17-letter words containing s, o, n, a, d, l
- hold one's breath — If you say that someone is holding their breath, you mean that they are waiting anxiously or excitedly for something to happen.
- hold sb to ransom — If you say that someone is holding you to ransom in British English, or holding you for ransom in American English, you mean that they are using their power to try to force you to do something which you do not want to do.
- hollandaise sauce — a sauce of egg yolks, butter, lemon juice, and seasonings.
- homeland security — national defence
- household ammonia — diluted ammonia, often having a small quantity of detergent, used in the home for cleaning.
- how the land lies — the prevailing conditions or state of affairs
- i wouldn't say no — You use 'I wouldn't say no' to indicate that you would like something, especially something that has just been offered to you.
- idiosyncratically — pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something peculiar to an individual: The best minds are idiosyncratic and unpredictable as they follow the course of scientific discovery.
- in double harness — in a harness for two animals pulling the same carriage, plow, etc.
- individualisation — Alternative spelling of individualization.
- industrial action — job action.
- industrial school — a school for teaching one or more branches of industry; trade or vocational school.
- industrialisation — Alternative spelling of industrialization.
- industrialization — the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity into an area, society, country, etc.
- institutionalised — to make institutional.
- institutionalized — to make institutional.
- integrated school — (in New Zealand) a private or church school that has joined the state school system
- island of the sun — Sicily: the island where Helius kept his oxen.
- kastor and pollux — Castor and Pollux.
- knowledgeableness — The state, quality, or measure of being knowledgeable; wisdom.
- lagrange's method — a procedure for finding maximum and minimum values of a function of several variables when the variables are restricted by additional conditions.
- lambda expression — (mathematics) A term in the lambda-calculus denoting an unnamed function (a "lambda abstraction"), a variable or a constant. The pure lambda-calculus has only functions and no constants.
- lame-duck session — (formerly) the December to March session of those members of the U.S. Congress who were defeated for reelection the previous November.
- lan administrator — (job) A person who installs and maintains LAN hardware and software. A LAN administrator troubleshoots network usage and computer peripherals. He installs new users, performs system backups and data recovery, and resolves LAN communications problems.
- landlocked salmon — a variety of the Atlantic Ocean salmon, Salmo salar, confined to the freshwater lakes of New England and adjacent areas of Canada.
- least fixed point — (mathematics) A function f may have many fixed points (x such that f x = x). For example, any value is a fixed point of the identity function, (\ x . x). If f is recursive, we can represent it as f = fix F where F is some higher-order function and fix F = F (fix F). The standard denotational semantics of f is then given by the least fixed point of F. This is the least upper bound of the infinite sequence (the ascending Kleene chain) obtained by repeatedly applying F to the totally undefined value, bottom. I.e. fix F = LUB {bottom, F bottom, F (F bottom), ...}. The least fixed point is guaranteed to exist for a continuous function over a cpo.
- least upper bound — an upper bound that is less than or equal to all the upper bounds of a particular set. 3 is the least upper bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbr.: lub.
- legal proceedings — court case
- light dawns on sb — If light dawns on you, you begin to understand something after a period of not being able to understand it.
- livingstone daisy — a gardener's name for various species of Mesembryanthemum, esp M. criniflorum, grown as garden annuals (though several are perennial) for their brightly coloured showy flowers: family Aizoaceae
- load displacement — the weight, in long tons, of a cargo vessel loaded so that the summer load line touches the surface of the water.
- long island sound — an arm of the Atlantic between Connecticut and Long Island. 90 miles (145 km) long.
- loose-leaf binder — a hard cover with metal rings inside which is used to hold loose pieces of paper
- lymphadenopathies — Plural form of lymphadenopathy.
- macdonnell ranges — a mountain system of central Australia, in S central Northern Territory, extending about 160 km (100 miles) east and west of Alice Springs. Highest peak: Mount Zeil, 1531 m (5024 ft)
- magellanic clouds — either of two irregular galactic clusters in the southern heavens that are the nearest independent star system to the Milky Way.
- maintained school — a school financially supported by the state
- maison de moliere — Comédie Française.
- maladministration — to administer or manage badly or inefficiently: The mayor was a bungler who maladministered the city budget.
- manitoulin island — an island in N Lake Huron belonging to Canada. 80 miles (130 km) long.
- microdistillation — the distillation of minute quantities of material.
- microencapsulated — Encapsulated using microencapsulation.
- monkeygland sauce — a piquant sauce, made from tomatoes, ketchup, fruit chutney, garlic, spices, etc
- mundane astrology — the astrology of worldly events, in contrast to the astrology of the individual: used especially in interpretations and forecasts involving politics, the stock market, weather, and disasters.
- narrow-shouldered — having shoulders which do not extend very far from the neck; not broad-shouldered
- nasolacrimal duct — a membranous canal extending from the lacrimal sac to the nasal cavity, through which tears are discharged into the nose.
- new scotland yard — See under Scotland Yard (def 1).
- nonunderstandable — Not understandable.
- nord-ostsee kanal — German name of Kiel Canal.
- nuclear threshold — the point in war at which a combatant brings nuclear weapons into use