17-letter words containing o, d, e, l
- knowledge economy — an economy in which information services are dominant as an area of growth
- knowledgeableness — The state, quality, or measure of being knowledgeable; wisdom.
- kolar gold fields — a city in S India, in SE Karnataka: a major gold-mining centre since 1881. Pop: 176 000 (2005 est)
- label edge router — (networking) (LER) A device that sits at the edge of an MPLS domain, that uses routing information to assign labels to datagrams and then forwards them into the MPLS domain.
- ladder tournament — a tournament in which the entrants are listed by name and rank, advancement being by means of challenging and defeating an entrant ranked one or two places higher.
- lady of the house — the female head of a household (usually preceded by the).
- lady of the night — a tropical American shrub, Brunfelsia americana, of the nightshade family, having berrylike yellow fruit and fragrant white flowers.
- lady-of-the-night — a tropical American shrub, Brunfelsia americana, of the nightshade family, having berrylike yellow fruit and fragrant white flowers.
- lago de nicaragua — Spanish name of Lake Nicaragua.
- lagrange's method — a procedure for finding maximum and minimum values of a function of several variables when the variables are restricted by additional conditions.
- lake of the woods — Eldrick [el-drik] /ˈɛl drɪk/ (Show IPA), ("Tiger") born 1975, U.S. professional golfer.
- lambda expression — (mathematics) A term in the lambda-calculus denoting an unnamed function (a "lambda abstraction"), a variable or a constant. The pure lambda-calculus has only functions and no constants.
- lambdoidal suture — the lambda-shaped seam or line of joining between the occipital and two parietal bones at the back part of the skull.
- lame-duck session — (formerly) the December to March session of those members of the U.S. Congress who were defeated for reelection the previous November.
- landlocked salmon — a variety of the Atlantic Ocean salmon, Salmo salar, confined to the freshwater lakes of New England and adjacent areas of Canada.
- le morte d'arthur — a compilation and translation of French Arthurian romances by Sir Thomas Malory, printed by Caxton in 1485.
- lead a dog's life — a domesticated canid, Canis familiaris, bred in many varieties.
- lead to the altar — to marry
- leading indicator — A leading indicator is an economic indicator that changes before a change in the economy, and that can be used to predict future economic or financial activity.
- learned borrowing — a word or other linguistic form borrowed from a classical language into a modern language.
- least fixed point — (mathematics) A function f may have many fixed points (x such that f x = x). For example, any value is a fixed point of the identity function, (\ x . x). If f is recursive, we can represent it as f = fix F where F is some higher-order function and fix F = F (fix F). The standard denotational semantics of f is then given by the least fixed point of F. This is the least upper bound of the infinite sequence (the ascending Kleene chain) obtained by repeatedly applying F to the totally undefined value, bottom. I.e. fix F = LUB {bottom, F bottom, F (F bottom), ...}. The least fixed point is guaranteed to exist for a continuous function over a cpo.
- least upper bound — an upper bound that is less than or equal to all the upper bounds of a particular set. 3 is the least upper bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbr.: lub.
- lee harvey oswald — Lee Harvey, 1939–63, designated by a presidential commission to be the lone assassin of John F. Kennedy.
- legal aid society — an organization providing free legal guidance and service to persons who cannot afford a lawyer.
- legal proceedings — court case
- legendre equation — a differential equation of the form (1− x 2) d2y/dx2 − 2 xdy/dx + a (a + 1) y = 0, where a is an arbitrary constant.
- leonardo da vinci — Leonardo [lee-uh-nahr-doh,, ley-;; Italian le-aw-nahr-daw] /ˌli əˈnɑr doʊ,, ˌleɪ-;; Italian ˌlɛ ɔˈnɑr dɔ/ (Show IPA), Leonardo da Vinci.
- lepidopterologist — One who studies lepidopterology.
- 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
- liberal education — an education based primarily on the liberal arts, emphasizing the development of intellectual abilities as opposed to the acquisition of professional skills.
- lick one's wounds — an injury, usually involving division of tissue or rupture of the integument or mucous membrane, due to external violence or some mechanical agency rather than disease.
- life and/or death — If you say that something is a matter of life and death, you are emphasizing that it is extremely important, often because someone may die or suffer great harm if people do not act immediately.
- line conditioning — (communications) The adjustment of electrical characteristics of, e.g., twisted pair telephone lines by insertion of components such as resistors, capacitors, transformers or (commonly) inductors. Lines intended for analogue voice signals usually have inductors inserted every few miles; such a line is said to be "loaded". The special purpose lines which have neither inductors nor the DC voltage which powers ordinary telephones are said to be "dry," and are much better for data transmission.
- line of induction — (formerly) a line of force in a magnetic field.
- line of longitude — an imaginary line on a globe, map, etc, indicating longitude
- lipopolysaccaride — a molecule, consisting of lipid and polysaccharide components, that is the main constituent of the cell walls of Gram-negative bacteria
- liquid petrolatum — mineral oil.
- liquid propellant — a rocket propellant in liquid form.
- lithium hydroxide — a white, crystalline, water-soluble compound, LiOH, used to absorb carbon dioxide, especially in spacesuits.
- litigation friend — a person acting on behalf of an infant or other person under legal disability
- live free or die! — 1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile licence plates. 2. A slogan associated with Unix in the romantic days when Unix aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilting against the windmills of industry. The "free" referred specifically to freedom from the fascist design philosophies and crufty misfeatures common on commercial operating systems. Armando Stettner, one of the early Unix developers, used to give out fake licence plates bearing this motto under a large Unix, all in New Hampshire colours of green and white. These are now valued collector's items.
- livingstone daisy — a gardener's name for various species of Mesembryanthemum, esp M. criniflorum, grown as garden annuals (though several are perennial) for their brightly coloured showy flowers: family Aizoaceae
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.
- lobster thermidor — a dish of cooked lobster meat placed back in the shell with a cream sauce, sprinkled with grated cheese and melted butter, and browned in the oven.
- locked and loaded — [Military slang for an M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] Said of a removable disk volume properly prepared for use - that is, locked into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, because their heads are "loaded" whenever the power is up, this description is never used of Winchester drives (which are named after a rifle).
- locomotive driver — an engine driver
- loggerhead shrike — a common, North American shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, gray above and white below with black wings, tail, and facial mask.
- loggerhead turtle — a sea turtle, Caretta caretta, having a large head: now greatly reduced in number.
- longitudinal wave — a wave in which the direction of displacement is the same as the direction of propagation, as a sound wave.