18-letter words containing s, l, a, u
- iphigenia in aulis — a tragedy (408? b.c.) by Euripides.
- iron (ii) sulphate — an iron salt with a saline taste, usually obtained as greenish crystals of the heptahydrate, which are converted to the white monohydrate above 100°C: used in inks, tanning, water purification, and in the treatment of anaemia. Formula: FeSO4
- iverson's language — APL, which went unnamed for many years.
- jerusalem syndrome — a delusive condition affecting some visitors to Jerusalem in which the sufferer identifies with a major figure from his or her religious background
- joint consultation — a formal system of communication between the management of an organization and the employees' representatives used prior to taking decisions affecting the workforce, usually effected through a joint consultative committee
- just (plain) folks — simple and unassuming; not snobbish
- kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
- king's regulations — (in Britain and the Commonwealth when the sovereign is male) the code of conduct for members of the armed forces that deals with discipline, aspects of military law, etc
- komsomolsk-on-amur — city in SE Russia, on the Amur River: pop. 309,000
- krause's corpuscle — any of numerous encapsulated nerve endings occurring in the skin and mucous membranes, functioning as sensory cold receptors.
- language universal — a trait or property of language that exists, or has the potential to exist, in all languages.
- last but not least — lastly
- last in, first out — The expression last in, first out is used to say that the last person who started work in an organization should be the first person to leave it, if fewer people are needed.
- last-in, first-out — an inventory plan based on the assumption that materials constituting manufacturing costs should be carried on the books at the market price of the last lot received. Abbreviation: LIFO. Compare first-in, first-out.
- lay down your arms — If soldiers lay down their arms, they stop fighting and give up their weapons.
- lenticular process — a method for producing images with a three-dimensional effect by photographing on lenticulated film.
- like a house afire — a building in which people live; residence for human beings.
- liqueur chocolates — chocolates containing liqueur
- literae humaniores — (at Oxford University) the faculty concerned with Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and philosophy; classics
- logarithmus dualis — (mathematics) (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2". Roughly the number of bits required to represent an integer.
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- louisiana purchase — a treaty signed with France in 1803 by which the U.S. purchased for $15,000,000 the land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
- lubber grasshopper — plains grasshopper.
- luminous emittance — luminous flux emitted per unit area.
- maclaurin's series — an infinite sum giving the value of a function f(x) in terms of the derivatives of the function evaluated at zero: f(x) = f(0) + (f′(0)x)/1! + (f″(0)x2)/2! + …
- magnesium silicate — a white powder, 3MgSiO 3 ⋅5H 2 O, with variable hydration, insoluble in water or alcohol, used as a rubber filler, a bleaching agent, an odor absorbent, and in the manufacture of paints and resins.
- maksutov telescope — a reflecting telescope in which coma and spherical aberration are reduced to a minimum by a combination of a spherical mirror and a meniscus lens placed inside the radius of curvature of the mirror.
- malicious mischief — willful destruction of personal property motivated by ill will or resentment toward its owner or possessor.
- malicious wounding — the intentional violent wounding or injuring of someone
- malpighian tubules — one of a group of long, slender excretory tubules at the anterior end of the hindgut in insects and other terrestrial arthropods.
- marsilius of padua — c1280–1343? Italian scholar and political theorist.
- mato grosso do sul — a state of W central Brazil: formed in 1979 from part of Mato Grosso state. Capital: Campo Grande. Pop: 2 140 624 (2002). Area: 350 548 sq km (135 318 sq miles)
- melville peninsula — a peninsula in N Canada, SE of the Gulf of Boothia. 250 miles (405 km) long.
- microencapsulation — the process of enclosing chemical substances in microcapsules.
- mineral supplement — a pill containing minerals that you take to improve your health
- molecular genetics — a subdivision of genetics concerned with the structure and function of genes at the molecular level.
- molecular spectrum — the spectrum of light emitted or absorbed by a species of molecule.
- mount saint helens — a city in Merseyside, in NW England, near Liverpool.
- mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
- multicast backbone — (MBONE) A virtual network on top of the Internet which supports routing of IP multicast packets, intended for multimedia transmission. MBONE gives public access desktop video communications. The quality is poor with only 3-5 frames per second instead of the 30 frames per second of commercial television. Its advantage is that it avoids all telecommunications costs normally associated with teleconferencing. An interesting innovation is the use of MBONE for audio communications and an electronic "whiteboard" where the computer screen becomes a shared workspace where two physically remote parties can draw on and edit shared documents in real-time.
- muscular dystrophy — a hereditary disease characterized by gradual wasting of the muscles with replacement by scar tissue and fat, sometimes also affecting the heart.
- musical instrument — music
- mutual aid society — A mutual aid society is an organization that provides benefits or other help to its members when they are affected by things such as death, sickness, disability, old age, or unemployment.
- mutually exclusive — of or relating to a situation involving two or more events, possibilities, etc., in which the occurrence of one precludes the occurrence of the other: mutually exclusive plans of action.
- mutually recursive — recursion
- national guardsman — guardsman (def 2).
- national insurance — In Britain, national insurance is the state system of paying money to people who are ill, unemployed, or retired. It is financed by money that the government collects from people who work, or from their employers.
- natural philosophy — natural science.
- natural resistance — natural immunity.
- nebular hypothesis — the theory that the solar system evolved from a mass of nebular matter: prominent in the 19th century following its precise formulation by Laplace.