21-letter words containing s, o, n, t
- intravenous drug user — a drug addict who injects drugs (esp heroin) intravenously
- isolation transformer — An isolation transformer is a transformer with physically separate primary and secondary windings, that prevent it from transferring unwanted noise from the input circuit to the output windings.
- isopropylideneacetone — mesityl oxide.
- it takes two to tango — If you say it takes two or it takes two to tango, you mean that a situation or argument involves two people and they are both therefore responsible for it.
- japanese stranglehold — a wrestling hold in which an opponent's wrists are pulled to cross his or her arms in front of his or her own neck and exert pressure on the windpipe
- johann sebastian bach — Johann Sebastian [yoh-hahn si-bas-chuh n;; German yoh-hahn zey-bahs-tee-ahn] /ˈyoʊ hɑn sɪˈbæs tʃən;; German ˈyoʊ hɑn zeɪˈbɑs tiˌɑn/ (Show IPA), 1685–1750, German organist and composer.
- joint chiefs of staff — the chiefs of staff of the army and the air force, the commandant of the marine corps, and the chief of naval operations, together with a chairman selected from one of the branches of the armed forces, serving as the principal military advisory body to the president, the National Security Council, and the secretary of defense.
- joseph bonaparte gulf — an inlet of the Timor Sea in N Australia. Width: 360 km (225 miles)
- junior varsity sports — sports played at the second highest rank for university sports, ranking first after varsity
- just a bunch of disks — (jargon, storage) (JBOD, or "Just a Bunch of Drives") A storage subsystems using multiple independent disk drives, as opposed to one form of RAID or another. For example, Unisys open storage provides JBOD in both SCSI and fibre channel interfaces.
- just leave well alone — to refrain from interfering with something that is satisfactory
- keep count/lose count — If you keep count of a number of things, you note or keep a record of how many have occurred. If you lose count of a number of things, you cannot remember how many have occurred.
- keep one's mouth shut — to keep a secret
- kekule von stradonitz — Friedrich August [free-drikh ou-goo st] /ˈfri drɪx ˈaʊ gʊst/ (Show IPA), 1829–96, German chemist.
- keto-enol tautomerism — tautomerism in which the tautomers are an enol and a keto form. The change occurs by transfer of a hydrogen atom within the molecule
- knights of st columba — an international, semi-secret fraternal and charitable order for Catholic laymen, which originated in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882 (the Knights of Columbus)
- know someone by sight — If you know someone by sight, you can recognize them when you see them, although you have never met them and talked to them.
- lactate dehydrogenase — an enzyme that catalyzes the interconversion of pyruvate and lactate, an important step in carbohydrate metabolism: elevated serum levels indicate injury to kidney, skeletal muscle, or heart muscle. Abbreviation: LDH.
- lafcadio's adventures — French Les Caves du Vatican. a novel (1914) by André Gide.
- language-based editor — language-sensitive editor
- lap and shoulder belt — a car seat belt
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- lay at someone's door — a movable, usually solid, barrier for opening and closing an entranceway, cupboard, cabinet, or the like, commonly turning on hinges or sliding in grooves.
- leaning tower of pisa — a round, marble campanile in Pisa, Italy, begun in 1174 and now 17 feet (5.2 meters) out of the perpendicular in its height of 179 feet (54 meters).
- least common multiple — lowest common multiple.
- lender of last resort — the central bank of a country with authority for controlling its banking system
- let sleeping dogs lie — a domesticated canid, Canis familiaris, bred in many varieties.
- lexical decision task — an experimental task in which subjects have to decide as fast as possible whether a given letter string is a word
- lie at someone's door — a movable, usually solid, barrier for opening and closing an entranceway, cupboard, cabinet, or the like, commonly turning on hinges or sliding in grooves.
- linear transformation — linear map
- linguistic philosophy — an approach to philosophical problems used especially by certain British and American philosophers, inspired by G. E. Moore, and marked by the elucidation of difficult and controversial concepts by resolving them into their elements.
- 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.
- long-term liabilities — Long-term liabilities are debts that a company does not have to pay back for a year or more.
- look to one's laurels — any tree of the genus Laurus.
- lose one's heart (to) — to fall in love (with)
- 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.
- lost-and-found column — a column in a newspaper that carries advertisements from people who have lost or found things
- lower the tone of sth — If you say that something lowers the tone of a place or event, you mean that it is not appropriate and makes the place or event seem less respectable.
- luminous flux density — luminous flux per unit of cross-sectional area.
- macintosh common lisp — (language) (MCL) Common Lisp for the Apple Macintosh. Guillaume Cartier, of the Mathematics Department at UQAM, Canada, has written some libraries.
- macintosh file system — (file system) A file on the Macintosh consists of two parts, called forks. The "data fork" contains the data which would normally be stored in the file on other operating systems. The "resource fork" contains a collection of arbitrary attribute/value pairs, including program segments, icon bitmaps, and parametric values. Yet more information regarding Macintosh files is stored by the Finder in a hidden file, called the "Desktop Database". Because of the complications in storing different parts of a Macintosh file in non-Macintosh file systems that only handle consecutive data in one part, it is common to only send the Data fork or to convert the Macintosh file into some other format before transferring it.
- made of sterner stuff — If you say that someone is made of sterner stuff, you mean that they have a strong personality and are capable of overcoming difficulties and problems.
- magnetofluid dynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- magnetoplasmadynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- maidenhair spleenwort — an evergreen fern, Asplenium trichomanes, abundant in woody areas of the North Temperate Zone, having thickly clustered fronds.
- main-topsail schooner — a two-masted or three-masted schooner having square topsails on the foremast and mainmast: a jackass brig or jackass bark.
- majority shareholding — a holding of more than half a company's shares
- make (both) ends meet — to manage to keep one's expenses within one's income
- make one's peace with — the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world.
- management consultant — A management consultant is someone whose job is to advise companies on the most efficient ways to run their business.