16-letter words containing l, e, a, s
- verruca vulgaris — the common wart.
- vertical tasting — a tasting of different vintages of one particular wine.
- vestibular nerve — the part of the auditory nerve in the inner ear that carries sensory information related to body equilibrium.
- viceregal assent — the formal signing of an act of parliament by a governor general, by which it becomes law
- victorian values — qualities considered to characterize the Victorian period, including enterprise and initiative and the importance of the family
- video journalism — the techniques, methods, etc., of preparing and broadcasting informational, social, political, and other nonfiction subjects via news and documentary programs.
- videodisc player — an electronic device for playing videodiscs through a television set.
- visual interface — (tool, text) (vi) /V-I/, /vi:/, *never* /siks/ A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. vi became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favourite outside of MIT until the rise of Emacs after about 1984. It tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even some Emacs fans resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of Emacs). See holy wars.
- visual magnitude — Astronomy. magnitude (def 5a).
- visual-magnitude — size; extent; dimensions: to determine the magnitude of an angle.
- voluntary muscle — muscle whose action is normally controlled by an individual's will; mainly skeletal muscle, composed of parallel bundles of striated, multinucleate fibers.
- voluntary sector — the part of the economy that consists of non-profit-making organizations, as opposed to the public and private sectors
- wages settlement — an agreement over wages following negotiations between workers and employers
- walk the streets — to be a prostitute
- walking distance — distance that can easily be walked
- walrus moustache — a long thick moustache drooping at the ends
- waterless cooker — a tight-lidded kitchen utensil in which food can be cooked using only a small amount of water or only the juices emitted while cooking.
- way of all flesh — a novel (1903) by Samuel Butler.
- welfare benefits — financial assistance; social security payment
- welfare payments — government benefits
- welfare services — services that provide help with people's living conditions and financial problems
- well-compensated — to recompense for something: They gave him ten dollars to compensate him for his trouble.
- well-established — permanently founded; settled; firmly set: a well-established business; a well-established habit.
- well-illustrated — containing pictures, drawings, and other illustrations: an illustrated book.
- west valley city — city in NC Utah, near Salt Lake City: pop. 109,000
- white sandalwood — the fragrant heartwood of any of certain Asian trees of the genus Santalum, used for ornamental carving and burned as incense.
- whole nine yards — a common unit of linear measure in English-speaking countries, equal to 3 feet or 36 inches, and equivalent to 0.9144 meter.
- whole-tone scale — a scale progressing entirely by whole tones, as C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯, C.
- wholeheartedness — fully or completely sincere, enthusiastic, energetic, etc.; hearty; earnest: a wholehearted attempt to comply.
- wild goose chase — a wild or absurd search for something nonexistent or unobtainable: a wild-goose chase looking for a building long demolished.
- wild-goose chase — a wild or absurd search for something nonexistent or unobtainable: a wild-goose chase looking for a building long demolished.
- wilson's disease — a rare hereditary disease in which copper accumulates in the brain and liver, gradually leading to tremors, muscular rigidity, kidney malfunction, and cognitive disturbances: marked by Kayser-Fleischer rings.
- wilson's warbler — a North American warbler, Wilsonia pusilla, having yellow plumage and a black patch on top of the head.
- windowless monad — (in the philosophy of Leibniz) a monad having no direct causal or perceptual relation with any other monad.
- windowpane shell — capiz.
- wireless message — a radio message
- with clean hands — innocently
- woman of letters — a woman engaged in literary pursuits, especially a professional writer.
- world federalism — federalism on a worldwide level.
- world federalist — a promoter or supporter of world federalism.
- worth one's salt — a crystalline compound, sodium chloride, NaCl, occurring as a mineral, a constituent of seawater, etc., and used for seasoning food, as a preservative, etc.
- xenotransplanted — Transplanted by xenotransplantation.
- yellowstone lake — a lake in NW Wyoming, in Yellowstone National Park. 20 miles (32 km) long; 140 sq. mi. (363 sq. km).
- ziegler catalyst — any of a group of catalysts, such as titanium trichloride (TiCl3) and aluminium alkyl (Al(CH3)3), that produce stereospecific polymers