20-letter words containing o, d, a, l, i, s
- laboratory diagnosis — scientific analysis of a disease
- labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
- land-office business — a lively, booming, expanding, or very profitable business.
- languedoc-roussillon — a region of S France, on the Gulf of Lions: consists of the departments of Lozère, Gard, Hérault, Aude, and Pyrénées-Orientales; mainly mountainous with a coastal plain
- law-and-order issues — issues concerning law and social conventions
- lead with one's chin — to act so imprudently as to invite disaster
- like a dose of salts — very quickly indeed
- linearly ordered set — a set in which a relation, as “less than or equal to,” holds for all pairs of elements of the set.
- long island iced tea — a potent cocktail consisting of equal parts of, typically, five different distilled alcoholic liquors, usually vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and triple sec, with a small amount of mixer, usually cola
- longitudinal section — the representation of an object as it would appear if cut by the vertical plane passing through the longest axis of the object.
- lou gehrig's disease — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
- magneto-optical disk — (hardware, storage) (MO) A plastic or glass disk coated with a compound (often TbFeCo) with special optical, magnetic and thermal properties. The disk is read by bouncing a low-intensity laser off the disk. Originally the laser was infrared, but frequencies up to blue may be possible giving higher storage density. The polarisation of the reflected light depends on the polarity of the stored magnetic field. To write, a higher intensity laser heats the coating up to its Curie point, allowing its magnetisation to be altered in a way that is retained when it has cooled. Although optical, they appear as hard drives to the operating system and do not require a special filesystem (they can be formatted as FAT, HPFS, NTFS, etc.). The initial 5.25" MO drives, introduced at the end of the 1980s, were the size of a full-height 5.25" hard drive (like in IBM PC XT) and the disks looked like a CD-ROM enclosed in an old-style cartridge In 2006, a 3.5" drive has the size of 1.44 megabyte diskette drive with disks about the size of a regular 1.44MB floppy disc but twice the thickness.
- media access control — (networking) (MAC) The lower sublayer of the OSI data link layer. The interface between a node's Logical Link Control and the network's physical layer. The MAC differs for various physical media. See also MAC Address, Ethernet, IEEE 802.3, token ring.
- monosodium glutamate — a white, crystalline, water-soluble powder, C 5 H 8 NNaO 4 ⋅H 2 O, used to intensify the flavor of foods.
- multimedia extension — Matrix Math eXtensions
- multistep hydroplane — a motorship having a flat bottom built as a series of planes inclined forward, the ship planing on each from stem to stern as its speed increases.
- noninstitutionalized — Not institutionalized.
- north richland hills — a town in N Texas.
- nostalgie de la boue — a desire for or attraction to crudity, vulgarity, depravity, etc.
- occupational disease — Also called industrial disease. a disease caused by the conditions or hazards of a particular occupation.
- operational database — (database) A database containing up-to-date, modifiable data, in contrast to a decision support database.
- pappus of alexandria — 3rd century bc, Greek mathematician, whose eight-volume Synagoge is a valuable source of information about Greek mathematics
- pentobarbital sodium — a barbiturate drug used in medicine as a sedative and hypnotic. Formula: C11H17N2O3Na
- pentose nucleic acid — a nucleic acid containing a pentose.
- permonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
- peroxysulphuric acid — a white hygroscopic crystalline unstable oxidizing acid. Formula: H2SO5
- personality disorder — any of a group of mental disorders characterized by deeply ingrained maladaptive patterns of behavior and personality style, which are usually recognizable as early as adolescence and are often lifelong in duration.
- physical double star — two stars that appear as one if not viewed through a telescope with adequate magnification, such as two stars that are separated by a great distance but are nearly in line with each other and an observer (optical double star) or those that are relatively close together and comprise a single physical system (physical double star)
- physiologic jaundice — a transitory jaundice that affects some infants for the first few days after birth.
- pleased with oneself — If someone seems very satisfied with something they have done, you can say that they are pleased with themselves, especially if you think they are more satisfied than they should be.
- postal delivery zone — zone (def 10).
- postnatal depression — a form of clinical depression that occurs in mothers after the birth of a baby
- prince william sound — a sound in the Gulf of Alaska, on the S coast of Alaska: S end of Trans-Alaska oil pipeline at port of Valdez.
- pseudo-psychological — of or relating to psychology.
- public administrator — an official of a city, county, or state government.
- refuse disposal unit — a unit or part of a sink that disposes of waste food, etc, by grinding
- republic of maldives — a republic occupying an archipelago of 1087 coral islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka: came under British protection in 1887; became independent in 1965 and a republic in 1968; member of the Commonwealth (1982–2016). The economy and infrastructure were severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Official language: Divehi. Official religion: (Sunni) Muslim. Currency: rufiyaa. Capital: Malé. Pop: 393 988 (2013 est). Area: 298 sq km (115 sq miles)
- rough-winged swallow — either of two New World swallows of the genus Stelgidopteryx, having outer primary feathers with small barblike hooks on the margins.
- schizoid personality — sb with identity disorder
- season ticket holder — a person who has a season ticket
- second international — an international association formed in 1889 in Paris, uniting socialistic groups or parties of various countries and holding international congresses from time to time: in 1923 it joined with the Vienna International to form the Labor and Socialist International. Compare international (def 6).
- second law of motion — any of three laws of classical mechanics, either the law that a body remains at rest or in motion with a constant velocity unless an external force acts on the body (first law of motion) the law that the sum of the forces acting on a body is equal to the product of the mass of the body and the acceleration produced by the forces, with motion in the direction of the resultant of the forces (second law of motion) or the law that for every force acting on a body, the body exerts a force having equal magnitude and the opposite direction along the same line of action as the original force (third law of motion or law of action and reaction)
- second-class citizen — a citizen, especially a member of a minority group, who is denied the social, political, and economic benefits of citizenship.
- see the light of day — come into being
- sell a bill of goods — a quantity or consignment of salable items, as an order, shipment, etc.
- shareholders' equity — Shareholders' equity is the total amount of ownership investment in a company.
- sharp-tailed sparrow — a sparrow, Ammospiza caudacuta, inhabiting salt marshes in North America, having narrow, sharply pointed tail feathers.
- shoulder-length hair — hair that reaches a person's shoulders
- silicon tetrahydride — silane (def 1).
- small craft advisory — a U.S. National Weather Service advisory of sustained winds, over coastal and inland waters, with speeds of 20–33 knots (23–38 mph, 10–17 m/sec). Regional NWS offices have discretion over the choice of the lower limit.