17-letter words containing i, o, n, a
- karitane hospital — a hospital for young babies and their mothers
- kawasaki syndrome — a syndrome, usually afflicting children, characterized by high fever, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, rashes, irritated eyes and mucous membranes, etc. with possible damage to the cardiovascular system
- kennesaw mountain — a mountain in N Georgia, near Atlanta: battle 1864. 1809 feet (551 meters).
- kensington palace — a royal residence in Kensington Gardens, in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea; dating from the 17th century, it was improved and extended by Sir Cristopher Wren
- khingan mountains — a mountain system of NE China, in W Manchuria. Highest peak: 2034 m (6673 ft)
- kinetic potential — the kinetic energy minus the potential energy in a system obeying the principle of conservation of energy. Symbol: L.
- king george's war — a war (1744–48) waged by England and its colonies against France, constituting the North American phase of the War of the Austrian Succession.
- lady of the night — a tropical American shrub, Brunfelsia americana, of the nightshade family, having berrylike yellow fruit and fragrant white flowers.
- lady-of-the-night — a tropical American shrub, Brunfelsia americana, of the nightshade family, having berrylike yellow fruit and fragrant white flowers.
- lagging indicator — A lagging indicator is an economic indicator that changes following a change in the economy, such as unemployment.
- lago de nicaragua — Spanish name of Lake Nicaragua.
- lake waikaremoana — a lake in the North Island of New Zealand in a dense bush setting. Area: about 55 sq km (21 sq miles)
- lake winnipegosis — a lake in S Canada, in W Manitoba. Area: 5400 sq km (2086 sq miles)
- lambda expression — (mathematics) A term in the lambda-calculus denoting an unnamed function (a "lambda abstraction"), a variable or a constant. The pure lambda-calculus has only functions and no constants.
- lame-duck session — (formerly) the December to March session of those members of the U.S. Congress who were defeated for reelection the previous November.
- lan administrator — (job) A person who installs and maintains LAN hardware and software. A LAN administrator troubleshoots network usage and computer peripherals. He installs new users, performs system backups and data recovery, and resolves LAN communications problems.
- langmuir isotherm — A Langmuir isotherm is a classical relationship between the concentrations of a solid and a fluid, used to describe a state of no change in the sorption process.
- larmor precession — the precession of charged particles, as electrons, placed in a magnetic field, the frequency of the precession (Larmor frequency) being equal to the electronic charge times the strength of the magnetic field divided by 4π times the mass.
- last-in first-out — stack
- law of reflection — the principle that when a ray of light, radar pulse, or the like, is reflected from a smooth surface the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, and the incident ray, the reflected ray, and the normal to the surface at the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
- law of refraction — the principle that for a ray, radar pulse, or the like, that is incident on the interface of two media, the ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the angle of refraction is equal to the ratio of the velocity of the ray in the first medium to the velocity in the second medium and the incident ray, refracted ray, and normal to the surface at the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
- lay it on (thick) — to exaggerate
- leading indicator — A leading indicator is an economic indicator that changes before a change in the economy, and that can be used to predict future economic or financial activity.
- league of nations — an international organization to promote world peace and cooperation that was created by the Treaty of Versailles (1919): dissolved April 1946.
- learned borrowing — a word or other linguistic form borrowed from a classical language into a modern language.
- least fixed point — (mathematics) A function f may have many fixed points (x such that f x = x). For example, any value is a fixed point of the identity function, (\ x . x). If f is recursive, we can represent it as f = fix F where F is some higher-order function and fix F = F (fix F). The standard denotational semantics of f is then given by the least fixed point of F. This is the least upper bound of the infinite sequence (the ascending Kleene chain) obtained by repeatedly applying F to the totally undefined value, bottom. I.e. fix F = LUB {bottom, F bottom, F (F bottom), ...}. The least fixed point is guaranteed to exist for a continuous function over a cpo.
- lebanon mountains — a mountain range extending the length of Lebanon, in the central part. Highest peak, 10,049 feet (3063 meters).
- legal proceedings — court case
- legendre equation — a differential equation of the form (1− x 2) d2y/dx2 − 2 xdy/dx + a (a + 1) y = 0, where a is an arbitrary constant.
- leibniz mountains — a mountain range on the SW limb of the moon, containing the highest peaks (10 000 metres) on the moon
- leizhou peninsula — a peninsula of SE China, in SW Guangdong province, separated from Hainan Island by Hainan Strait
- lempert operation — fenestration (def 3c).
- leonardo da vinci — Leonardo [lee-uh-nahr-doh,, ley-;; Italian le-aw-nahr-daw] /ˌli əˈnɑr doʊ,, ˌleɪ-;; Italian ˌlɛ ɔˈnɑr dɔ/ (Show IPA), Leonardo da Vinci.
- lexical insertion — the process in which actual morphemes of a language are substituted either for semantic material or for place-fillers in the course of a derivation of a sentence
- liability account — A liability account is an account recording a company's liabilities.
- liberal education — an education based primarily on the liberal arts, emphasizing the development of intellectual abilities as opposed to the acquisition of professional skills.
- lie in wait (for) — to wait so as to catch after planning an ambush or trap (for)
- life and/or death — If you say that something is a matter of life and death, you are emphasizing that it is extremely important, often because someone may die or suffer great harm if people do not act immediately.
- lifelong learning — the provision or use of both formal and informal learning opportunities throughout people's lives in order to foster the continuous development and improvement of the knowledge and skills needed for employment and personal fulfilment
- light dawns on sb — If light dawns on you, you begin to understand something after a period of not being able to understand it.
- light mineral oil — a colorless, oily, almost tasteless, water-insoluble liquid, usually of either a standard light density (light mineral oil) or a standard heavy density (heavy mineral oil) consisting of mixtures of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum by distillation: used chiefly as a lubricant, in the manufacture of cosmetics, and in medicine as a laxative.
- limousine liberal — a wealthy left-wing person
- lincoln's sparrow — a North American sparrow, Melospiza lincolnii, having a buff breast with black streaks.
- line of scrimmage — an imaginary line parallel to the goal lines that passes from one sideline to the other through the point of the football closest to the goal line of each team.
- linking consonant — a consonant inserted between two vowels in speech
- liquid propellant — a rocket propellant in liquid form.
- lithium carbonate — a colorless crystalline compound, Li 2 CO 3 , slightly soluble in water: used in ceramic and porcelain glazes, pharmaceuticals, and luminescent paints.
- litigation friend — a person acting on behalf of an infant or other person under legal disability
- livingstone daisy — a gardener's name for various species of Mesembryanthemum, esp M. criniflorum, grown as garden annuals (though several are perennial) for their brightly coloured showy flowers: family Aizoaceae
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.