23-letter words containing r, e, l, v, s
- survival of the fittest — (not in technical use) natural selection.
- swine vesicular disease — a viral disease of swine characterized by vesicular lesions on the feet, legs, snout, and tongue
- the lesser of two evils — If you have two choices, but think that they are both bad, you can describe the one which is less bad as the lesser of two evils, or the lesser evil.
- the royal naval reserve — the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom
- to blow someone's cover — To blow someone's cover means to cause their true identity or the true nature of their work to be revealed.
- to have feelings for sb — to be emotionally or sexually attracted to
- to have your hands full — If you have your hands full with something, you are very busy because of it.
- universal character set — (character, standard) (UCS, ISO/IEC 10646) A 1993 ISO and IEC standard character set, also known as "Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set". UCS comes in a 16-bit variant called UCS-2 and a 32-bit variant called UCS-4, which is composed of 16-bit UCS-2 "planes". So far only one 16-bit plane has been defined, which is known as the Basic Multilingual Plane. The implementation of UCS is still in its infancy, though some moves, such as the Java language defining a character to be 16 bits, are suggestive.
- until hell freezes over — If you say that you will do something until hell freezes over, you are emphasizing that you will do it for a very long time or for ever.
- van der waals' equation — an equation of state relating the pressure, volume, and absolute temperature of a gas, taking into account the finite size of the molecules and the attractive force between them.
- variable contrast paper — printing paper in which the contrast of the image is controlled by the color of the printing light.
- variable life insurance — an insurance policy whose annuity payments or payment to the beneficiary are not fixed but depend on the income earned by the investment of the premiums.
- vestibulocochlear nerve — either one of the eight pairs of cranial nerves that supply the cochlea and semicircular canals of the internal ear and contribute to the sense of hearing
- villiers de l'isle adam — August, Comte de (oɡyst, kɔ̃t də). 1838–89, French poet and dramatist; pioneer of the symbolist movement. His works include Contes cruels (1883) and the play Axel (1885)
- viscount horatio nelson — Viscount Horatio, 1758–1805, British admiral.
- visual display terminal — video display terminal. Abbreviation: VDT.
- volumetric displacement — the volume of air per revolution that passes through a mechanical pump when the pressure at the intake and the exhaust is the same as that of the atmosphere
- voyageurs national park — a national park in N Minnesota. 343 sq. mi. (888 sq. km).