14-letter words containing k, o, a, n, s
- insertion mark — a symbol used to show that a missing letter or symbol should be inserted
- jackson method — (programming) A proprietary structured method for software analysis, design and programming.
- kangaroo grass — a tall widespread Australian grass, Themeda australis, which is highly palatable to cattle and is used for fodder
- karstification — the process of turning into karst
- kedleston hall — a mansion near Derby in Derbyshire: rebuilt (1759–65) for the Curzon family by Matthew Brettingham, James Paine, and Robert Adam
- keystone state — Pennsylvania (used as a nickname).
- king of beasts — the lion.
- kings mountain — a ridge in N South Carolina: American victory over the British 1780.
- know backwards — to understand completely
- knowledge base — (artificial intelligence) A collection of knowledge expressed using some formal knowledge representation language. A knowledge base forms part of a knowledge-based system (KBS).
- kola peninsula — Also called Kola Peninsula. a peninsula in the NW Russian Federation in Europe, between the White and Barents seas.
- kola-peninsula — Also called Kola Peninsula. a peninsula in the NW Russian Federation in Europe, between the White and Barents seas.
- konstantinovka — a city in E Ukraine, NW of Gorlovka.
- lake constance — a lake in W Europe, bounded by S Germany, W Austria, and N Switzerland, through which the Rhine flows. Area: 536 sq km. (207 sq miles)
- last knockings — the final stage of a period or activity
- laughing stock — object of others' amusement
- laughingstocks — Plural form of laughingstock.
- locker-lampson — Frederick (Frederick Locker) 1821–95, English poet.
- longcase clock — tall freestanding timepiece
- lower tunguska — one of three rivers in Russia, in central Siberia, that is a tributary of the Yenisei and is 2690 km (1670 miles) long
- make no secret — If you make no secret of something, you tell others about it openly and clearly.
- make one's bed — a piece of furniture upon which or within which a person sleeps, rests, or stays when not well.
- make one's way — manner, mode, or fashion: a new way of looking at a matter; to reply in a polite way.
- master workman — a worker in charge.
- mayonnaiselike — Resembling mayonnaise.
- metallokinesis — (science fiction): The psychic ability to manipulate or control metals.
- mockumentaries — Plural form of mockumentary.
- neo-kantianism — Kantianism as modified by various philosophers.
- neo-lamarckism — Lamarckism as expounded by later biologists who hold especially that some acquired characters of organisms may be inherited by descendants, but that natural selection also is a factor in evolution.
- new york state — New York (def 1).
- nizhnevartovsk — a city in W central Russia, an oil and gas center on the Ob River.
- norfolk island — an island in the S Pacific between New Caledonia and New Zealand: a territory of Australia. 13 sq. mi. (34 sq. km).
- novoshakhtinsk — a city in the S Russian Federation in Europe, NE of the Sea of Azov.
- okavango basin — a river in SW central Africa, rising in central Angola and flowing southeast, then east as part of the border between Angola and Namibia, then southeast across the Caprivi Strip into Botswana to form a great marsh known as the Okavango Basin, Delta or Swamp. Length: about 1600 km (1000 miles)
- options market — a market in which options are traded
- ordinary stock — British. common stock.
- orkney islands — group of islands north of Scotland, constituting an administrative division of Scotland: 377 sq mi (976 sq km); pop. 20,000
- parking sensor — A parking sensor is a device on a vehicle which detects obstacles and alerts the driver if the vehicle comes too close to them when being parked.
- passion killer — something that is sexually unattractive or inhibiting
- penalty stroke — a stroke added to a score for a rule infraction.
- pick one's way — to choose or select from among a group: to pick a contestant from the audience.
- roanoke island — an island off the NE coast of North Carolina, S of Albemarle Sound: site of Raleigh's unsuccessful colonizing attempts 1585, 1587.
- roanoke rapids — a city in NE North Carolina.
- rock mechanics — the study of the mechanical behaviour of rocks, esp their strength, elasticity, permeability, porosity, density, and reaction to stress
- roller-skating — the act of moving on roller skates
- rotating stock — Rotating stock is a system used especially in food stores and to reduce wastage, in which the oldest stock is moved to the front of shelves and new stock is added at the back.
- saratoga trunk — a type of large traveling trunk used mainly by women during the 19th century.
- savanna monkey — any of several common, closely allied long-tailed monkeys of African savannas ranging from Senegal to South Africa, including the green monkey, grivet, tantalus, and vervet, which are sometimes considered subspecies and classified together as Cercopithecus aethiops.
- scratch monkey — (humour) As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel. It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?" Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane" society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's a very detailed account that claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one. I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
- shabby-looking — appearing old and in bad condition