21-letter words containing s, o, r, d
- theater of the absurd — theater in which standard or naturalistic conventions of plot, characterization, and thematic structure are ignored or distorted in order to convey the irrational or fictive nature of reality and the essential isolation of humanity in a meaningless world.
- theatre of the absurd — drama in which normal conventions and dramatic structure are ignored or modified in order to present life as irrational or meaningless
- thermal decomposition — Thermal decomposition is the process in which a chemical species breaks down when its temperature is increased.
- threshold wage policy — a policy whereby wages are increased in accordance with inflation
- to be arrayed against — to be opposed to
- to be hard luck on sb — to be unfortunate or unlucky for someone
- to be in dire straits — to be in a position of acute difficulty
- to bend someone's ear — If you say that someone is bending your ear about something, you mean that they keep talking to you about it because they think it is important; used especially when you are irritated by this.
- to rear its ugly head — If something unpleasant rears its head or rears its ugly head, it becomes visible or noticeable.
- to risk life and limb — If someone risks life and limb, they do something very dangerous that may cause them to die or be seriously injured.
- to rub shoulders with — If you rub shoulders with famous people, you meet them and talk to them. You can also say that you rub elbows with someone, especially in American English.
- to sow your wild oats — If a young person sows their wild oats, they behave in a rather uncontrolled way, especially by having a lot of sexual relationships.
- to stick in your mind — If something sticks in your mind, it remains firmly in your memory.
- trades union congress — The Trades Union Congress in Britain is the same as the TUC.
- under one's own steam — If you do something under your own steam, you do it without any help from anyone else.
- universal disk format — (storage, standard) (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
- universe of discourse — the totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space; the cosmos; macrocosm.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- up close and personal — face to face, intimately
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
- washington's birthday — February 22, formerly observed as a legal holiday in most states of the U.S. in honor of the birth of George Washington.
- wet collodion process — a photographic process, in common use in the mid-19th century, employing a glass photographic plate coated with iodized collodion and dipped in a silver nitrate solution immediately before use.
- what the future holds — If you wonder what the future holds, you wonder what will happen in the future.
- white-crowned sparrow — a North American sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys, having black and white stripes on the head.
- wholesale price index — an indicator of price changes in the wholesale market
- with one's bare hands — If someone does something with their bare hands, they do it without using any weapons or tools.
- word association test — a technique for determining a subject's associative pattern by providing a verbal stimulus to which a verbal response is required.
- word-association test — a psychological test in which the person being tested responds to a given word with the first word (or the first word in a specified category, such as an antonym) brought to mind
- xeroderma pigmentosum — a rare inherited disease characterized by sensitivity to ultraviolet light, exposure resulting in lesions and tumors of the skin and eyes.
- yellow lady's-slipper — a showy orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, of eastern North America, having purple-tinged yellow flowers with an inflated lip petal.