12-letter words containing m, a, w
- raw material — material before being processed or manufactured into a final form.
- reward claim — a claim granted to a miner who discovered gold in a new area
- sandwich man — a person with advertising boards hung from the shoulders.
- satsuma ware — a Japanese pottery from Kyushu, first produced in the early 17th century and after 1800 having a crackle glaze and overglaze polychrome enameling and gilding.
- saw palmetto — a shrublike palmetto, Serenoa repens, of the palm family, native to the southern U.S., having green or blue leafstalks set with spiny teeth.
- scram switch — (jargon) (From the nuclear power industry) An emergency power-off switch (see Big Red Switch), especially one positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel. In general, this is *not* something you frob lightly; these often initiate expensive events (such as Halon dumps) and are installed in a dinosaur pen for use in case of electrical fire or in case some luckless field servoid should put 120 volts across himself while Easter egging. SCRAM stands for Safety Control Rod Ax Man. In the early days of nuclear power, boron moderator rods were raised and lowered on ropes. In the event of a runaway chain reaction, a man with an axe would chop the rope and drop the rods into the nuclear pile to stop the reaction. See also molly-guard, TMRC.
- sea milkwort — a maritime plant, Glaux maritima, having small, pinkish-white flowers.
- seismic wave — a wave of energy that is generated by an earthquake or other earth vibration and that travels within the earth or along its surface.
- semantic web — an extension of the World Wide Web in which data is structured and XML-tagged on the basis of its meaning or content, so that computers can process and integrate the information without human intervention: the semantic Web acting as a global database or huge brain.
- servicewoman — a woman who is a member of the armed forces of a country.
- siamese twin — (not in technical use) conjoined twin.
- slumber wear — nightclothes
- small wonder — (I am) hardly surprised (that)
- smart growth — People such as architects and environmentalists use smart growth to refer to the construction of new buildings and roads within a town or city so that they are close to people's workplaces and mass transit systems and so that open spaces are not built on.
- st. matthews — a town in N Kentucky.
- stomach worm — a nematode, Haemonchus contortus, parasitic in the stomach of sheep, cattle, and related animals.
- swamp azalea — an azalea, Rhododendron viscosum, of the eastern U.S., having fragrant, white to pink or sometimes red flowers.
- swamp locust — water locust.
- swamp mallow — a rose mallow, Hibiscus moscheutos.
- swamp rabbit — any of several southern cottontails, especially Sylvilagus aquaticus, of swamps and lowlands.
- sweet almond — the nutlike kernel of the fruit of either of two trees, Prunus dulcis (sweet almond) or P. dulcis amara (bitter almond) which grow in warm temperate regions.
- sweet dreams — sleep well
- sweet marten — the European pine marten, Martes martes : trapped for its fur and now greatly reduced in number.
- swim bladder — air bladder (def 2).
- swimming cap — A swimming cap is a rubber cap which you wear to keep your hair dry when you are swimming.
- swiss-german — of or relating to a person from German-speaking Switzerland
- team up with — join forces with
- throw mud at — to slander; vilify
- time-wasting — causing someone to spend time doing something that is unnecessary or does not produce any benefit
- to mean well — If you say that someone means well, you mean they are trying to be kind and helpful, even though they might be causing someone problems or upsetting them.
- town manager — an official appointed to direct the administration of a town government.
- trojan women — a tragedy (415 b.c.) by Euripides.
- wagon master — wagon boss.
- waiting game — a stratagem in which action on a matter is reserved for or postponed to a later time, allowing one to wait for a more advantageous time to act or to see what develops in the meantime.
- waiting room — a room for the use of persons waiting, as in a railroad station or a physician's office.
- waking dream — an experience you have while you are awake that feels similar to dreaming
- walking beam — an overhead oscillating lever, pivoted at the middle, for transmitting force from a vertical connecting rod below one end to a vertical connecting rod, pump rod, etc., below the other end.
- wall molding — back molding.
- wall-mounted — hung on a wall
- walter mitty — an ordinary, timid person who is given to adventurous and self-aggrandizing daydreams or secret plans as a way of glamorizing a humdrum life.
- war memorial — monument to dead soldiers
- warehouseman — a person who stores goods for others for pay.
- warehousemen — Irregular plural form of warehouseman.
- warm welcome — friendly or enthusiastic reception
- warm-blooded — Also, endothermic. designating or pertaining to animals, as mammals and birds, whose blood ranges in temperatures from about 98° to 112°F (37° to 44°C) and remains relatively constant, irrespective of the temperature of the surrounding medium; homoiothermal.
- warm-hearted — having or showing sympathy, affection, kindness, cordiality, etc.: a warm-hearted welcome.
- warmer-upper — something that provides one with invigorating warmth: Hot soup is a good warmer-upper after skiing.
- warmongering — the practices and principles of a warmonger.
- water bomber — an aircraft with special tanks for holding water that can be dropped on forest fires
- water hammer — the concussion and accompanying noise that result when a volume of water moving in a pipe suddenly stops or loses momentum.