21-letter words containing r, e, l, t, o
- isopropylideneacetone — mesityl oxide.
- japanese stranglehold — a wrestling hold in which an opponent's wrists are pulled to cross his or her arms in front of his or her own neck and exert pressure on the windpipe
- jordan-holder theorem — the theorem that for any two composition series of a group, an isomorphism exists between the corresponding quotient groups of each series, taken in some specified order.
- joseph bonaparte gulf — an inlet of the Timor Sea in N Australia. Width: 360 km (225 miles)
- keep the ball rolling — a spherical or approximately spherical body or shape; sphere: He rolled the piece of paper into a ball.
- kekule von stradonitz — Friedrich August [free-drikh ou-goo st] /ˈfri drɪx ˈaʊ gʊst/ (Show IPA), 1829–96, German chemist.
- keto-enol tautomerism — tautomerism in which the tautomers are an enol and a keto form. The change occurs by transfer of a hydrogen atom within the molecule
- laboratory technician — sb who assists in a laboratory
- lactate dehydrogenase — an enzyme that catalyzes the interconversion of pyruvate and lactate, an important step in carbohydrate metabolism: elevated serum levels indicate injury to kidney, skeletal muscle, or heart muscle. Abbreviation: LDH.
- lafcadio's adventures — French Les Caves du Vatican. a novel (1914) by André Gide.
- language-based editor — language-sensitive editor
- lap and shoulder belt — a car seat belt
- lateral magnification — the ratio of the height of the image to the height of the object in a lens or other optical system.
- launch control center — any of a number of underground U.S. command facilities prepared to launch land-based missiles in event of war.
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- lay at someone's door — a movable, usually solid, barrier for opening and closing an entranceway, cupboard, cabinet, or the like, commonly turning on hinges or sliding in grooves.
- league of arab states — Arab League.
- leaning tower of pisa — a round, marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1174 and now 17 feet (5.2 meters) out of the perpendicular in its height of 179 feet (54 meters).
- lender of last resort — the central bank of a country with authority for controlling its banking system
- lie at someone's door — a movable, usually solid, barrier for opening and closing an entranceway, cupboard, cabinet, or the like, commonly turning on hinges or sliding in grooves.
- light armored vehicle — an eight-wheeled armored reconnaissance car with a 25mm cannon, in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in the 1980s.
- linear graph notation — (LGN) A linearised representation of TCOL trees.
- linear transformation — linear map
- loch ness monster bug — (humour) (Or "Bugfoot") A bug which cannot be reproduced or has only been sighted by one person. Named after the mythical creature claimed to inhabit Loch Ness in Scotland.
- long-term liabilities — Long-term liabilities are debts that a company does not have to pay back for a year or more.
- look to one's laurels — any tree of the genus Laurus.
- lordship of the isles — an overlordship of the Western Isles of Scotland and adjacent lands instituted in 1266 when Magnus of Norway ceded the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Kintyre to the King of Scotland, and claimed by the chiefs of Clan Dougall and later by those of Clan Donald. The title was forfeited to James IV in 1493 and is now held by the eldest son of the sovereign
- lose one's heart (to) — to fall in love (with)
- lost in the underflow — (jargon) Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to "floating point underflow". The Hacker's Jargon File claimed that it is also a pun on "undertow" (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow". Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.
- lotus-of-the-true-law — a Mahayana sutra, forming with its references to Amida and the Bodhisattvas the basis for the doctrine that there is something of Buddha in everyone, so that salvation is universally available: a central text of Mahayana Buddhism.
- lower the tone of sth — If you say that something lowers the tone of a place or event, you mean that it is not appropriate and makes the place or event seem less respectable.
- lull before the storm — If you describe a situation as the lull before the storm, you mean that although it is calm now, there is going to be trouble in the future.
- magneto-optical drive — magneto-optical disk
- magnetocaloric effect — an increase or decrease of the temperature of a thermally isolated magnetic substance accompanying an increase or decrease in the intensity of a magnetic field.
- maidenhair spleenwort — an evergreen fern, Asplenium trichomanes, abundant in woody areas of the North Temperate Zone, having thickly clustered fronds.
- main-topsail schooner — a two-masted or three-masted schooner having square topsails on the foremast and mainmast: a jackass brig or jackass bark.
- maître d'hôtel butter — melted butter mixed with parsley and lemon juice
- majority shareholding — a holding of more than half a company's shares
- make up for lost time — compensate for past inaction
- make yourself at home — settle in
- maryland yellowthroat — (in former systems of nomenclature) the common yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas, especially the eastern U.S. subspecies.
- maximum value theorem — the theorem that for a real-valued function f whose domain is a compact set, there is at least one element x in the domain of f for which f (x) achieves its largest value.
- mechanical solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on shared activities, beliefs, and experiences and is characteristic of simple traditional societies.
- medium access control — Media Access Control
- megaspore mother cell — a diploid cell in plants that undergoes meiosis to create four haploid megaspores.
- meter-kilogram-second — of or relating to the system of units in which the meter, kilogram, and second are the principal units of length, mass, and time. Abbreviation: mks, MKS.
- methyltrinitrobenzene — TNT.
- metopon hydrochloride — a narcotic drug, C18H21O3N·HCl, derived from morphine, but slightly more potent: used in medicine to relieve pain
- metropolitan district — any of the districts making up the metropolitan counties of England: since 1986 they have functioned as unitary authorities, forming the sole principal tier of local government. Each metropolitan district has an elected council responsible for education, social services, etc
- model-view-controller — (programming) (MVC) A way of partitioning the design of interactive software; a software architecture pattern. The "model" is the internal workings of the program (the data objects and algorithms), the "view" is how the user sees the state of the model and the "controller" is how the user changes the state or provides input. MVC was the original kind of what is now sometimes called an MV* pattern. Trygve Reenskaug introduced it into Smalltalk-76 while visiting Xerox PARC in the 1970s.