21-letter words containing o, i, l, e, r, y
- the jury is still out — it has not yet been decided or agreed on
- the yellow brick road — the road to success or happiness (in the film the Wizard of Oz the yellow brick road leads to Oz)
- theoretical physicist — a scientist who studies theoretical physics
- threshold wage policy — a policy whereby wages are increased in accordance with inflation
- to be public property — to be publicly owned
- to lay down your life — If someone lays down their life for another person, they die so that the other person can live.
- to lay something bare — If you lay something bare, you uncover it completely so that it can then be seen.
- to let your hair down — If you let your hair down, you relax completely and enjoy yourself.
- to rear its ugly head — If something unpleasant rears its head or rears its ugly head, it becomes visible or noticeable.
- trichloroacetaldehyde — chloral (def 1).
- triethyl orthoformate — a colorless liquid, C 7 H 16 O 3 , used chiefly in organic synthesis.
- twenty-two metre line — one of two lines on a rugby pitch which are twenty-two metres from the goal-line
- ulster unionist party — a Northern Irish political party advocating the maintenance of union with the UK
- ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- virtual memory system — (operating system) (VMS) DEC's proprietary operating system originally produced for its VAX minicomputer. VMS V1 was released in August 1978. VMS was renamed "OpenVMS" around version 5.5. The first version of VMS on DEC Alpha was known as OpenVMS for AXP V1.0, and the correct way to refer to the operating system now is OpenVMS for VAX or OpenVMS for Alpha. The renaming also signified the fact that the X/Open consortium had certified OpenVMS as having a high support for POSIX standards. VMS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market (making it popular in financial institutions). It currently (October 1997) has the best clustering capability (both number and distance) and is very scalable with binaries portable from small desktop workstations up to huge mainframes. Many Unix fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favourite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.
- voice-stress analyzer — a machine purported to detect stress in a human voice and to ascertain a person's truthfulness.
- volumetric efficiency — the ratio of fluid delivered by a piston or ram pump per stroke to the displacement volume of the piston or ram
- weinberg-salam theory — electroweak theory.
- william of malmesbury — William of, William of Malmesbury.
- yellow lady's-slipper — a showy orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, of eastern North America, having purple-tinged yellow flowers with an inflated lip petal.
- yellow mercuric oxide — a slightly crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous compound, HgO, occurring as a coarse, orange-red powder (red mercuric oxide) or as a fine, orange-yellow powder (yellow mercuric oxide) used chiefly as a pigment in paints and as an antiseptic in pharmaceuticals.
- yellow-fever mosquito — a mosquito, Aedes aegypti, that transmits yellow fever and dengue.
- yellow-throated vireo — an olive-green vireo, Vireo flavifrons, of eastern North America, having a bright yellow throat and breast.
- your mileage may vary — (jargon) (YMMV) The disclaimer American car manufacturers attached to EPA mileage ratings. A humourous way of saying that the thing under discussion will not necessarily give you the same results as the author. Often used to convey the hardware dependence of Unix freeware distributions.