18-letter words containing s, l, i, m, n
- industrial diamond — a small often synthetic diamond, valueless as a gemstone, used in cutting tools, abrasives, etc
- information island — (jargon) A body of information (i.e. electronic files) that needs to be shared but has no network connection.
- initial commission — Initial commission is commission that is paid to someone who sells or recommends a financial product for the first time.
- instruction manual — how-to, usage guide
- instrument landing — an aircraft landing accomplished by use of gauges on the instrument panel and ground-based radio equipment, with limited reference to outside visual signals.
- insurance salesman — male: sells insurance
- investment analyst — a specialist in forecasting the prices of stocks and shares
- involuntary muscle — muscle: contracts involuntarily
- italian somaliland — a former Italian colony and trust territory in E Africa: now part of the Democratic Somali Republic.
- king william's war — the war (1689–97) in which England and its American colonies and Indian allies opposed France and its Indian allies and which constituted the American phase of the War of the Grand Alliance.
- king-of-the-salmon — a ribbonfish, Trachypterus altivelis, of northern parts of the Pacific Ocean.
- lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
- law of mass action — the statement that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the concentrations of the reacting substances.
- light displacement — the weight of a ship with all its permanent equipment, excluding the weight of cargo, persons, ballast, dunnage, and fuel, but usually including the weight of permanent ballast and water used to operate steam machinery.
- limestone pavement — a horizontal surface of exposed limestone in which the joints have been enlarged, cutting the surface into roughly rectangular blocks
- limit-state design — a design criterion specifying that with acceptable probabilities a structure will not reach a limit state in which it either is unfit for the use for which it was designed (unavailability limit state) or fails (ultimate limit state)
- list comprehension — (functional programming) An expression in a functional language denoting the results of some operation on (selected) elements of one or more lists. An example in Haskell: This returns all pairs of numbers (x,y) where x and y are elements of the list 1, 2, ..., 10, y <= x and their sum is less than 10. A list comprehension is simply "syntactic sugar" for a combination of applications of the functions, concat, map and filter. For instance the above example could be written: The term "list comprehension" appears in the references below. The earliest reference to the notation is in Rod Burstall and John Darlington's description of their language, NPL. David Turner subsequently adopted this notation in his languages SASL, KRC and Miranda, where he has called them "ZF expressions", set abstractions and list abstractions (in his 1985 FPCA paper [Miranda: A Non-Strict Functional Language with Polymorphic Types]).
- literae humaniores — (at Oxford University) the faculty concerned with Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and philosophy; classics
- literal-mindedness — the quality or state of tending to take words in their literal sense
- local examinations — (in the UK) any of various examinations, such as the GCE, set by university boards and conducted in local centres, schools, etc
- locked-in syndrome — a condition in which a person is conscious but unable to move any part of the body except the eyes: results from damage to the brainstem
- loschmidt's number — the number of molecules in one cubic centimeter of an ideal gas at standard temperature and pressure, equal to 2.687 × 10 19.
- luminous emittance — luminous flux emitted per unit area.
- luminous intensity — the luminous flux in lumens emitted per unit solid angle by a light source, measured in candles.
- 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.
- magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
- maison-de-molieres — Comédie Française.
- 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.
- materials handling — the loading, unloading, and movement of goods, as within a factory or warehouse, especially by the aid of mechanical devices.
- maternity hospital — birthing facility
- matthias schleiden — Matthias Jakob [mah-tee-ahs yah-kawp] /mɑˈti ɑs ˈyɑ kɔp/ (Show IPA), 1804–81, German botanist.
- mechanical testing — Mechanical testing is the testing of a material to find out its mechanical properties, for example its yield strength or hardness.
- median lethal dose — the quantity of a lethal substance, as a poison or pathogen, or of ionizing radiation that will kill 50 percent of the organisms subjected to it in a specified time period. Symbol: LD 5 0.
- medical profession — the body of people who work as doctors of medicine
- melville peninsula — a peninsula in N Canada, SE of the Gulf of Boothia. 250 miles (405 km) long.
- mendel's first law — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
- menendez de aviles — Pedro [pe-th raw] /ˈpɛ ðrɔ/ (Show IPA), 1519–74, Spanish admiral and colonizer: founder of St. Augustine, Florida 1565.
- mental reservation — an unexpressed doubt or qualification about a situation, person, etc.
- menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
- methylprednisolone — A synthetic glucocorticoid drug, with chemical formula C22H30O5.
- microcrystallinity — The condition of being microcrystalline.
- microencapsulation — the process of enclosing chemical substances in microcapsules.
- microsloth windows — (abuse, operating system) /mi:'kroh-sloth" win"dohz/ (Or "Windoze", /win'dohz/) A derogatory term for Microsoft Windows which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonisingly slow on anything less than a fast 486. Also called just "Windoze", with the implication that you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term is extremely common on Usenet. Compare X, sun-stools.
- mineral supplement — a pill containing minerals that you take to improve your health
- mineralocorticoids — Plural form of mineralocorticoid.
- minimally invasive — (of medical treatments or procedures) requiring only a small incision or the insertion of an instrument into a body cavity; involving minimal damage of body tissue: minimally invasive endoscopy.