16-letter words containing e, t, o
- letter of marque — license or commission granted by a state to a private citizen to capture and confiscate the merchant ships of another nation.
- levallois-perret — a suburb of Paris, in N France, on the Seine.
- level descriptor — one of a set of criteria used to assess the performance of a pupil in a particular subject
- leveraged buyout — the purchase of a company with borrowed money, using the company's assets as collateral, and often discharging the debt and realizing a profit by liquidating the company. Abbreviation: LBO.
- lexicostatistics — the statistical study of the vocabulary of a language or languages for historical purposes.
- libation-bearers — Choëphori.
- liberal democrat — In Britain, a Liberal Democrat is a member of the Liberal Democrat Party.
- liberal unionist — a Liberal who opposed Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886 and after
- lick observatory — the astronomical observatory of the University of California, situated on Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California, and having a 120-inch (3-meter) reflecting telescope and a 36-inch (91-cm) refracting telescope.
- light microscope — microscope (def 1).
- lightbulb moment — a moment of sudden inspiration, revelation, or recognition
- lighthouse clock — an American mantel clock of the early 19th century, having the dial and works exposed beneath a glass dome on a tapered, cylindrical body.
- lighthouse point — a city in NW Florida.
- lightning stroke — a discharge of lightning between a cloud and the earth, esp one that causes damage
- lignin sulfonate — a brown powder consisting of a sulfonate salt made from waste liquor of the sulfate pulping process of soft wood: used in concrete, leather tanning, as an additive in oil-well drilling mud, and as a source of vanillin.
- like cat and dog — quarrelling savagely
- lily-of-the-nile — a plant, Agapanthus africanus, of the amaryllis family, native to Africa, having large umbels of blue flowers.
- limited monarchy — a monarchy that is limited by laws and a constitution.
- limited-monarchy — a limited train, bus, etc.
- limited-stop bus — a bus which only stops at a small number of predetermined stops, rather than on request
- line composition — type produced on a linecaster
- line of latitude — an imaginary line on a globe, map, etc, indicating latitude
- line of position — a line connecting all the possible positions of a ship or aircraft, as determined by a single observation. Abbreviation: LOP.
- listen to reason — be persuaded
- literacy project — a project, plan or scheme to increase literacy in a country, area, etc
- lithium chloride — a white, water-soluble, deliquescent, crystalline solid, LiCl, used chiefly in the manufacture of mineral water, especially lithia water, and as a flux in metallurgy.
- lithium fluoride — a fine, white, slightly water-soluble powder, LiF, used chiefly in the manufacture of ceramics.
- little brown bat — any of several small to medium-sized common bats of the genera Myotis and Eptesicus, found worldwide in caves, trees, and buildings, including M. lucifugus (little brown bat) and E. fuscus (big brown bat) a widespread North American species.
- littoral warfare — military combat conducted in coastal areas.
- live on the edge — take risks
- lloyd's register — a publication, issued annually by Lloyd's, consisting of a list of all of the world's seagoing vessels and including such information as their age, tonnage, and classification.
- local government — the administration of the civic affairs of a city, town, or district by its inhabitants rather than by the state or country at large.
- logical operator — any of the Boolean symbols or functions, as AND, OR, and NOT, denoting a Boolean operation; Boolean operator.
- logical relation — A relation R satisfying f R g <=> For all a, b, a R b => f a R g b This definition, by Plotkin, can be used to extend the definition of a relation on the types of a and b to a relation on functions.
- loire-atlantique — a department in NW France. 2695 sq. mi. (6980 sq. km). Capital: Nantes.
- lonely hearts ad — an advertisement placed by someone who is trying to find a lover or a friend
- long time no see — I haven't seen you for a long time
- long-established — having a long history; old
- long-nosed skate — a fish; Raja oxyrinchus
- long-term memory — information stored in the brain and retrievable over a long period of time, often over the entire life span of the individual (contrasted with short-term memory).
- longicorn beetle — any beetle of the family Cerambycidae, having a long narrow body, long legs, and long antennae
- loose connection — an imperfect electrical connection, as in a plug or car engine
- lord proprietary — (in Colonial America) an owner, governor, or grantee of a proprietary colony
- lorenz attractor — (mathematics) (After Edward Lorenz, its discoverer) A region in the phase space of the solution to certain systems of (non-linear) differential equations. Under certain conditions, the motion of a particle described by such as system will neither converge to a steady state nor diverge to infinity, but will stay in a bounded but chaotically defined region. By chaotic, we mean that the particle's location, while definitely in the attractor, might as well be randomly placed there. That is, the particle appears to move randomly, and yet obeys a deeper order, since is never leaves the attractor. Lorenz modelled the location of a particle moving subject to atmospheric forces and obtained a certain system of ordinary differential equations. When he solved the system numerically, he found that his particle moved wildly and apparently randomly. After a while, though, he found that while the momentary behaviour of the particle was chaotic, the general pattern of an attractor appeared. In his case, the pattern was the butterfly shaped attractor now known as the Lorenz attractor.
- lose one's shirt — a long- or short-sleeved garment for the upper part of the body, usually lightweight and having a collar and a front opening.
- lost river range — a mountain range in E central Idaho. Highest peak, Borah Peak (also highest in the state), 12,662 feet (3862 meters).
- lost-wax process — a process of investment casting in which a refractory mold is built up around a pattern of wax and then baked so as to melt and drain off the wax.
- low-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.04 and 0.25 per cent carbon
- lower palatinate — See under Palatinate (def 1).
- luck of the draw — the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities: With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.