16-letter words containing r, e, t, o, a
- kleptoparasitism — The parasitic theft of captured prey, nest material, etc. from animals of the same or another species.
- kondratieff wave — a long business cycle of economic expansion and contraction, postulated to last about 60 years.
- kurdaitcha shoes — (in certain Central Australian Aboriginal tribes) the emu-feather shoes worn by the kurdaitcha on his mission so that his footsteps may not be traced
- labour agreement — a contract between workers and managers setting out working conditions, wages, etc
- labour relations — Labour relations refers to the relationship between employers and employees in industry, and the political decisions and laws that affect it.
- labour-intensive — Labour-intensive industries or methods of making things involve a lot of workers. Compare capital-intensive.
- labrador current — a cold ocean current flowing southwards off the coast of Labrador and meeting the warm Gulf Stream, causing dense fogs off the coast of Newfoundland
- lacto-vegetarian — a vegetarian whose diet includes dairy produce and eggs
- lactovegetarians — Plural form of lactovegetarian.
- laplace operator — the operator ∂2/∂x2 + ∂2/∂y2 + ∂2/∂z2,
- large-print book — a book where the text is printed in larger text than normal, so as to make it easier to read, esp for the visually impaired
- lawson criterion — (in a hypothetical nuclear fusion reactor) the requirement that in order for the energy produced by fusion to exceed the energy expended in causing the fusion, the product of the density of the fuel and the time during which it is confined at that density (Lawson product) must be greater than a certain number that depends on the kind of fuel used.
- legal dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering terms used in the various branches of the legal profession, as civil law, criminal law, and corporate law. A comprehensive legal dictionary adds to its body of standard English entries many words and phrases that have made their way into modern legal practice from law French and Latin and are rarely found in a general English monolingual dictionary. Such a specialized dictionary is useful not only for law students and for attorneys themselves, but for members of the lay public who require legal services. Legal dictionaries published in print follow the normal practice of sorting entry terms alphabetically, while electronic dictionaries, such as the online Dictionary of Law on Dictionary.com, allow direct, immediate access to a search term.
- legal separation — judicial separation.
- lenticular cloud — a very smooth, round or oval, lens-shaped cloud that is often seen, singly or stacked in groups, near a mountain ridge.
- leptosporangiate — (of ferns) having each sporangium developing from a single cell, rather than from a group, and normally with specialized explosive spore dispersal
- lesser spearwort — a Eurasian ranunculaceous plant, R. flammula, of the genus Ranunculus, which grows in wet places and has long narrow leaves and yellow flowers
- letter of advice — a notification from a consignor to a consignee giving specific information as to a shipment, the name of the carrier, the date shipped, etc.
- letter of marque — license or commission granted by a state to a private citizen to capture and confiscate the merchant ships of another nation.
- levallois-perret — a suburb of Paris, in N France, on the Seine.
- leveraged buyout — the purchase of a company with borrowed money, using the company's assets as collateral, and often discharging the debt and realizing a profit by liquidating the company. Abbreviation: LBO.
- libation-bearers — Choëphori.
- liberal democrat — In Britain, a Liberal Democrat is a member of the Liberal Democrat Party.
- liberal unionist — a Liberal who opposed Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886 and after
- lick observatory — the astronomical observatory of the University of California, situated on Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California, and having a 120-inch (3-meter) reflecting telescope and a 36-inch (91-cm) refracting telescope.
- limited monarchy — a monarchy that is limited by laws and a constitution.
- limited-monarchy — a limited train, bus, etc.
- listen to reason — be persuaded
- literacy project — a project, plan or scheme to increase literacy in a country, area, etc
- little brown bat — any of several small to medium-sized common bats of the genera Myotis and Eptesicus, found worldwide in caves, trees, and buildings, including M. lucifugus (little brown bat) and E. fuscus (big brown bat) a widespread North American species.
- littoral warfare — military combat conducted in coastal areas.
- local government — the administration of the civic affairs of a city, town, or district by its inhabitants rather than by the state or country at large.
- logical operator — any of the Boolean symbols or functions, as AND, OR, and NOT, denoting a Boolean operation; Boolean operator.
- logical relation — A relation R satisfying f R g <=> For all a, b, a R b => f a R g b This definition, by Plotkin, can be used to extend the definition of a relation on the types of a and b to a relation on functions.
- loire-atlantique — a department in NW France. 2695 sq. mi. (6980 sq. km). Capital: Nantes.
- lonely hearts ad — an advertisement placed by someone who is trying to find a lover or a friend
- lord proprietary — (in Colonial America) an owner, governor, or grantee of a proprietary colony
- lorenz attractor — (mathematics) (After Edward Lorenz, its discoverer) A region in the phase space of the solution to certain systems of (non-linear) differential equations. Under certain conditions, the motion of a particle described by such as system will neither converge to a steady state nor diverge to infinity, but will stay in a bounded but chaotically defined region. By chaotic, we mean that the particle's location, while definitely in the attractor, might as well be randomly placed there. That is, the particle appears to move randomly, and yet obeys a deeper order, since is never leaves the attractor. Lorenz modelled the location of a particle moving subject to atmospheric forces and obtained a certain system of ordinary differential equations. When he solved the system numerically, he found that his particle moved wildly and apparently randomly. After a while, though, he found that while the momentary behaviour of the particle was chaotic, the general pattern of an attractor appeared. In his case, the pattern was the butterfly shaped attractor now known as the Lorenz attractor.
- lost river range — a mountain range in E central Idaho. Highest peak, Borah Peak (also highest in the state), 12,662 feet (3862 meters).
- lost-wax process — a process of investment casting in which a refractory mold is built up around a pattern of wax and then baked so as to melt and drain off the wax.
- low-carbon steel — steel containing between 0.04 and 0.25 per cent carbon
- lower palatinate — See under Palatinate (def 1).
- luck of the draw — the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities: With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.
- machine operator — someone who operates mechanical equipment
- macpherson strut — an automobile suspension-system component that consists of a strut combined with a spring and shock absorber and connects the wheel to the frame of the vehicle.
- macroenvironment — (biology) The large-scale and long-term environment and conditions that affect an organism.
- macrolepidoptera — a collector's name for that part of the lepidoptera that comprises the butterflies and the larger moths (noctuids, geometrids, bombycids, springtails, etc): a term without taxonomic significance
- macrometeorology — the study of large-scale atmospheric phenomena, as the general circulation of the air or global weather conditions.
- macrorestriction — In physical gene mapping, the digestion of DNA of high molecular weight with a restriction enzyme having a low number of restriction sites.
- magnesiochromite — (mineral) A chromite species with the formula MgCr2O4.