12-letter words containing m, a, w
- false-mildew — Also called false mildew. any fungus of the family Peronosporaceae, causing many plant diseases and producing a white, downy mass of conidiophores, usually on the under surface of the leaves of the host plant.
- flamethrower — a weapon, either mounted or portable, that sprays ignited incendiary fuel for some distance.
- fort william — a port in W Ontario, in S Canada, on Lake Superior: created in 1970 by the merger of twin cities (Fort William and Port Arthur) and two adjoining townships.
- germ warfare — biological warfare.
- gordian worm — nematomorph.
- graham wafer — a cracker intended to aid digestion.
- graham's law — the principle that the rates of diffusion and effusion of a gas are inversely proportional to the square root of its density, proposed by Thomas Graham (1805-69) in 1831
- granny woman — midwife (def 1).
- hammer throw — a field event in which the hammer is thrown for distance.
- hand-me-down — an article of clothing passed on to another person after being used, outgrown, etc.: The younger children wore the hand-me-downs of the older ones.
- harmonic law — any one of three laws governing planetary motion: each planet revolves in an ellipse, with the sun at one focus; the line connecting a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal periods of time (law of areas) or the square of the period of revolution of each planet is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of the planet's orbit (harmonic law)
- heartwarming — gratifying; rewarding; satisfying: a heartwarming response to his work.
- housewarming — a party to celebrate a person's or family's move to a new home.
- james edward — Stuart, James Francis Edward.
- jim crow law — any state law discriminating against black persons.
- journeywoman — The female equivalent of a journeyman.
- joy, william — William Joy
- klamath weed — the St.-John's-wort, Hypericum perforatum.
- know by name — to have heard of without having met
- lambeth walk — a spirited ballroom dance popular, especially in England, in the late 1930s.
- laminar flow — the flow of a viscous fluid in which particles of the fluid move in parallel layers, each of which has a constant velocity but is in motion relative to its neighboring layers.
- laundrywoman — laundress.
- laundrywomen — Plural form of laundrywoman.
- law merchant — the principles and rules, drawn chiefly from custom, determining the rights and obligations of commercial transactions; commercial law.
- law of moses — the Pentateuch, containing the Mosaic dispensations, or system of rules and ordinances, and forming the first of the three Jewish divisions of the Old Testament.
- lukewarmness — The property of being lukewarm; ambivalence, weakness.
- machine word — word (def 10).
- machine-word — a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning. Words are composed of one or more morphemes and are either the smallest units susceptible of independent use or consist of two or three such units combined under certain linking conditions, as with the loss of primary accent that distinguishes black·bird· from black· bird·. Words are usually separated by spaces in writing, and are distinguished phonologically, as by accent, in many languages.
- macroweather — Longer term average weather, covering period of length between that of weather and climate.
- mail gateway — (messaging) A machine that connects two or more electronic mail systems (including dissimilar mail systems) and transfers messages between them. Sometimes the mapping and translation can be quite complex, and it generally requires a store and forward scheme whereby the message is received from one system completely before it is transmitted to the next system, after suitable translations.
- majolicaware — goods made from majolica
- make headway — forward movement; progress in a forward direction: The ship's headway was slowed by the storm.
- make whoopee — make whoopee, to engage in uproarious merrymaking.
- makeup water — Makeup water is water which is added to compensate for losses, especially losses caused by evaporation.
- mall walking — recreational or aerobic walking done in the confines of a shopping mall.
- malt whiskey — Malt whiskey or malt is whiskey that is made from malt.
- man of straw — straw man.
- mangelwurzel — a variety of the beet Beta vulgaris, cultivated as food for livestock.
- māori warden — a person appointed to exercise advisory and minor disciplinary powers in Māori communities
- maritime law — the body of law relating to maritime commerce and navigation, and to maritime matters generally.
- marsh mallow — an Old World mallow, Althaea officinalis, having pink flowers, found in marshy places.
- marshalltown — a city in central Iowa.
- marshmallows — Plural form of marshmallow.
- marshmallowy — Similar to a marshmallow.
- mass wasting — downhill movement of soil and rock fragments induced by gravity.
- match-winner — a player who wins a sports match for his or her team, for example by scoring a goal
- matter waves — a hypothetical wave associated with the motion of a particle of atomic or subatomic size that describes effects such as the diffraction of beams of particles by crystals.
- matthew quay — Matthew Stanley, 1833–1904, U.S. politician: senator 1887–99, 1901–4.
- meadow grass — any grass of the genus Poa, especially P. pratensis, the Kentucky bluegrass.
- meadow mouse — any of numerous short-tailed rodents of the genus Microtus and allied genera, chiefly of fields and meadows in the temperate Northern Hemisphere.