21-letter words containing s, e, o, u, l
- lap and shoulder belt — a car seat belt
- laugh up one's sleeve — the part of a garment that covers the arm, varying in form and length but commonly tubular.
- league of arab states — Arab League.
- least common multiple — lowest common multiple.
- 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.
- logic design language — (language) A language for computer design.
- look to one's laurels — any tree of the genus Laurus.
- 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 good law — Saddharma-Pundarika.
- 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.
- luck was on sb's side — If you say that luck was on someone's side, you mean that they succeeded in something by chance as well as by their own efforts or ability.
- 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.
- luminous flux density — luminous flux per unit of cross-sectional area.
- magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- make up for lost time — compensate for past inaction
- make yourself at home — settle in
- management consultant — A management consultant is someone whose job is to advise companies on the most efficient ways to run their business.
- mechanical suspension — the act of suspending.
- medium access control — Media Access Control
- modulus of elasticity — the ratio of the stress applied to a body or substance to the resulting strain within the elastic limit
- mucopolysaccharidoses — Plural form of mucopolysaccharidosis.
- muon-catalysed fusion — an experimental form of nuclear fusion in which hydrogen and deuterium muonic atoms are formed. Because the mass of the muon is much larger than that of the electron, the atoms are smaller, and the nuclei are close enough for fusion to occur
- naturalization papers — documents confirming that someone has been awarded citizenship of a country he or she was not born in
- negotiable instrument — order or promise to pay money
- negotiable securities — securities that are legally transferable in title from one party to another
- new year's resolution — If you make a New Year's resolution, you make a decision at the beginning of a year to start doing something or to stop doing something.
- night-blooming cereus — any of various cacti of the genera Hylocereus, Peniocereus, Nyctocereus, or Selenicereus, having large, usually white flowers that open at night.
- noncustodial sentence — a punishment given by a court of law that does not involve a prison term, such as a fine or a restriction order
- nonrestrictive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
- northumberland strait — the part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that separates Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in SE Canada. About 200 miles (320 km) long; 9–30 miles (15–48 km) wide.
- nuclear cross section — cross section (def 7).
- nuclear power station — a station or plant where nuclear energy is converted into heat, electricity, etc
- oil-in-water emulsion — An oil-in-water emulsion is a mixture in which an oily medicine is dispersed in water or other liquid.
- optical double (star) — double star (sense 2)
- packed encoding rules — (protocol, standard) (PER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing a compact transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1, defined in 1994. PER provides a much more compact encoding then BER. It tries to represents the data units using the minimum number of bits. The compactness requires that the decoder knows the complete abstract syntax of the data structure to be decoded, however. Documents: ITU-T X.691, ISO 8825-2.
- payload assist module — a U.S. solid-propellant rocket used to boost a medium-weight spacecraft from a circular low-earth orbit to an elliptical transfer orbit for later insertion into a geosynchronous orbit. Abbreviation: PAM.
- peroxydisulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 2).
- play russian roulette — take a foolish risk
- ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
- populist shop steward — a shop steward who operates in a delegate role, putting the immediate interests of his members before union principles and policies
- pre-sales support rep — (job) A person who supports sales by analysing customer requirements, proposing and demonstrating technical solutions, ensuring acceptable product installations, training users and providing initial technical support.
- premenstrual syndrome — a complex of physical and emotional changes, including depression, irritability, appetite changes, bloating and water retention, breast soreness, and changes in muscular coordination, one or more of which may be experienced in the several days before the onset of menstrual flow. Abbreviation: PMS.
- probable maximum loss — Probable maximum loss is the maximum amount of loss that can be expected under normal circumstances.
- pseudo-cleft sentence — cleft sentence (def 2).
- psychoneuroimmunology — the study of the effects of psychological factors on the immune system
- pull oneself together — to draw or haul toward oneself or itself, in a particular direction, or into a particular position: to pull a sled up a hill.
- pulse code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- pulse-code modulation — a form of modulation that transforms a wave-form, as an audio signal, into a binary signal in which information is conveyed by a coded order of pulses for transmission, storage on a disk, or processing by a computer. Abbreviation: PCM.
- pulse-time modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier is modulated to produce a series of pulses timed to transmit the amplitude and pitch of a signal. Abbr.: PTM.
- purple-fringed orchis — either of two North American orchids (Habenaria psycodes and H. fimbriata) with purple-fringed flowers