12-letter words containing e, w, l
- nonrenewable — able to be renewed: a library book that is not renewable.
- nonyellowing — that does not become yellow, esp with age
- norman wells — a settlement in the W Northwest Territories, in NW Canada, on the Mackenzie River: oil wells.
- norway maple — a European maple, Acer platanoides, having bright-green leaves, grown as a shade tree in the U.S.
- noteworthily — worthy of notice or attention; notable; remarkable: a noteworthy addition to our collection of rare books.
- off the wall — of or relating to a wall: wall space.
- off-the-wall — markedly unconventional; bizarre; oddball: an unpredictable, off-the-wall personality.
- oliver twist — a novel (1838) by Dickens.
- on a bowline — beating close to the wind
- on the prowl — to rove or go about stealthily, as in search of prey, something to steal, etc.
- on the whole — comprising the full quantity, amount, extent, number, etc., without diminution or exception; entire, full, or total: He ate the whole pie. They ran the whole distance.
- oriel window — a bay window, esp one that is supported by one or more brackets or corbels
- otherworldly — of, relating to, or devoted to another world, as the world of imagination or the world to come.
- out at elbow — ragged or impoverished
- overflow bit — (architecture) A processor flag bit set by the ALU to indicate overflow.
- overflow pdl — (jargon) The place where you put things when your pdl is full. If you don't have one and too many things get pushed, you forget something. The overflow pdl for a person's memory might be a memo pad. This usage inspired the following doggerel:
- overwhelming — that overwhelms; overpowering: The temptation to despair may become overwhelming.
- overwithhold — to withhold too much.
- owen stanley — a mountain range on New Guinea in SE Papua New Guinea. Highest peak, Mt. Victoria, 13,240 feet (4036 meters).
- owl's clover — any of several western American plants belonging to the genus Orthocarpus, of the figwort family, having dense spikes of flowers in a variety of colors with conspicuous bracts.
- owl's-clover — any of a genus (Orthocarpus) of plants of the figwort family of W North and South America; esp., a California species (O. purpurascens) with red or purple upper leaves
- paddle wheel — a wheel for propelling a ship, having a number of paddles entering the water more or less perpendicularly.
- paddle-wheel — a wheel for propelling a ship, having a number of paddles entering the water more or less perpendicularly.
- palm warbler — a North American wood warbler, Dendroica palmarum, brown above and whitish or yellowish below.
- parallelwise — in a parallel manner
- pasch flower — pasqueflower
- pasqueflower — an Old World plant, Anemone pulsatilla, of the buttercup family, having purple, crocuslike flowers blooming about Easter.
- pearly white — white and lustrous as a pearl.
- pelton wheel — a high-pressure impulse water turbine in which one or more free jets of water are directed against the buckets of the rotor.
- pennywhistle — a cheap toy whistle orig. sold for a penny
- people power — community action
- periodic law — the law that the properties of the elements are periodic functions of their atomic numbers.
- phonetic law — a statement of some regular pattern of sound change in a specific language, as Grimm's law or Verner's law.
- pickerelweed — any American plant of the genus Pontederia, especially P. cordata, having spikes of blue flowers, common in shallow fresh water.
- pied wagtail — a British songbird, Motacilla alba yarrellii, with a black throat and back, long black tail, and white underparts and face: family Motacillidae (wagtails and pipits)
- pine warbler — a warbler, Dendroica pinus, inhabiting pine forests of the southeastern U.S.
- pit dwelling — a primitive dwelling consisting of a pit excavated in the earth and roofed over.
- planet wheel — any of the gears in an epicyclic train surrounding and engaging with the sun gear.
- plate warmer — a device for warming plates
- pleased with — satisfied or content with
- polar wander — the movement of the earth's magnetic poles with respect to the geographic poles
- police power — the power of a nation, within the limits of its constitution, to regulate the conduct of its citizens in the interest of the common good.
- polish wheat — a wheat, Triticum polonicum, grown chiefly in S Europe, N Africa, and Turkestan.
- poll watcher — a representative of a political party or of an organization running a candidate who is assigned to the polls on an election day to watch for violations of the laws that regulate voting, campaigning, etc.
- positive law — customary law or law enacted by governmental authority (as distinguished from natural law).
- pot-walloper — (in some boroughs before the Reform Bill of 1832) a man who qualified as a householder, and therefore a voter, by virtue of ownership of his own fireplace at which to boil pots.
- powder flask — a small flask of gunpowder formerly carried by soldiers and hunters.
- power shovel — any self-propelled shovel for excavating earth, ore, or coal with a dipper that is powered by a diesel engine or electric motor. Compare shovel (def 2).
- power supply — power supply unit
- powerbuilder — (tool, database) A graphical user interface development tool from Powersoft for developing client-server database applications. It runs under MS-DOS(?) and Microsoft Windows. There are also versions for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Macintosh, and Unix. Applications can be built by creating windows, controls (such as listboxes and buttons), and menus within the PowerBuilder development environment. The language used to program PowerBuilder, PowerScript, is loosely based on BASIC. PowerBuilder supports programming on many database backends including Sybase and Oracle. It also has added support for ODBC database drivers. PowerBuilder also comes with a built-in database backend (WATCOM SQL 32-bit relational database).