20-letter words containing i, g, u, a, n
- rough-winged swallow — either of two New World swallows of the genus Stelgidopteryx, having outer primary feathers with small barblike hooks on the margins.
- scatter site housing — public housing, especially for low-income families, built throughout an urban area rather than being concentrated in a single neighborhood.
- schrodinger equation — the wave equation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Also called Schrödinger wave equation. Compare wave equation (def 2).
- shifting cultivation — a land-use system, esp in tropical Africa, in which a tract of land is cultivated until its fertility diminishes, when it is abandoned until this is restored naturally
- shoulder-length hair — hair that reaches a person's shoulders
- soft gelatin capsule — A soft gelatin capsule is a type of capsule that is usually used to contain medicine in the form of liquid or powder, and which dissolves more quickly than a hard gelatin capsule.
- sound-and-light show — a nighttime spectacle or performance, at which a building, historic site, etc., is illuminated and the historic significance is imparted to spectators by means of narration, sound effects, and music.
- squatter sovereignty — (used contemptuously by its opponents) popular sovereignty (def 2).
- sunday-go-to-meeting — most presentable; best: Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
- surface-active agent — any substance that when dissolved in water or an aqueous solution reduces its surface tension or the interfacial tension between it and another liquid.
- temperature gradient — rate of change of temperature with distance.
- terrestrial guidance — a method of missile or rocket guidance in which the flight path is controlled by reference to the strength and direction of the earth's gravitational or magnetic field
- the founding fathers — any of the men who were members of the U.S. Constituional Convention of 1787
- the garment industry — the manufacturing of items of clothing
- the naughty nineties — (in Britain) the 1890s, considered to be a period of fun-loving and laxity, esp in sexual morals
- the thousand guineas — an annual horse race, restricted to fillies, run at Newmarket since 1814
- to bring up the rear — If a person or vehicle is bringing up the rear, they are the last person or vehicle in a moving line of them.
- to get your bearings — to find out where one is or to find out what one should do next
- to spread your wings — If you spread your wings, you do something new and rather difficult or move to a new place, because you feel more confident in your abilities than you used to and you want to gain wider experience.
- travelling-wave tube — an electronic tube in which an electron beam interacts with a distributed high-frequency magnetic field so that energy is transferred from the beam to the field
- trigeminal neuralgia — tic douloureux.
- trustee savings bank — a British financial institution which offered savings facilities for small investors and was managed by unpaid trustees. Depositors had no voting rights and no say in financial or managerial matters. The bank is now a public limited company with the same rights and services as other banks and only retains the title in the abbreviated form TSB.
- tubing head pressure — The tubing head pressure is the pressure on the tubing, which is measured at the wellhead.
- twelve-string guitar — an acoustic guitar having twelve strings instead of six, with each pair tuned an octave apart, and more difficult to play than the standard guitar.
- underground railroad — Also called underground railway. a railroad running through a continuous tunnel, as under city streets; subway.
- unsaddling enclosure — the area at a racecourse where horses are unsaddled after a race and often where awards are given to owners, trainers, and jockeys
- visual merchandising — Visual merchandising is the use of attractive displays and floor plans to increase customer numbers and sales volumes.
- walking-around money — money that is carried on the person for routine expenses and minor emergencies; pocket money.
- weights and measures — units or standards of measurement
- working-capital fund — a fund established to finance operating activities in an industrial enterprise.
- your marching orders — If you give someone their marching orders, you tell them that you no longer want or need them, for example as your employee or as your lover.
- yu-shiang whole fish — /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ An obsolete name for the Greek character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII code 9, Unicode glyph 0x0263) which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not parsed) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Used primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.