20-letter words containing o, k, d
- look homeward, angel — a novel (1929) by Thomas Wolfe.
- 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.
- make a/no difference — If something makes a difference or makes a lot of difference, it affects you and helps you in what you are doing. If something makes no difference, it does not have any effect on what you are doing.
- make head (n)or tail — If you say that you cannot make head nor tail of something or you cannot make head or tail of it, you are emphasizing that you cannot understand it at all.
- make head or tail of — to attempt to understand (a problem, etc)
- microwave background — a background of microwave electromagnetic radiation with a black-body spectrum discovered in 1965, understood to be the thermal remnant of the big bang with which the universe began
- optical mark reading — the reading of marks by an optical device whereby the information can be stored in machine-readable form
- parkinson's syndrome — a complex of symptoms indistinguishable from Parkinson's disease, commonly affecting boxers or sometimes occurring as a result of substance abuse or an encephalitic infection.
- pickwickian syndrome — an abnormality characterized by extreme obesity accompanied by sleepiness, hypoventilation, and polycythemia.
- redheaded woodpecker — a North American woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), with a bright-red head and neck, black back, and white underparts
- ride on shank's mare — to walk
- ruby-crowned kinglet — an olive-gray, American kinglet, Regulus calendula, the male of which has an erectile, ruby crest.
- season ticket holder — a person who has a season ticket
- second-hand bookshop — a shop selling second-hand books
- send someone packing — to dismiss or get rid of (someone) peremptorily
- shaken baby syndrome — a usually fatal condition of abused infants brought on by violent shaking by the arms or shoulders that causes severe internal bleeding, especially around the brain and in the eyes.
- short back and sides — If a man has a short back and sides, his hair is cut very short at the back and sides with slightly thicker, longer hair on the top of the head.
- skull and crossbones — a representation of a front view of a human skull above two crossed bones, originally used on pirates' flags and now used as a warning sign, as in designating substances as poisons.
- solid rocket booster — a solid-propellant strap-on rocket used to accelerate a missile or launch vehicle during liftoff. Abbreviation: SRB.
- south orkney islands — an uninhabited group of islands in the S Atlantic, southeast of Cape Horn: formerly a dependency of the Falkland Islands; part of the British Antarctic Territory since 1962 (claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty). Area: 621 sq km (240 sq miles)
- standard book number — International Standard Book Number. Abbreviation: SBN.
- stockholders' equity — the net assets of a corporation as owned by stockholders in capital stock, capital surplus, and undistributed earnings.
- stokes-adams disease — unconsciousness accompanying atrioventricular heart block, sometimes characterized by weakness, irregular pulse, and intermittent convulsive or nonconvulsive seizures.
- synchronized skating — the art or sport of teams of up to twenty skaters holding onto each other and moving in patterns in time to music
- take into one's head — the upper part of the body in humans, joined to the trunk by the neck, containing the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
- the luck of the draw — If you say that something is the luck of the draw, you mean that it is the result of chance and you cannot do anything about it.
- the-lady-of-the-lake — a narrative poem (1810) by Sir Walter Scott.
- to keep your hand in — If you do something to keep your hand in, you practise a skill or hobby occasionally in order to remain fairly good at it.
- to look high and low — If you say that you looked high and low for something, you are emphasizing that you looked for it in every place that you could think of.
- to make up your mind — If you make up your mind or make your mind up, you decide which of a number of possible things you will have or do.
- tom, dick, and harry — the ordinary person; people generally; everyone: They invited every Tom, Dick, and Harry to the party.
- tom, dick, and jerry — a hot mixed drink containing rum, brandy, egg, nutmeg, and sometimes milk
- toxic shock syndrome — a rapidly developing, sometimes fatal infection characterized by sudden onset of fever, gastrointestinal upsets, a sunburnlike rash, and a drop in blood pressure: caused by a Staphylococcus aureus toxin and occurring especially in menstruating women using high-absorbency tampons. Abbreviation: TSS.
- walking-around money — money that is carried on the person for routine expenses and minor emergencies; pocket money.
- woolly spider monkey — a rare related monkey, Brachyteles arachnoides, of SE Brazil
- working-capital fund — a fund established to finance operating activities in an industrial enterprise.
- yellow-billed cuckoo — a North American cuckoo, Coccyzus americanus, that has a yellow bill and, unlike many cuckoos, constructs its own nest and rears its own young.