17-letter words containing m, l, a
- landlocked salmon — a variety of the Atlantic Ocean salmon, Salmo salar, confined to the freshwater lakes of New England and adjacent areas of Canada.
- langmuir isotherm — A Langmuir isotherm is a classical relationship between the concentrations of a solid and a fluid, used to describe a state of no change in the sorption process.
- laplace transform — a map of a function, as a signal, defined especially for positive real values, as time greater than zero, into another domain where the function is represented as a sum of exponentials.
- large-leaved lime — an ornamental European tree with small pale yellow flowers and which grown on lime-rich soils
- larmor precession — the precession of charged particles, as electrons, placed in a magnetic field, the frequency of the precession (Larmor frequency) being equal to the electronic charge times the strength of the magnetic field divided by 4π times the mass.
- latent strabismus — the tendency, controllable by muscular effort, for one or both eyes to exhibit strabismus.
- latitudinarianism — Tolerance of other people's views, particularly in religious context.
- laurent's theorem — the theorem that a function that is analytic on an annulus can be represented by a Laurent series on the annulus.
- lautenclavicymbal — a harpsichord with strings of gut rather than metal.
- law of trichotomy — the property that for natural numbers a and b , either a is less than b , a equals b , or a is greater than b .
- le morte d'arthur — a compilation and translation of French Arthurian romances by Sir Thomas Malory, printed by Caxton in 1485.
- lebanon mountains — a mountain range extending the length of Lebanon, in the central part. Highest peak, 10,049 feet (3063 meters).
- leibniz mountains — a mountain range on the SW limb of the moon, containing the highest peaks (10 000 metres) on the moon
- lempert operation — fenestration (def 3c).
- letters of marque — a former government document authorizing an individual to make reprisals on the subjects of an enemy nation, specif. to arm a ship and capture enemy merchant ships and cargo
- level compensator — an automatic gain control device used in the receivers of telegraphic circuits.
- liberal democracy — a democracy based on the recognition of individual rights and freedoms, in which decisions from direct or representative processes prevail in many policy areas
- liberal democrats — (in Britain) a political party with centrist policies; established in 1988 as the Social and Liberal Democrats when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic Party; renamed Liberal Democrats in 1989
- light machine gun — any air-cooled machine gun having a caliber not greater than 0.30 inches (7.6 mm).
- light mineral oil — a colorless, oily, almost tasteless, water-insoluble liquid, usually of either a standard light density (light mineral oil) or a standard heavy density (heavy mineral oil) consisting of mixtures of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum by distillation: used chiefly as a lubricant, in the manufacture of cosmetics, and in medicine as a laxative.
- limited liability — a liability restricted by law or contract, as the liability of owners of shares in a corporation or limited company, or that of a special partner.
- limousine liberal — a wealthy left-wing person
- line of scrimmage — an imaginary line parallel to the goal lines that passes from one sideline to the other through the point of the football closest to the goal line of each team.
- linear assignment — assignment problem
- liquid petrolatum — mineral oil.
- lisp machine lisp — (language) An extension of Maclisp, now called Zetalisp.
- listings magazine — a magazine with lists of TV and radio schedules
- literacy campaign — a campaign designed to reduce illiteracy and promote literacy in a country, area, etc
- lithium carbonate — a colorless crystalline compound, Li 2 CO 3 , slightly soluble in water: used in ceramic and porcelain glazes, pharmaceuticals, and luminescent paints.
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.
- local examination — any of various examinations, such as the GCSE, set by university boards and conducted in local centres, schools, etc
- loco primo citato — loc. primo cit.
- logic programming — (artificial intelligence, programming, language) A declarative, relational style of programming based on first-order logic. The original logic programming language was Prolog. The concept is based on Horn clauses. The programmer writes a "database" of "facts", e.g. wet(water). ("water is wet") and "rules", e.g. mortal(X) :- human(X). ("X is mortal is implied by X is human"). Facts and rules are collectively known as "clauses". The user supplies a "goal" which the system attempts to prove using "resolution" or "backward chaining". This involves matching the current goal against each fact or the left hand side of each rule using "unification". If the goal matches a fact, the goal succeeds; if it matches a rule then the process recurses, taking each sub-goal on the right hand side of the rule as the current goal. If all sub-goals succeed then the rule succeeds. Each time a possible clause is chosen, a "choice point" is created on a stack. If subsequent resolution fails then control eventually returns to the choice point and subsequent clauses are tried. This is known as "backtracking". Clauses may contain logic variables which take on any value necessary to make the fact or the left hand side of the rule match a goal. Unification binds these variables to the corresponding subterms of the goal. Such bindings are associated with the choice point at which the clause was chosen and are undone when backtracking reaches that choice point. The user is informed of the success or failure of his first goal and if it succeeds and contains variables he is told what values of those variables caused it to succeed. He can then ask for alternative solutions.
- lombrosian school — a school of criminology, promulgating the theories and employing the methods developed by Lombroso.
- luminous efficacy — the quotient of the luminous flux of a radiation and its corresponding radiant flux
- luminous exitance — the ability of a surface to emit light expressed as the luminous flux per unit area at a specified point on the surface
- lumpenproletariat — the lowest level of the proletariat comprising unskilled workers, vagrants, and criminals and characterized by a lack of class identification and solidarity.
- lymphadenopathies — Plural form of lymphadenopathy.
- lymphangiographic — Relating to lymphangiography.
- lyon king of arms — the chief herald of Scotland
- macdonnell ranges — a mountain system of central Australia, in S central Northern Territory, extending about 160 km (100 miles) east and west of Alice Springs. Highest peak: Mount Zeil, 1531 m (5024 ft)
- macfarlane burnet — Sir (Frank) Macfarlane [muh k-fahr-luh n] /məkˈfɑr lən/ (Show IPA), 1899–1985, Australian physician: Nobel Prize in Physiology 1960.
- machado y morales — Gerardo [he-rahr-th aw] /hɛˈrɑr ðɔ/ (Show IPA), 1871–1939, president of Cuba 1925–33.
- macro-linguistics — a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language.
- macroevolutionary — Pertaining to, or as a result of macroevolution.
- madonna and child — a representation of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus.
- magellan barberry — an evergreen shrub, Berberis buxifolia, of southern Chile, having prickle-tipped leaves, dark-purple fruit, and orange-yellow flowers, rarely flowering in cultivation.
- magellanic clouds — either of two irregular galactic clusters in the southern heavens that are the nearest independent star system to the Milky Way.
- magnesium sulfate — a white, water-soluble salt, MgSO 4 , used chiefly in medicine and in the processing of leather and textiles.
- magnetic monopole — a hypothetical very heavy particle with an isolated magnetic north pole or magnetic south pole.