18-letter words containing i, t, w

live by one's wits — the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure. Synonyms: drollery, facetiousness, waggishness, repartee.
long hundredweight — a hundredweight of 112 pounds (50.8 kg), the usual hundredweight in Great Britain, but now rare in the U.S.
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
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.
microsloth windows — (abuse, operating system) /mi:'kroh-sloth" win"dohz/ (Or "Windoze", /win'dohz/) A derogatory term for Microsoft Windows which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonisingly slow on anything less than a fast 486. Also called just "Windoze", with the implication that you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term is extremely common on Usenet. Compare X, sun-stools.
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.
milkweed butterfly — monarch butterfly.
mixed-flow turbine — a water turbine in which water flows radially and axially through the rotating vanes
mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
mop the floor with — that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface and upon which one walks.
multiflow computer — (company) A now-defunct computer company, best known for its work in Very Long Instruction Word processors. Address: New Haven, Conn. USA.
multiple ownership — ownership by several people or organizations
nailed to the wall — [like a trophy] Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.
negative cash flow — the situation when income is less than payments
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.
network redirector — (networking) An operating system driver that sends data to and receives data from a remote device. A network redirector often provides mechanisms to locate, open, read, write, and delete files and submit print jobs. It also makes available application services such as named pipes and mailslots. When an application needs to send or receive data from a remote device, it sends a call to the redirector. The redirector provides the functionality of the Application layer and Presentation layer of the OSI model. In Microsoft Networking, the network redirectors are implemented as installable file systems (IFS).
new forest disease — an infectious eye disease causing acute eye pain in cattle
not that i know of — You say 'Not that I know of' when someone has asked you whether or not something is true and you think the answer is 'no' but you cannot be sure because you do not know all the facts.
now you're talking — at last you're saying something agreeable
oil of wintergreen — methyl salicylate.
on a sticky wicket — in an awkward situation
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.
overtime work(ing) — work at a regular job done in addition to regular working hours
packet switch node — (PSN) A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet-switched network.
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
piecewise function — a function whose definition changes depending on the value of the independent variable
pileolated warbler — either of two western subspecies of Wilson's warbler.
plate-glass window — a window that has glass which has been formed by rolling
precipitable water — the total water vapor contained in a unit vertical column of the atmosphere.
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.
prison rustic work — rustication having a deeply pitted surface.
provincetown print — a print made from a woodblock incised with grooves that serve to separate the colors being used and to leave white lines highlighting the design.
reinvent the wheel — (jargon) To design or implement a tool equivalent to an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid criticism. On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times before you get them right. On the third hand, people reinventing the wheel do tend to come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset axle.
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.
rub shoulders with — to mix with socially or associate with
salem witch trials — 17th-century witchcraft case
schleswig-holstein — two contiguous duchies of Denmark that were a center of international tension in the 19th century: Prussia annexed Schleswig 1864 and Holstein 1866.
schwarz inequality — Also called Cauchy's inequality. the theorem that the inner product of two vectors is less than or equal to the product of the magnitudes of the vectors.
self-tapping screw — a screw designed to tap its corresponding female thread as it is driven.
short story writer — author of short fiction

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