthropic.
- lying-in ward — a room where women were confined in childbirth
- lymphadenitis — inflammation of a lymphatic gland.
- lymphangiomas — Plural form of lymphangioma.
- machinability — The condition of being machinable.
- machine cycle — (processor) The four steps which the CPU carries out for each machine language instruction: fetch, decode, execute, and store. These steps are performed by the control unit, and may be fixed in the logic of the CPU or may be programmed as microcode which is itself usually fixed (in ROM) but may be (partially) modifiable (stored in RAM). The fetch cycle places the current program counter contents (the address of the next instruction to execute) on the address bus and reads in the word at that location into the instruction register (IR). In RISC CPUs instructions are usually a single word but in other architectures an instruction may be several words long, necessitating several fetches. The decode cycle uses the contents of the IR to determine which gates should be opened between the CPU's various functional units and busses and what operation the ALU(s) should perform (e.g. add, bitwise and). Each gate allows data to flow from one unit to another (e.g. from register 0 to ALU input 1) or enables data from one output onto a certain bus. In the simplest case ("horizontal encoding") each bit of the instruction register controls a single gate or several bits may control the ALU operation. This is rarely used because it requires long instruction words (such an architecture is sometimes called a very long instruction word architecture). Commonly, groups of bits from the IR are fed through decoders to control higher level aspects of the CPU's operation, e.g. source and destination registers, addressing mode and ALU operation. This is known as vertical encoding. One way RISC processors gain their advantage in speed is by having simple instruction decoding which can be performed quickly. The execute cycle occurs when the decoding logic has settled and entails the passing of values between the various function units and busses and the operation of the ALU. A simple instruction will require only a single execute cycle whereas a complex instruction (e.g. subroutine call or one using memory indirect addressing) may require three or four. Instructions in a RISC typically (but not invariably) take only a single cycle. The store cycle is when the result of the instruction is written to its destination, either a register or a memory location. This is really part of the execute cycle because some instructions may write to multiple destinations as part of their execution.
- macrencephaly — The presence of an abnormally large brain.
- macrodynamics — Large-scale dynamics.
- made of money — very rich
- magdalena bay — a bay in NW Mexico, on the SW coast of Baja California. 17 miles (27 km) long; 12 miles (19 km) wide.