16-letter words containing r, s, a
- kingfisher daisy — a bushy southern African plant, Felicia bergerana, having grasslike leaves and solitary, bright-blue flowers.
- kipp's apparatus — a laboratory apparatus for producing a gas, usually hydrogen sulphide, by the action of a liquid on a solid without heating
- kirchhoff's laws — the law that the algebraic sum of the currents flowing toward any point in an electric network is zero.
- kleptoparasitism — The parasitic theft of captured prey, nest material, etc. from animals of the same or another species.
- knapsack problem — the problem of determining which numbers from a given collection of numbers have been added together to yield a specific sum: used in cryptography to encipher (and sometimes decipher) messages.
- knights of labor — a secret workingmen's organization formed in 1869 to defend the interests of labor.
- krebs urea cycle — urea cycle.
- 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 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.
- lachryma christi — a table wine produced from grapes grown near Vesuvius, in Italy.
- lactovegetarians — Plural form of lactovegetarian.
- ladies auxiliary — an association whose members are usually the wives of members of an association with which it is affiliated.
- ladies'-eardrops — lady's-earrings.
- ladies'-earrings — lady's-earrings.
- lady of pleasure — a prostitute.
- lake saint clair — a lake between SE Michigan and Ontario: linked with Lake Huron by the St Clair River and with Lake Erie by the Detroit River. Area: 1191 sq km (460 sq miles)
- lancashire chair — a chair similar to a Windsor chair, having a rush seat and a back formed of spindles.
- laparoscopically — By means of laparoscopy.
- larsen ice shelf — an ice barrier in Antarctica, in the NW Weddell Sea, on the E coast of the Antarctic Peninsula: first explored 1893.
- laserdisc player — a device that plays laserdiscs
- lateral meristem — meristem located along the sides of a part, as a stem or root.
- latissimus dorsi — a broad, flat muscle on each side of the midback, the action of which draws the arm backward and downward and rotates the front of the arm toward the body.
- latter-day saint — a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- lauderdale lakes — a city in SE Florida: suburb of Fort Lauderdale.
- laurentides park — a national park in SE Canada, in Quebec province between the St. Lawrence and Lake St. John.
- law of parsimony — a principle according to which an explanation of a thing or event is made with the fewest possible assumptions.
- 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.
- lazy standard ml — (language) (LSML) A lazy varient of SML, allowing cyclic val definitions, by Prateek Mishra <[email protected]>. Not to be confused with LML.
- learner's permit — A learner's permit is a license that allows you to drive a vehicle before you have passed your driving test.
- learning process — a process of learning
- leasehold reform — reform of the law relating to leasehold property
- least flycatcher — a small flycatcher, Empidonax minimus, of eastern North America.
- left parenthesis — (character) "(". ASCII character 40. Common names: left paren; left parenthesis; left; open; paren (")" = thesis); open paren; open parenthesis; left parenthesis; left banana. Rare: so (")" = already); lparen; ITU-T: opening parenthesis; open round bracket, left round bracket, INTERCAL: wax (")" = wane); parenthisey (")" = unparenthisey); left ear. Paired with right parenthesis (")").
- legal separation — judicial separation.
- leptosporangiate — (of ferns) having each sporangium developing from a single cell, rather than from a group, and normally with specialized explosive spore dispersal
- lesser celandine — a Eurasian plant, Ranunculus ficaria, of the buttercup family, having heart-shaped leaves and glossy yellow flowers, naturalized in North America.
- lesser sanhedrin — Sanhedrin (def 2).
- 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
- levallois-perret — a suburb of Paris, in N France, on the Seine.
- lever escapement — an escapement in which a pivoted lever, made to oscillate by the escape wheel, engages a balance staff and causes it to oscillate.
- lewis and harris — the northernmost island of the Hebrides, in NW Scotland. 825 sq. mi. (2135 sq. km).
- lexical analyser — (language) (Or "scanner") The initial input stage of a language processor (e.g. a compiler), the part that performs lexical analysis.
- libation-bearers — Choëphori.
- liberal unionist — a Liberal who opposed Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886 and after
- library pictures — a caption used to alert viewers that footage being broadcast is from an earlier time and is not happening now
- 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.
- lightheartedness — carefree; cheerful; merry: a lighthearted laugh.
- like gangbusters — a law-enforcement officer who specializes in breaking up organized crime, often by forceful or sensational means.
- lissajous figure — the series of plane curves traced by an object executing two mutually perpendicular harmonic motions.