16-letter words containing d, r, o, w
- of it own accord — If something happens of its own accord, it seems to happen by itself, without anyone making it happen.
- off off broadway — experimental or avant-garde drama produced in New York City, in small theaters, halls, churches, etc.
- off-off-broadway — experimental or avant-garde drama produced in New York City, in small theaters, halls, churches, etc.
- old world monkey — any of various anthropoid primates of the family Cercopithecidae, of Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and Asia, typically having a hairless face, forward- or downward-directed nostrils, relatively short arms, flat nails, and either having a rudimentary tail or using the tail for balance rather than grasping, and including the baboon, colobus monkey, guenon, langur, macaque, mandrill, mangabey, patas, proboscis, and talapoin.
- old-girl network — an association among women that is comparable to or modeled on an old-boy network.
- on a world scale — in a way that involves the whole world
- on the downgrade — waning in importance, popularity, health, etc
- otherworldliness — The quality of being otherworldly.
- overhead railway — elevated railroad.
- pearls of wisdom — good advice, wise words
- portmanteau word — a case or bag to carry clothing in while traveling, especially a leather trunk or suitcase that opens into two halves.
- projected window — a casement window in which the inner end of the sash slides along a track on the sill as the sash swings outward.
- put to the sword — to kill with a sword or swords
- redbank whiteoak — a city in S Tennessee.
- regent bowerbird — a bowerbird, Sericulus chrysocephalus, the males of which have deep black plumage with brilliant golden head, neck, and wing patches and build elaborate bowers.
- reprocessed wool — wool cloth respun and rewoven from the raveled fibers of unused cloth, such as the waste or clippings from a garment factory
- robin goodfellow — Puck (def 1).
- rochelle powders — (not in technical use) Seidlitz powders.
- rolled paperwork — a form of decoration on small objects, such as boxes, in which a design is made up of tiny rolls of paper cut crossways and laid together: popular in the 18th and 19th centuries
- round the wrekin — the long way round
- second world war — World War II.
- secondary growth — an increase in the thickness of the shoots and roots of a vascular plant as a result of the formation of new cells in the cambium.
- seidlitz powders — a mild laxative consisting of tartaric acid, sodium bicarbonate, and Rochelle salt, which are dissolved separately, mixed, and drunk after effervescence.
- shakedown cruise — extortion, as by blackmail or threats of violence.
- shared ownership — (in Britain) a form of house purchase whereby the purchaser buys a proportion of the dwelling, usually from a local authority or housing association, and rents the rest
- shorthand writer — a person trained to write in shorthand
- show cause order — a court order issued to a party in a lawsuit, directing that party to appear to give reasons why a certain action should not be put into effect by the court.
- smokeless powder — any of various substitutes for ordinary gunpowder that give off little or no smoke, especially one composed wholly or mostly of guncotton.
- social darwinism — a 19th-century theory, inspired by Darwinism, by which the social order is accounted as the product of natural selection of those persons best suited to existing living conditions and in accord with which a position of laissez-faire is advocated.
- speed networking — the practice of trying to form business connections and contacts through meetings at which individuals are given the opportunity to have several conversations of limited duration with strangers
- strawberry blond — reddish blond.
- swedenborgianism — of or relating to Emanuel Swedenborg, his religious doctrines, or the body of followers adhering to these doctrines and constituting the Church of the New Jerusalem, or New Church.
- teutoburger wald — a chain of wooded hills in Germany, in Westphalia: Romans defeated by German tribes a.d.
- the here and now — the present time
- the worried well — people who are healthy but are concerned about becoming ill and so take medication or see a medical practitioner when they don't need to
- the written word — writing rather than speaking
- this-worldliness — concern or preoccupation with worldly things and values.
- to draw the line — If you draw the line at a particular activity, you refuse to do it, because you disapprove of it or because it is more extreme than what you normally do.
- to hold your own — If you hold your own, you are able to resist someone who is attacking or opposing you.
- traded endowment — A traded endowment is a traditional with-profits endowment policy that has been sold to a new owner part way through its term.
- turn upside down — invert
- two-body problem — the problem of calculating the motions of two bodies in space moving solely under the influence of their mutual gravitational attraction.
- twofold purchase — a purchase using a double standing block and a double running block so as to give a mechanical advantage of four or five, neglecting friction, depending on whether the hauling is on the standing block or the running block.
- under one's wing — in one's care or tutelage
- unpublished work — a literary work that has not been reproduced for sale or publicly distributed.
- unskilled worker — a worker who does not have any special skill or training
- way of the world — a comedy of manners (1700) by William Congreve.
- weather advisory — advisory (def 5).
- well-constructed — to build or form by putting together parts; frame; devise.
- well-ordered set — a totally ordered set in which every nonempty subset has a smallest element with the property that there is no element in the subset less than this smallest element.