18-letter words containing i, r, a, w
- hawksbill (turtle) — a medium-sized marine turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata, family Cheloniidae) having a hawklike beak and a horny shell from which tortoise shell is obtained
- hell or high water — whatever difficulties may arise
- herring bone weave — a pattern consisting of adjoining vertical rows of slanting lines, any two contiguous lines forming either a V or an inverted V , used in masonry, textiles, embroidery, etc.
- hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
- in accordance with — conforming to
- in comparison with — when compared to
- interest rate swap — An interest rate swap is a contract where two parties exchange the cash flow from interest rates.
- intimate borrowing — the borrowing of linguistic forms by one language or dialect from another when both occupy a single geographical or cultural community.
- inverse square law — one of several laws relating two quantities such that one quantity varies inversely as the square of the other, as the law that the illumination produced on a screen by a point source varies inversely as the square of the distance of the screen from the source.
- iridescent seaweed — a red alga, Irideae cordata, found on the Pacific coast of North America, having broad, leathery, iridescent blades.
- james baird weaver — James Baird, 1833–1912, U.S. politician: congressman 1879–81, 1885–89.
- junior heavyweight — a boxer weighing up to 190 pounds (85.5 kg), between light heavyweight and heavyweight.
- king william's war — the war (1689–97) in which England and its American colonies and Indian allies opposed France and its Indian allies and which constituted the American phase of the War of the Grand Alliance.
- kirtland's warbler — a wood warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, breeding only in north-central Michigan and wintering in the Bahamas, bluish gray above, striped with black and pale yellow below: an endangered species.
- law of gravitation — a law stating that any two masses attract each other with a force equal to a constant (constant of gravitation) multiplied by the product of the two masses and divided by the square of the distance between them.
- law of segregation — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
- lawrence of arabia — D(avid) H(erbert) 1885–1930, English novelist.
- lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
- lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
- magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
- marine underwriter — an underwriter who specializes in marine insurance
- mechanical drawing — drawing, as of machinery, done with the aid of rulers, scales, compasses, etc.
- medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
- mendel's first law — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
- microwave detector — a device for recording the speed of a motorist
- microwave spectrum — a spectrum of electromagnetic radiations whose wavelengths fall in the microwave range.
- neighborhood watch — a neighborhood surveillance program or group in which residents keep watch over one another's houses, patrol the streets, etc., in an attempt to prevent crime.
- new american bible — an English translation of the Bible based on the original languages, prepared by Catholic Biblical scholars, and first published in 1970.
- new forest disease — an infectious eye disease causing acute eye pain in cattle
- new zealand on air — the operational name for the New Zealand Broadcasting Commission
- norwegian elkhound — one of a breed of dogs having a short, compact body, short, pointed ears, and a thick, gray coat, raised originally in Norway for hunting elk and other game.
- now you're talking — at last you're saying something agreeable
- of your own making — If you say that something such as a problem you have is of your own making, you mean you have caused or created it yourself.
- old low franconian — a Low German dialect of the Franks of the lower Rhine valley before c1100.
- operating software — software used in the operation of a computer system, typically by performing such tasks as memory allocation, job scheduling, and input/output control
- oriental scops owl — any of a group of small owls having ear tufts and a whistling call, especially Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl)
- over and done with — If you say that something is over and done with, you mean that it is completely finished and you do not have to think about it any more.
- paint the town red — a substance composed of solid coloring matter suspended in a liquid medium and applied as a protective or decorative coating to various surfaces, or to canvas or other materials in producing a work of art.
- peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
- phantom withdrawal — the unauthorized removal of funds from a bank account using an automated teller machine
- pileolated warbler — either of two western subspecies of Wilson's warbler.
- prairie wake-robin — a woodland trillium, Trillium recurvatum, of the central U.S., having purple-mottled leaves and brown-purple flowers.
- precipitable water — the total water vapor contained in a unit vertical column of the atmosphere.
- prerelease showing — a showing of a film before it goes on general release
- presumption of law — a presumption based upon a policy of law or a general rule and not upon the facts or evidence in an individual case.
- przewalski's horse — a wild horse, Equus caballus przevalskii, chiefly of Mongolia and Sinkiang, characterized by light yellow coloring and a stiff, upright black mane with no forelock: the only remaining breed of wild horse, it is now endangered and chiefly maintained in zoos.
- resistance welding — welding utilizing pressure and heat that is generated in the pieces to be welded by resistance to an electric current.
- revolutionary wars — American Revolution.
- rhode island white — one of a dual-purpose American breed of chickens having white feathers and a rose comb.
- right-to-work laws — a state law making it illegal to refuse employment to a person for the sole reason that he or she is not a union member.