18-letter words containing k, a
- kitchen-sink drama — a type of drama of the 1950s depicting the sordid aspects of domestic reality
- knight of the bath — a member of a knightly order founded by George I of England in 1725.
- knight of the road — a tramp
- knights of pythias — a fraternal order founded in Washington, D.C., in 1864.
- knotted cranesbill — a British wildflower, Geranium nodosum, an meadow geranium with bright pink or purple flowers
- known lazy bastard — (abuse) (KLB) A term, used among technical support staff, for a user who repeatedly asks for help with problems whose solutions are clearly explained in the documentation, and persists in doing so after having been told to RTFM. KLBs are singled out for special treatment (i.e. ridicule), especially if they have been heard to say "It's so boring to read the manual! Why don't you just tell me?". The deepest pit in Hell is reserved for KLBs whose questions reveal total ignorance of the basic concepts (e.g., "How do I make a font in Excel?", "Where do I turn on my RAM?"), and who refuse to accept that their questions are neither simple nor well-formed.
- komsomolsk-on-amur — city in SE Russia, on the Amur River: pop. 309,000
- krause's corpuscle — any of numerous encapsulated nerve endings occurring in the skin and mucous membranes, functioning as sensory cold receptors.
- kura kaupapa māori — a primary school where teaching is based on Māori language and culture
- labeled bracketing — a representation of the constituent structure of a string, as a word or sentence, comparable to a tree diagram, in which each constituent is shown in brackets and given a subscript grammatical label, with each bracketed item corresponding to a node in a tree diagram.
- lake pontchartrain — a shallow lagoon in SE Louisiana, linked with the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow channel, the Rigolets: resort and fishing centre. Area: 1620 sq km (625 sq miles)
- laugh like a drain — to laugh loudly and coarsely
- leatherback turtle — a sea turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, having the shell embedded in a leathery skin, reaching a length of more than 7 feet (2.1 meter) and a weight of more than 1000 pounds (450 kg): the largest living sea turtle; an endangered species.
- like a house afire — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- local area network — a system for linking private telecommunications equipment, as in a building or cluster of buildings.
- long-stay car park — a car park (eg at an airport) where cars can be left for a long time
- look the other way — look in the opposite direction
- looking-glass self — the self-image an individual forms by imagining what others think of his or her behavior and appearance.
- lower klamath lake — See under Klamath Lakes.
- make (one's) peace — If you make peace with someone or make your peace with them, you put an end to your quarrel with them, often by apologizing.
- make a beeline for — head directly towards
- make a meal of sth — If you think someone is taking more time and energy to do something than is necessary, you can say that they are making a meal of it.
- make a night of it — to cause an activity to last a night
- make a practice of — be in the habit of
- make allowance for — the act of allowing.
- make an appearance — the act or fact of appearing, as to the eye or mind or before the public: the unannounced appearance of dinner guests; the last appearance of Caruso in Aïda; her first appearance at a stockholders' meeting.
- make an impression — have impact
- make heavy weather — to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a channel; to make a work of art.
- make matters worse — If you say that something makes matters worse, you mean that it makes a difficult situation even more difficult.
- make no difference — to have no effect; not matter
- make one's excuses — to express one's regret over not being able to attend a social gathering, etc.
- make short work of — exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.
- make someone tired — to annoy or vex someone
- make sth one's own — If you make something your own, you become involved in it in such a way that people think of it as being related only to you or belonging only to you, rather than to anyone else.
- make up one's mind — (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind.
- maksutov telescope — a reflecting telescope in which coma and spherical aberration are reduced to a minimum by a combination of a spherical mirror and a meniscus lens placed inside the radius of curvature of the mirror.
- man-to-man marking — the tactic of assigning a particular player to stay close to a specific member of the opposing team to hamper his or her play
- market opportunity — a situation in which a company can meet an unsatisfied customer need before its competitors
- marketing campaign — a series of coordinated activities designed to help market a product
- marketing research — the study of influences upon customer and consumer behaviour and the analysis of market characteristics and trends
- marketing strategy — a general plan or set of plans dealing with marketing, especially over a long period
- maximum likelihood — greatest probability
- mohammed ibn-kasim — flourished early 8th century a.d, Muslim conqueror of the Sind region in India.
- movers and shakers — a person or thing that moves.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- naked and the dead — a novel (1948) by Norman Mailer.
- net book agreement — a former agreement between UK publishers and booksellers that until 1995 prohibited booksellers from undercutting the price of books sold in bookshops
- network management — (networking) The process of controlling a network so as to maximise its efficiency and productivity. ISO's model divides network management into five categories: fault management, accounting management, configuration management, security management and performance management. Fault management is the process of identifying and locating faults in the network. This could include discovering the existence of the problem, identifying the source, and possibly repairing (or at least isolating the rest of the network from) the problem. Configuration management is the process of identifying, tracking and modifying the setup of devices on the network. This category is extremely important for devices that come with numerous custom settings (e.g. routers and file servers). Security management is the process of controlling (granting, limiting, restricting or denying) access to the network and resources thereon. This could include setting up and managing access lists in routers (creating "firewalls" to keep intruders out), creating and maintaining password access to critical network resources, identifying the points of entry used by intruders and closing them. Performance Management is the process of measuring the performance of various network components. This also includes taking measures to optimise the network for maximum system performance (periodically measuring of the use of network resources).
- nickel-and-dime it — to succeed or obtain something gradually by the repeated expenditure of small sums or the slow gathering of votes, power, money, etc. in small increments
- nickeled-and-dimed — of little or no importance; trivial; petty: a nickel-and-dime business that soon folded.