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20-letter words containing i, g, u, a

  • nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
  • occupation groupings — a system of classifying people according to occupation, based originally on information obtained by government census and subsequently developed by market research. The classifications are used by the advertising industry to identify potential markets. The groups are A, B, C1, C2, D, and E
  • ode on a grecian urn — a poem (1819) by Keats.
  • officer of the guard — an officer, acting under the officer of the day, who is responsible for the instruction, discipline, and performance of duty of the guard in a post, camp, or station. Abbreviation: OG, O.G.
  • omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
  • ontological argument — an a priori argument for the existence of God, asserting that as existence is a perfection, and as God is conceived of as the most perfect being, it follows that God must exist; originated by Anselm, later used by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz.
  • orthognathic surgery — the surgical correction of deformities or malpositions of the jaw.
  • oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
  • pedal steel (guitar) — a steel guitar mounted on legs and equipped with pedals that serve as an additional means of changing pitch
  • perpendicular gothic — the style of Gothic architecture in England during the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by tracery having vertical lines, a four-centred arch, and fan vaulting
  • physiologic jaundice — a transitory jaundice that affects some infants for the first few days after birth.
  • pound cost averaging — a method of accumulating capital by investing a fixed sum in a particular security at regular intervals, in order to achieve an average purchase price below the arithmetic average of the market prices on the purchase dates
  • prenuptial agreement — A prenuptial agreement is a written contract made between a man and a woman before they marry, in which they state how their assets such as property and money should be divided if they get divorced.
  • production agreement — a contract concerning the production or manufacture of something
  • programming language — a high-level language used to write computer programs, as COBOL or BASIC, or, sometimes, an assembly language.
  • prosecuting attorney — the public officer in a county, district, or other jurisdiction charged with carrying on the prosecution in criminal proceedings.
  • pseudo-psychological — of or relating to psychology.
  • pyroligneous alcohol — methyl alcohol.
  • quaker meeting house — a place where Quakers gather for worship
  • quantum bogodynamics — /kwon'tm boh"goh-di:-nam"iks/ A theory that characterises the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and suits in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise mechanics of bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood. Quantum bogodynamics is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which the former absorb.
  • quarantine anchorage — an anchorage for ships awaiting a pratique.
  • radial triangulation — triangulation based upon lines radiating from the center of each of two overlapping photographs to certain objects appearing on each photograph.
  • regenerative furnace — a furnace in which the incoming air is heated by regenerators.
  • ring wall foundation — A ring wall foundation is a base made of concrete, used to put large tanks on.
  • 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).
  • semiautobiographical — pertaining to or being a fictionalized account of an author's own life.
  • 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.
  • special patrol group — a former police unit tasked with counter terrorism in the Royal Ulster Constabulary
  • squatter sovereignty — (used contemptuously by its opponents) popular sovereignty (def 2).
  • straight-cut tobacco — tobacco that is cut in such a way that it will lie flat.
  • 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.
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