20-letter words containing s, c, r, u
- kluver-bucy syndrome — a syndrome caused by bilateral injury to the temporal lobes and characterized by memory defect, hypersexuality, excessive oral behavior, and diminished fear reactions.
- labour-saving device — a machine, gadget, etc, that reduces (human) effort, hard work or labour
- lampbrush chromosome — a chromosome with looped projections resembling a brush
- languedoc-roussillon — a region of S France, on the Gulf of Lions: consists of the departments of Lozère, Gard, Hérault, Aude, and Pyrénées-Orientales; mainly mountainous with a coastal plain
- life-support machine — A life-support machine is the equipment that is used to keep a person alive when they are very ill and cannot breathe without help.
- linguistic geography — dialect geography.
- linguistic universal — language universal.
- logical construction — anything referred to by an incomplete symbol capable of contextual definition.
- lonely hearts column — the part of a newspaper or magazine where lonely hearts ads appear
- lunisolar precession — the principal component of the precession of the equinoxes, produced by the gravitational attraction of the sun and the moon on the equatorial bulge of the earth.
- magical mystery tour — something exciting and mysterious; esp an exploration of a new place where somebody being shown or taken around does not know where exactly they will be going
- malpighian corpuscle — Also called kidney corpuscle, Malpighian body. the structure at the beginning of a vertebrate nephron, consisting of a glomerulus and its surrounding Bowman's capsule.
- manufacturer's agent — an agent representing one or more manufacturers in selling related but noncompeting goods, usually on a commission basis and in a particular territory.
- mary, queen of scots — family name Stuart. 1542–87, queen of Scotland (1542–67); daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. She was married to Francis II of France (1558–60), her cousin Lord Darnley (1565–67), and the Earl of Bothwell (1567–71), who was commonly regarded as Darnley's murderer. She was forced to abdicate in favour of her son (later James VI of Scotland) and fled to England. Imprisoned by Elizabeth I until 1587, she was beheaded for plotting against the English crown
- mecklenburg-schwerin — a former state in NE Germany, formed in 1934 from two states (Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz)
- mecklenburg-strelitz — a former state in NE Germany, formed in 1934 from two states (Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz)
- meissner's corpuscle — tactile corpuscle.
- menstrual extraction — an abortion procedure involving suction aspiration of the uterine contents early in gestation, before the first missed menstrual period: sometimes performed later.
- mickey mouse program — (jargon) The North American equivalent of a "noddy program", i.e. trivial. The term doesn't necessarily have the belittling connotations of mainstream slang "Oh, that's just mickey mouse stuff!"; sometimes trivial programs can be very useful.
- midcourse correction — a navigational correction made in the course of a ship, airplane, rocket, or space vehicle at some point between the beginning and end of the journey.
- miliary tuberculosis — tuberculosis in which the bacilli are spread by the blood from one point of infection, producing small tubercles in other parts of the body.
- mitral insufficiency — abnormal closure of the mitral valve resulting in regurgitation of blood into the atrium and leading to reduced heart function or heart failure.
- molecular gastronomy — an approach to cooking in which a chef’s knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology allows him or her to experiment with unusual flavour combinations and cooking techniques
- molecular geneticist — a specialist in the study of the molecular constitution of genes and chromosomes
- moreton bay chestnut — an Australian leguminous tree, Castanospermum australe, having thin smooth bark and yellow or reddish flowers: used in furniture manufacture
- mountain rescue team — a group of people who conduct search and rescue on a mountain, for example of someone who has fallen, got lost, etc
- multicast addressing — Ethernet addressing scheme used to send packets to devices of a certain type or for broadcasting to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
- multipurpose vehicle — a large car, similar to a van, designed to carry up to eight passengers
- multistorey car park — a car park consisting of several levels
- music of the spheres — a music, imperceptible to human ears, formerly supposed to be produced by the movements of the spheres or heavenly bodies.
- naturalistic fallacy — the supposed fallacy of inferring evaluative conclusions from purely factual premises
- net domestic product — the gross domestic product minus an allowance for the depreciation of capital goods
- neuromusculoskeletal — (medicine) Describing the interactions between nerves, muscles and the skeleton.
- neurophysiologically — In terms of, or with regard to, neurophysiology.
- neuropsychiatrically — In terms of neuropsychiatry.
- neuropsychologically — In terms of or by means of neuropsychology.
- new jerusalem church — a sect founded in 1787, based on Swedenborgianism
- newcastle-under-lyme — a town in W central England, in Staffordshire. Pop: 74 427 (2001)
- not mince your words — If you say that someone does not mince their words, you mean that they speak in a forceful and direct way, especially when saying something unpleasant to someone.
- occupation franchise — the right of a tenant to vote in national and local elections
- occupation groupings — a system of classifying people according to occupation, based originally on information obtained by government census and subsequently developed by market research. The classifications are used by the advertising industry to identify potential markets. The groups are A, B, C1, C2, D, and E
- omega-minus particle — a baryon with strangeness −3, isotopic spin 0, and negative charge; predicted from the mathematics of the Eightfold Way and subsequently discovered. Symbol: Ω −.
- on course/off course — If a ship or aircraft is on course, it is travelling along the correct route. If it is off course, it is no longer travelling along the correct route.
- operational calculus — a method for solving a differential equation by treating differential operators as ordinary algebraic quantities, thus obtaining a simpler problem.
- orthognathic surgery — the surgical correction of deformities or malpositions of the jaw.
- oscillating universe — a variant model of the closed universe in which the universe undergoes cycles of expansion and contraction.
- ousterhout's fallacy — Ousterhout's dichotomy
- overenthusiastically — With excessive enthusiasm.
- owner-occupied house — a house that is owned by the person who lives in it
- pale western cutworm — the larva of a noctuid moth, Agrotis orthogonia, of the western U.S. and Canada, that seriously damages grains, beets, potatoes, alfalfa, etc., by feeding underground on roots and stems.