20-letter words containing o, i, l, s
- institutionalization — to make institutional.
- insulin-coma therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
- internal hemorrhoids — Usually, hemorrhoids. Pathology. an abnormally enlarged vein mainly due to a persistent increase in venous pressure, occurring inside the anal sphincter of the rectum and beneath the mucous membrane (internal hemorrhoid) or outside the anal sphincter and beneath the surface of the anal skin (external hemorrhoid)
- internal respiration — the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the blood or lymph and the body cells
- international master — a chess player of high ability but below the level of International Grand Master, as determined through specified types of international competitions.
- international system — an internationally accepted coherent system of physical units, derived from the MKSA (meter-kilogram-second-ampere) system, using the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela as the basic units (SI units) respectively of the fundamental quantities of length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. Abbreviation: SI.
- internationalisation — Alternative spelling of internationalization.
- interpersonal skills — skills that contribute to dealing successfully with other people
- interpersonal theory — the theory that personality development and behavior disorders are related to and determined by relationships between persons.
- intestinal fortitude — courage; resoluteness; endurance; guts: to have intestinal fortitude.
- into/in cold storage — If you put an idea or plan into cold storage or in cold storage, you delay it for a while rather than acting on it as you originally intended.
- investment portfolio — the whole range of financial investments held by an individual investor or a financial organization
- islets of langerhans — biology: pancreatic cells
- jasper national park — a national park in the Canadian Rockies in W Alberta, in SW Canada.
- join-the-dots puzzle — a puzzle requiring you to connect a series of dots by drawing lines between them. If the dots are correctly connected, the result is a picture
- joint life insurance — life insurance covering two or more persons, the benefits of which are paid after the first person dies.
- judicial proceedings — any action involving or carried out by a court of law
- justifiable homicide — murder committed under extenuating circumstances
- knights hospitallers — a military religious order founded about the time of the first crusade (1096–99) among European crusaders. It took its name from a hospital and hostel in Jerusalem
- laboratory assistant — laboratory technician, lab assistant
- 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
- last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
- laurentian mountains — a range of low mountains in E Canada, in Quebec between the St Lawrence River and Hudson Bay. Highest point: 1191 m (3905 ft)
- law of superposition — Geology. a basic law of geochronology, stating that in any undisturbed sequence of rocks deposited in layers, the youngest layer is on top and the oldest on bottom, each layer being younger than the one beneath it and older than the one above it.
- law-and-order issues — issues concerning law and social conventions
- lead with one's chin — to act so imprudently as to invite disaster
- legal representation — representation by a lawyer
- let someone off with — to give (a light punishment) to someone
- liberty of the press — freedom of the press.
- life-support machine — A life-support machine is the equipment that is used to keep a person alive when they are very ill and cannot breathe without help.
- light-weight process — (operating system, parallel) (LWP) A single-threaded sub-process which, unlike a thread, has its own process identifier and may also differ in its inheritance and controlling features. Several operating systems, e.g. SunOS 5.x, provide system calls for creating and controlling LWPs.
- lighthouse coffeepot — a coffeepot of the late 17th and 18th centuries, having a tapering, circular body with a domed lid.
- like a dose of salts — very quickly indeed
- like a house on fire — If two people get on like a house on fire, they quickly become close friends, for example because they have many interests in common.
- like a ton of bricks — (used esp of the manner of punishing or reprimanding someone) with great force; severely
- linearly ordered set — a set in which a relation, as “less than or equal to,” holds for all pairs of elements of the set.
- linguistic geography — dialect geography.
- liturgy of the hours — a revision (promulgated in 1970) of the arrangement and texts of the Divine Office
- live on one's nerves — If someone is living on their nerves, they are continually worried and anxious about the situation that they are in.
- logical construction — anything referred to by an incomplete symbol capable of contextual definition.
- 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.
- lost property office — room for mislaid objects
- lou gehrig's disease — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
- lower yosemite falls — a section of Yosemite Falls in central California, in the Yosemite National Park, that is 98 m (320 ft) high
- lump in one's throat — the passage from the mouth to the stomach or to the lungs, including the pharynx, esophagus, larynx, and trachea.
- lunisolar precession — the principal component of the precession of the equinoxes, produced by the gravitational attraction of the sun and the moon on the equatorial bulge of the earth.