12-letter words containing o, s, m, e
- james hutton — James, 1726–97, Scottish geologist: formulated uniformitarianism.
- james k polk — James Knox, 1795–1849, the 11th president of the U.S. 1845–49.
- jameson raid — an expedition into the Transvaal in 1895 led by Sir Leander Starr Jameson (1853–1917) in an unsuccessful attempt to topple its Boer regime
- jump shooter — a player skilled at jump shots.
- ken thompson — (person) The principal inventor of the Unix operating system and author of the B language, the predecessor of C. In the early days Ken used to hand-cut Unix distribution tapes, often with a note that read "Love, ken". Old-timers still use his first name (sometimes uncapitalised, because it's a login name and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely understood (on Usenet in particular) that without a last name "Ken" refers only to Ken Thompson. Similarly, Dennis without last name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr). Ken was first hired to work on the Multics project, which was a huge production with many people working on it. Multics was supposed to support hundreds of on-line logins but could barely handle three. In 1969, when Bell Labs withdrew from the project, Ken got fed up with Multics and went off to write his own operating system. People said "well, if zillions of people wrote Multics, then an OS written by one guy must be Unix!". There was some joking about eunichs as well. Ken's wife Bonnie and son Corey (then 18 months old) went to visit family in San Diego. Ken spent one week each on the kernel, file system, etc., and finished UNIX in one month along with developing SPACEWAR (or was it "Space Travel"?). See also back door, brute force, demigod, wumpus.
- keratotomies — Plural form of keratotomy.
- ladies' room — a public lavatory for women.
- lamentations — the act of lamenting or expressing grief.
- laminotomies — Plural form of laminotomy.
- lamprophyres — Plural form of lamprophyre.
- laparotomies — Plural form of laparotomy.
- law of moses — the Pentateuch, containing the Mosaic dispensations, or system of rules and ordinances, and forming the first of the three Jewish divisions of the Old Testament.
- leisure home — a house for use on weekends, vacations, or the like.
- lemon cheese — a soft paste made from lemons, sugar, eggs, and butter, used as a spread or filling
- lemon squash — lemon soda; a soft drink of lemon juice and soda water.
- leprosariums — Plural form of leprosarium.
- leptosomatic — a person of asthenic build.
- leptospermum — any of various shrubs or trees of the genus Leptospermum, of the myrtle family, native to Australia and adjacent areas and often cultivated as ornamentals in milder climates.
- lithospermum — any annual or perennial herbs and small shrubs of the genus lithospermum, of the borage family, native to Europe, N America, and northern Asia, and having white, blue, or yellow flowers
- lobster moth — a large sombre-hued prominent moth, Stauropus fagi, that when at rest resembles dead leaves. The modified thoracic legs of the larva, carried curled over its body, look like a lobster's claw
- locum tenens — a temporary substitute, especially for a doctor or member of the clergy.
- logocentrism — a method of literary analysis in which words and language are regarded as a fundamental expression of external reality, excluding nonlinguistic factors such as historical context.
- lonesomeness — depressed or sad because of the lack of friends, companionship, etc.; lonely: to feel lonesome.
- long measure — Also called long meter. Prosody. a four-line stanza in iambic tetrameter, often used in hymns, with the second and fourth lines rhyming and sometimes the first and third lines rhyming as well.
- long-stemmed — having a long stem or stems: long-stemmed roses.
- long-termism — the tendency to focus attention on long-term gains
- longshoreman — a person employed on the wharves of a port, as in loading and unloading vessels.
- longshoremen — Plural form of longshoreman.
- longsomeness — tiresome lengthiness
- loose-limbed — having supple arms and legs: a loose-limbed athlete.
- lopez mateos — Adolfo [ah-th awl-faw] /ɑˈðɔl fɔ/ (Show IPA), 1910–69, Mexican lawyer and politician: president of Mexico 1958–64.
- lose no time — act without delay
- lounge music — a type of popular music often including jazz, swing, and pop elements and played in cocktail lounges, piano bars, etc.
- lowsing time — the time at which work or school finishes; knocking-off time
- luminiferous — producing light: the luminiferous properties of a gas.
- luminosities — Plural form of luminosity.
- luminousness — The condition of being luminous.
- lumpectomies — Plural form of lumpectomy.
- machine shop — a workshop in which metal and other substances are cut, shaped, etc., by machine tools.
- mackintoshes — Plural form of mackintosh.
- macrogametes — Plural form of macrogamete.
- macronucleus — the larger of the two types of nuclei occurring in ciliate protozoans, having a multiple set of chromosomes and functioning in cell metabolism and protein synthesis.
- macropterous — having long or large wings or fins.
- macrosegment — a stretch of speech preceded and followed but not interrupted by a pause.
- mademoiselle — (often initial capital letter) a French title of respect equivalent to “Miss”, used in speaking to or of a girl or unmarried woman: Mademoiselle Lafitte. Abbreviation: Mlle.
- madisonville — a city in W Kentucky.
- madreporites — Plural form of madreporite.
- magnetopause — the boundary between the earth's magnetosphere and interplanetary space, about 40,000 miles (65,000 km) above the earth, marked by an abrupt decrease in the earth's magnetic induction.
- magnetotails — Plural form of magnetotail.
- magnetotaxis — movement or orientation of an organism in response to a magnetic field.