17-letter words containing k, e, r, n
- drink like a fish — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- drink-drive limit — the maximum blood alcohol level permitted for someone driving a vehicle
- eastern turkestan — a vast region in W and central Asia, E of the Caspian Sea: includes territory in the S central part of Xinjiang province in China (Eastern Turkestan or Chinese Turkestan) a strip of N Afghanistan, and the area (Russian Turkestan) comprising the republics of Kazakhstan, Kirghizia (Kyrgyzstan), Tadzhikistan (Tajikistan), Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
- egyptian brackets — (programming, humour) A humourous term for K&R indent style, referring to the "one hand up in front, one down behind" pose which popular culture inexplicably associates with Egypt.
- english breakfast — An English breakfast is a breakfast consisting of cooked food such as bacon, eggs, sausages, and tomatoes. It also includes toast and tea or coffee.
- falkland islander — a person from the Falkland Islands
- federal land bank — a U.S. federal bank for making long-term loans to farmers.
- felix frankfurter — Felix, 1882–1965, U.S. jurist, born in Austria: associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 1939–62.
- fermentation lock — a valve placed on the top of bottles of fermenting wine to allow bubbles to escape
- figure-eight knot — a kind of knot
- for heaven's sake — expressing frustration
- frankenstein food — any foodstuff that has been genetically modified
- general knowledge — commonly known facts
- goldbeater's skin — the prepared outside membrane of the large intestine of the ox, used by goldbeaters to lay between the leaves of the metal while they beat it into gold leaf.
- government broker — the government-appointed stockbroker whose job is to sell government securities on the stock exchange, as instructed by the Bank of England
- grandfather clock — a pendulum floor clock having a case as tall as or taller than a person; tall-case clock; long-case clock.
- grandmother clock — a pendulum clock similar to a grandfather's clock but shorter.
- great awakening's — the series of religious revivals among Protestants in the American colonies, especially in New England, lasting from about 1725 to 1770.
- green book cd-rom — A standard CD-ROM format developed by Philips for CD-i. It is ISO 9660 compliant and uses mode 2 form 2 addressing. It can only be played on drives which are XA (Extended Architecture) compatible. Many Green Book discs contain CD-i applications which can only be played on a CD-i player but many others contain films or music videos. Video CDs in Green Book format are normally labelled "Digital Video on CD" Green Book was obsoleted by White book CD-ROM in March 1994.
- hammer and sickle — the emblem of the Soviet Union, adopted in 1923 and consisting of an insignia of a hammer with its handle across the blade of a sickle and a star above.
- heart of darkness — a short novel (1902) by Joseph Conrad.
- heartbreakingness — The state or quality of being heartbreaking.
- helen keller mode — 1. State of a hardware or software system that is deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e. accepting no input and generating no output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion into deep space. (Unfair to the real Helen Keller, whose success at learning speech was triumphant.) See also go flatline, catatonic. 2. On IBM PCs under MS-DOS, refers to a specific failure mode in which a screen saver has kicked in over an ill-behaved application which bypasses the very interrupts the screen saver watches for activity. Your choices are to try to get from the program's current state through a successful save-and-exit without being able to see what you're doing, or to re-boot the machine. This isn't (strictly speaking) a crash.
- histamine blocker — any of various substances that act at a specific receptor site to block certain actions of histamine.
- horatio kitchener — Horatio Herbert (1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and of Broome) 1850–1916, English field marshal and statesman.
- housekeeping cart — A housekeeping cart is a large metal basket on wheels which is used by a cleaner in a hotel to move clean bed linen, towels, and cleaning equipment.
- immigrant workers — people who work in a country they arrived to in order to settle there
- in the background — behind the focus of attention
- in the market for — an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace: a farmers' market.
- indian rope-trick — the supposed Indian feat of climbing an unsupported rope
- infinitive marker — a word or affix occurring with the verb stem in the infinitive, such as to in to make
- intelligence work — spying
- internet backbone — (communications, networking) High-speed networks that carry Internet traffic. These communications networks are provided by companies such as AT&T, GTE, IBM, MCI, Netcom, Sprint, UUNET and consist of high-speed links in the T1, T3, OC1 and OC3 ranges. The backbones carry Internet traffic around the world and meet at Network Access Points (NAPs). The topology of the "backbone" and its interconnections may once have resembled a spine with ribs connected along its length but is now almost certainly more like a fishing net wrapped around the world with many circular paths.
- investment banker — an executive in an investment bank
- jack-in-the-green — (in England, formerly) a man who wore or supported a leaf-covered wooden framework while dancing in May-Day celebrations
- karelian republic — a constituent republic of NW Russia between the White Sea and Lakes Onega and Ladoga. Capital: Petrozavodsk. Pop: 716 700 (2002). Area: 172 400 sq km (66 560 sq miles)
- 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
- keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
- kerguelen islands — an archipelago in the S Indian Ocean: a possession of France. 2394 sq. mi. (6200 sq. km).
- key man insurance — Key man insurance is an insurance policy taken out by a small company on the life of a senior executive whose death would create a serious loss.
- key-man assurance — an assurance policy taken out, esp by a small company, on the life of a senior executive whose death would create a serious loss
- keyboard commando — (messaging) A bulletin board user who posts authoritatively on military or combat topics, but who has never served in uniform or heard a shot fired in anger. A poseur.
- kidney transplant — surgery to replace a kidney
- kiloelectron volt — 1000 electron-volts. Abbreviation: keV, kev.
- 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.
- lake waikaremoana — a lake in the North Island of New Zealand in a dense bush setting. Area: about 55 sq km (21 sq miles)
- lan kanal adapter — (networking) (LKA) A sort of external LAN interface for a BS200 computer.
- lesser periwinkle — a Eurasian apocynaceous evergreen plant of the genus Vinca,; V. minor, having trailing stems and blue flowers
- make a difference — have a significant impact