21-letter words containing e, n, s, o
- to pull someone's leg — If you are pulling someone's leg, you are teasing them by telling them something shocking or worrying as a joke.
- to put one over on sb — If someone puts one over on you, they make you do or believe something by telling you things that are not true.
- to put the wind up sb — If something or someone puts the wind up you, they frighten or worry you.
- to risk life and limb — If someone risks life and limb, they do something very dangerous that may cause them to die or be seriously injured.
- to sink without trace — If you say that someone or something sinks without trace or sinks without a trace, you mean that they stop existing or stop being successful very suddenly and completely.
- topgallant forecastle — a partial weather deck on top of a forecastle superstructure; forecastle deck.
- toussaint l'ouverture — François Dominique [frahn-swa dawmee-neek] /frɑ̃ˈswa dɔmiˈnik/ (Show IPA), 1743–1803, Haitian patriot and leader of the Haitian Revolution slave rebellion.
- trades union congress — The Trades Union Congress in Britain is the same as the TUC.
- transformational rule — Linguistics. a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts deep structures into surface structures.
- transport segregation — Transport segregation is when particles from a mixture separate because the mixture vibrates while it is being moved.
- traveling salesperson — a representative of a business firm who travels in an assigned territory soliciting orders for a company's services.
- truth or consequences — a game in which each contestant is asked a question and upon failure to answer or give a correct answer receives a penalty imposed by the leader or the group.
- tumor necrosis factor — a protein, produced in humans and other animals, that is destructive to cells showing abnormally rapid growth: identical with cachectin. Abbreviation: TNF.
- turn up one's nose at — to sneer at; scorn
- twist the lion's tail — a large, usually tawny-yellow cat, Panthera leo, native to Africa and southern Asia, having a tufted tail and, in the male, a large mane.
- two-point perspective — a mathematical system for representing three-dimensional objects and space on a two-dimensional surface by means of intersecting lines that are drawn vertically and horizontally and that radiate from one point (one-point perspective) two points (two-point perspective) or several points on a horizon line as perceived by a viewer imagined in an arbitrarily fixed position.
- ulster unionist party — a Northern Irish political party advocating the maintenance of union with the UK
- ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
- under one's own steam — If you do something under your own steam, you do it without any help from anyone else.
- uniform business rate — a local tax in the UK paid by businesses, based on a local valuation of their premises and a rate fixed by central government that applies throughout the country
- uniform resource name — (web) (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any URI which is not a URL. 2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the IETF, which should provide for the resolution using Internet protocols of names which have a greater persistence than that currently associated with Internet host names or organisations (as used in URLs). Uniform Resource Names will be URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability. When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2.
- universal disk format — (storage, standard) (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
- universe of discourse — the totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space; the cosmos; macrocosm.
- university of arizona — (body, education) The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. Today, the University is one of the top 20 research universities in the nation, with a student enrollment of more than 35,000, a faculty and staff of 12,500, and a 345-acre campus. Address: Tucson, Arizona, USA.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- up close and personal — face to face, intimately
- vacation bible school — a religious school conducted by some churches during the summer for students on vacation.
- vasco nunez de balboa — Vasco Núñez de [bahs-kaw noo-nyeth th e] /ˈbɑs kɔ ˈnu nyɛθ ðɛ/ (Show IPA), 1475?–1517, Spanish adventurer and explorer who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513.
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- venus's flower basket — a glass sponge of the genus Euplectella, inhabiting deep waters off the Philippines and Japan, having a cylindrical skeleton formed of an intricate latticework of siliceous spicules.
- venus's looking glass — a purple-flowered campanulaceous plant, Legousia hybrida, of Europe, W Asia, and N Africa
- vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
- voice-stress analyzer — a machine purported to detect stress in a human voice and to ascertain a person's truthfulness.
- volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.
- warm silence software — A small company run by(?) Robin Watts, producing software for the Acorn Archimedes.
- water of constitution — water present in a molecule that cannot be removed without disrupting the molecule.
- weinberg-salam theory — electroweak theory.
- west lothian question — the apparent inconsistency that members of parliament who represent Scottish constituencies are eligible to vote at Westminster on matters that relate only to England, whereas members of parliament from English constituencies are not eligible to vote on Scottish matters
- wet collodion process — a photographic process, in common use in the mid-19th century, employing a glass photographic plate coated with iodized collodion and dipped in a silver nitrate solution immediately before use.
- what price something? — what are the chances of something happening now?
- white-crowned sparrow — a North American sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys, having black and white stripes on the head.
- wholesale price index — an indicator of price changes in the wholesale market
- wilson's storm petrel — a small petrel, Oceanites oceanicus, that breeds in the Southern Hemisphere but ranges into the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- with one's bare hands — If someone does something with their bare hands, they do it without using any weapons or tools.
- with sb's compliments — If you say that you are giving someone something with your compliments, you are saying in a polite and fairly formal way that you are giving it to them, especially as a gift or a favour.
- word association test — a technique for determining a subject's associative pattern by providing a verbal stimulus to which a verbal response is required.
- word-association test — a psychological test in which the person being tested responds to a given word with the first word (or the first word in a specified category, such as an antonym) brought to mind
- workers' compensation — a government-sponsored insurance system, funded by contributions from employers, for compensating employees for injury or occupational disease suffered in connection with their employment
- worth someone's while — worth someone's time, consideration, etc.; profitable in some way
- xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare inherited disease characterized by sensitivity to ultraviolet light, exposure resulting in lesions and tumors of the skin and eyes.