19-letter words containing k, e, r, a
- lean over backwards — to make a special effort, esp in order to please
- left-luggage locker — a coin-operated locker in which luggage can be left
- like a cheshire cat — If someone is grinning like a Cheshire cat or like the Cheshire cat, they are smiling very widely.
- like a dog's dinner — dressed smartly or ostentatiously
- lord baltimore cake — a yellow layer cake, using only the yolks of eggs and having a fruit-nut filling consisting of pecans, almonds, maraschino cherries, and macaroon crumbs.
- make a pig's ear of — to ruin disastrously
- make oneself scarce — insufficient to satisfy the need or demand; not abundant: Meat and butter were scarce during the war.
- market segmentation — the division of a market into identifiable groups, esp to improve the effectiveness of a marketing strategy
- memory like a sieve — a very poor memory
- miracle of st. mark — a painting (1548) by Tintoretto.
- mouse-ear chickweed — any of various similar and related plants of the genus Cerastium
- nasty piece of work — malicious person
- natural killer cell — a small killer cell that destroys virus-infected cells or tumor cells without activation by an immune system cell or antibody.
- network termination — (NT, NT1) A device connecting the customer's data or telephone equipment to the local ISDN exchange carrier's line. The NT device provides a connection for terminal equipment (TE) and terminal adaptor (TA) equipment to the local loop.
- niagara-on-the-lake — a town in SE Ontario, in S Canada, on Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the Niagara River, on the border between Canada and New York.
- norfolk island pine — a coniferous evergreen tree, Araucaria heterophylla (or A. excelsa), having whorled branches and needlelike foliage, widely cultivated as a houseplant.
- north new hyde park — a town on W Long Island, in SE New York.
- not worth a cracker — worthless; useless
- oak-leaved geranium — a geranium, Pelargonium quercifolium, of southern Africa, having oaklike leaves with purple veins and sparse clusters of purple flowers with darker markings.
- okeechobee waterway — a waterway in S Florida from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. 155 miles (244 km) long.
- olive-backed thrush — Swainson's thrush.
- on the baker's list — in good health
- optical mark reader — (hardware) (OMR) A special scanning device that can read carefully placed pencil marks on specially designed documents. OMR is frequenty used in forms, questionnaires, and answer-sheets.
- parachute spinnaker — a very large spinnaker used on a racing yacht.
- parkinson's disease — a common neurologic disease believed to be caused by deterioration of the brain cells that produce dopamine, occurring primarily after the age of 60, characterized by tremors, especially of the fingers and hands, muscle rigidity, shuffling gait, slow speech, and a masklike facial expression.
- particle kinematics — Particle kinematics is the study of the movement of particles, without considering the forces that cause this movement.
- peak envelope power — (communications) (PEP) The maximum power output by a radio transmitter over one complete RF cycle at any modulation.
- pen-and-ink drawing — a drawing that is done using a pen rather than a pencil
- pileated woodpecker — a large, black-and-white American woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, having a prominent red crest.
- pocket-handkerchief — handkerchief (def 1).
- portuguese-speaking — being a speaker of Portuguese; having Portuguese as the national language
- prairie rattlesnake — a rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis viridis, of the prairies of western North America.
- presentation skills — the set of techniques and skills required successfully to present oral information to others
- prick up one's ears — a puncture made by a needle, thorn, or the like.
- puncture repair kit — set of tools for patching a bicycle tyre
- quick-change artist — a person adept at changing from one thing to another, as an entertainer who changes costumes quickly during a performance.
- raise one's hackles — one of the long, slender feathers on the neck or saddle of certain birds, as the domestic rooster, much used in making artificial flies for anglers.
- rake over the coals — a black or dark-brown combustible mineral substance consisting of carbonized vegetable matter, used as a fuel. Compare anthracite, bituminous coal, lignite.
- rap on the knuckles — a mild reprimand or light sentence
- red-shouldered hawk — a North American hawk, Buteo lineatus, having rufous shoulders.
- reef whitetip shark — whitetip shark (def 1).
- removable hard disk — (storage) A type of magnetic disk, or possibly magneto-optical disk which is not permanently attached to the disk drive (not a fixed disk) but which can be taken out and replaced, allowing many disks to be used in the same drive. The term "removable disk" would seem to be applicable to floppy disks but is generally reserved for hard disks in suitable cartridges such as those made by Syquest, Iomega and others. Removable disk packs were common on minicomputers such as the PDP-11 in use in the 1970s except that the drives were the size of washing machines and the disk packs as big as car wheels. Removable disks became popular on microcomputers in the 1990s as a cheap way of expanding disk space, transporting large amounts of data between computers and storing backups. Large, cheap fixed hard disks and USB memory sticks have made removable disks less attractive.
- rhodesian ridgeback — a large short-haired breed of dog characterized by a ridge of hair growing along the back in the opposite direction to the rest of the coat. It was originally a hunting dog from South Africa
- rickettsial disease — any of several acute infectious diseases caused by ticks, mites, or body lice infected with rickettsiae. The main types include typhus, spotted fever, Q fever, trench fever, and tsutsugamushi disease
- rock-paper-scissors — a method of selecting, for example, which of two people perform a task: each person simultaneously makes one of three hand gestures representing a rock, a sheet of paper, and a pair of scissors respectively. Each gesture defeats one and is defeated by one of the other two: rock defeats scissors but is defeated by paper; paper defeats rock but is defeated by scissors. The person whose gesture defeats the other is selected
- saddle-billed stork — a large stork, Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis, of West Africa, having a white and black body and a long, red and black bill.
- saint luke's summer — a period of unusually warm weather in the autumn
- san francisco peaks — a mountain mass in N Arizona: highest point in the state, Humphrey's Peak, 12,611 feet (3845 meters).
- secondary picketing — the picketing by strikers of a place of work that supplies goods to or distributes goods from their employer
- smokestack industry — A smokestack industry is a traditional industry such as heavy engineering or manufacturing, rather than a modern industry such as electronics.