20-letter words containing o, n, l, y
- three-dimensionality — having, or seeming to have, the dimension of depth as well as width and height.
- to clean up your act — If someone who has been behaving badly cleans up their act, they start to behave in a more acceptable or responsible way.
- to fall on your feet — If you say that someone always falls or lands on their feet, you mean that they are always successful or lucky, although they do not seem to achieve this by their own efforts.
- to keep your balance — If you keep your balance, for example, when standing in a moving vehicle, you remain steady and do not fall over. If you lose your balance, you become unsteady and fall over.
- to land on your feet — If you say that someone always lands on their feet, you mean that they are always successful or lucky, although they do not seem to achieve this by their own efforts.
- to line your pockets — If you say that someone is lining their own or someone else's pockets, you disapprove of them because they are making money dishonestly or unfairly.
- to pull your punches — If you say that someone does not pull their punches when they are criticizing a person or thing, you mean that they say exactly what they think, even though this might upset or offend people.
- to tighten your belt — If you have to tighten your belt, you have to spend less money and manage without things because you have less money than you used to have.
- try conclusions with — to engage in an argument or contest with
- turnip-rooted celery — celeriac.
- unemployment benefit — an allowance of money paid, usually weekly, to an unemployed worker by a state or federal agency or by the worker's labor union or former employer during all or part of the period of unemployment.
- unemployment figures — statistics relating to the number of people who are out of work
- unified field theory — electroweak theory.
- voluntary euthanasia — the act of killing someone painlessly, esp to relieve suffering from an incurable illness, with their consent
- voluntary redundancy — a financial package to encourage employees to voluntarily leave an organization that needs to restructure
- walking-around money — money that is carried on the person for routine expenses and minor emergencies; pocket money.
- walton and weybridge — a city in Surrey, SE England: a London suburb.
- whyte classification — a system for classifying steam locomotives according to the total number of wheels on the front trucks, drivers, and rear trucks, in that order. For example, a Pacific locomotive is designated as 4-6-2.
- winter olympic games — an international contest of winter sports, esp skiing, held every four years
- woolly spider monkey — a rare related monkey, Brachyteles arachnoides, of SE Brazil
- yu-shiang whole fish — /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ An obsolete name for the Greek character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII code 9, Unicode glyph 0x0263) which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not parsed) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Used primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.