15-letter words containing h, a, w, o
- swamp white oak — an oak, Quercus bicolor, of eastern North America, yielding a hard, heavy wood used in shipbuilding, for making furniture, etc.
- sweep the board — (in gambling) to win all the cards or money
- sweet chocolate — cocoa product with high sugar content
- swing both ways — to enjoy sexual partners of both sexes
- teaching fellow — a holder of a teaching fellowship.
- thankworthiness — the state or quality of being thankworthy or deserving thanks
- the common weal — the good of society
- the lower karoo — one of the two divisions of the Karoo
- the lower ranks — people who have a low rank in a military organization
- the other woman — married man's female lover
- the outward man — the body as opposed to the soul
- the rule of law — the principle that no one is above the law and that everyone must follow the law
- the war-wounded — those people who have been injured or wounded by war
- the way forward — how to progress, what to do next
- the working man — working class people collectively
- the wrong track — the incorrect line of investigation, inquiry, etc
- thorndike's law — the principle that all learnt behaviour is regulated by rewards and punishments, proposed by Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949), US psychologist
- throw overboard — to reject or abandon
- to carry weight — If a person or their opinion carries weight, they are respected and are able to influence people.
- to lead the way — If you lead the way along a particular route, you go along it in front of someone in order to show them where to go.
- tomato hornworm — the larva of a hawk moth, Manduca quinquemaculata, having a black, hornlike structure at the rear, that feeds on the leaves of tomato, potato, and other plants of the nightshade family.
- touch base with — the bottom support of anything; that on which a thing stands or rests: a metal base for the table.
- towers of hanoi — (games) A classic computer science problem, invented by Edouard Lucas in 1883, often used as an example of recursion. "In the great temple at Benares, says he, beneath the dome which marks the centre of the world, rests a brass plate in which are fixed three diamond needles, each a cubit high and as thick as the body of a bee. On one of these needles, at the creation, God placed sixty-four discs of pure gold, the largest disc resting on the brass plate, and the others getting smaller and smaller up to the top one. This is the Tower of Bramah. Day and night unceasingly the priests transfer the discs from one diamond needle to another according to the fixed and immutable laws of Bramah, which require that the priest on duty must not move more than one disc at a time and that he must place this disc on a needle so that there is no smaller disc below it. When the sixty-four discs shall have been thus transferred from the needle on which at the creation God placed them to one of the other needles, tower, temple, and Brahmins alike will crumble into dust, and with a thunderclap the world will vanish." The recursive solution is: Solve for n-1 discs recursively, then move the remaining largest disc to the free needle. Note that there is also a non-recursive solution: On odd-numbered moves, move the smallest sized disk clockwise. On even-numbered moves, make the single other move which is possible.
- unseaworthiness — constructed, outfitted, manned, and in all respects fitted for a voyage at sea.
- w.h. richardson — Henry Handel (Henrietta Richardson Robertson) 1870–1946, Australian novelist.
- walking holiday — a holiday on which you walk a lot, esp in the countryside
- washing-up bowl — plastic bowl used for washing dishes
- washington lily — a lily, Lilium washingtonianum, of the western coast of the U.S., having whorled leaves and fragrant, purple-spotted white flowers.
- washington palm — a palm tree, Washingtonia filifera, of California and Florida, having large fan-shaped leaves and small black fruits
- watch committee — a local government committee composed of magistrates and representatives of the county borough council responsible for the efficiency of the local police force
- watch the clock — If you are watching the clock, you keep looking to see what time it is, usually because you are bored by something and want it to end as soon as possible.
- water authority — an official body which is responsible for providing water
- weather balloon — sounding balloon.
- weather station — an installation equipped and used for meteorological observation.
- weather through — to pass or go safely through a storm, peril, difficulty, etc.
- weatherboarding — an early type of board used as a siding for a building.
- weatherproofing — Present participle of weatherproof.
- wee small hours — the hours just after midnight
- wentworth scale — a scale for specifying the sizes (diameters) of sedimentary particles, ranging from clay particles (less than 1⁄256 mm) to boulders (over 256 mm)
- west hartlepool — a former borough, now part of Hartlepool, in Cleveland County, in NE England, at the mouth of the Tees.
- whalebone whale — any whale of the suborder Mysticeti, having plates of whalebone on the sides of the upper jaw for filtering plankton from the water.
- whaling station — a place where the carcases of whales were processed
- what's cooking? — what's happening?
- wheelchairbound — Confined to a wheelchair.
- whip into shape — to bring by vigorous action into the proper or desired condition
- white cast iron — cast iron having most or all of its carbon in the form of cementite and exhibiting a silvery fracture.
- white chocolate — a chocolate-type product made of milk and sugar that are cooked together until highly condensed and then mixed with cocoa butter.
- white mountains — a mountain range in the US, chiefly in N New Hampshire: part of the Appalachians. Highest peak: Mount Washington, 1917 m (6288 ft)
- white snakeroot — a North American plant, Eupatorium urticaefolium, the roots or rhizomes of which have been used as a remedy for snakebite
- winter holidays — a period of rest from work or studies taken in winter