17-letter words containing s, o, w, n
- immigrant workers — people who work in a country they arrived to in order to settle there
- in one fell swoop — to sweep through the air, as a bird or a bat, especially down upon prey.
- in one's own time — outside paid working hours
- into one's barrow — suited to one's interests or desires
- isherwood framing — a system for framing steel vessels in which light, closely spaced, longitudinal frames are connected by heavy, widely spaced transverse frames with deep webs.
- it's now or never — If you say 'It's now or never', you mean that something must be done immediately, because if it is not done immediately there will not be another chance to do it.
- japanese knotweed — Mexican bamboo.
- jehovah's witness — A Jehovah's Witness is a member of a religious organization which accepts some Christian ideas and believes that the world is going to end very soon.
- john wilkes booth — Ballington [bal-ing-tuh n] /ˈbæl ɪŋ tən/ (Show IPA), 1859–1940, founder of the Volunteers of America 1896 (son of William Booth).
- kawasaki syndrome — a syndrome, usually afflicting children, characterized by high fever, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, rashes, irritated eyes and mucous membranes, etc. with possible damage to the cardiovascular system
- kennesaw mountain — a mountain in N Georgia, near Atlanta: battle 1864. 1809 feet (551 meters).
- king george's war — a war (1744–48) waged by England and its colonies against France, constituting the North American phase of the War of the Austrian Succession.
- know one's onions — a plant, Allium cepa, of the amaryllis family, having an edible, succulent, pungent bulb.
- know when to stop — If you say that someone does not know when to stop, you mean that they do not control their own behaviour very well and so they often annoy or upset other people.
- knowledgeableness — The state, quality, or measure of being knowledgeable; wisdom.
- lake winnipegosis — a lake in S Canada, in W Manitoba. Area: 5400 sq km (2086 sq miles)
- lick one's wounds — an injury, usually involving division of tissue or rupture of the integument or mucous membrane, due to external violence or some mechanical agency rather than disease.
- light dawns on sb — If light dawns on you, you begin to understand something after a period of not being able to understand it.
- lincoln's sparrow — a North American sparrow, Melospiza lincolnii, having a buff breast with black streaks.
- maxwell equations — equations developed by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79) upon which classical electromagnetic theory is based
- mercy otis warren — Earl, 1891–1974, U.S. lawyer and political leader: chief justice of the U.S. 1953–69.
- microsoft network — The Microsoft Network
- microsoft windows — (operating system) Microsoft's proprietary window system and user interface software released in 1985 to run on top of MS-DOS. Widely criticised for being too slow (hence "Windoze", "Microsloth Windows") on the machines available then. The 1996 market share of operating systems was: DOS/Windows 70% Windows 95 15% Windows NT 2% Other 13% Versions include 1985 Windows 1, 1987 Windows 2, 1987 Windows/386, 1990 Windows 3.0, 1992 Windows 3.1, 1992 Windows for Workgroups 3.1, 1993 Windows 3.11, 1993 Windows for Workgroups 3.11, 1993 Windows NT 3.1, 1994 Windows NT 3.5, 1995 Windows 95, 199? Windows NT 4, 1998 Windows 98, Windows NT 5, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8.
- mother spleenwort — a fern, Asplenium bulbiferum, of tropical Africa and Australasia, the fronds often bearing bulbils that sprout into new plants while still attached, grown as an ornamental.
- move one's bowels — to pass waste matter from the large intestine; defecate
- narrow-shouldered — having shoulders which do not extend very far from the neck; not broad-shouldered
- neck of the woods — the part of the body of an animal or human being that connects the head and the trunk.
- nervous breakdown — (not in technical use) any disabling mental disorder requiring treatment.
- new expressionism — neo-expressionism.
- new lease on life — a contract renting land, buildings, etc., to another; a contract or instrument conveying property to another for a specified period or for a period determinable at the will of either lessor or lessee in consideration of rent or other compensation.
- new orleans style — a style of jazz developed in New Orleans early in the 20th century, influenced by blues, ragtime, marching band music, and minstrelsy and marked by polyphonic group improvisation.
- new scotland yard — See under Scotland Yard (def 1).
- nine days' wonder — an event or thing that arouses considerable but short-lived interest or excitement.
- northwest by west — a point on the compass, 11°15′ west of northwest. Abbreviation: NWbW.
- northwest passage — a ship route along the Arctic coast of Canada and Alaska, joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- observation tower — lookout, observation point
- of its own accord — If something happens of its own accord, it seems to happen by itself, without anyone making it happen.
- off one's own bat — If someone does something off their own bat, they do it without anyone else suggesting it.
- on one's own hook — a curved or angular piece of metal or other hard substance for catching, pulling, holding, or suspending something.
- on one's own time — the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
- one-time password — (security) (OTP) A security system that requires a new password every time a user authenticates themselves, thus protecting against an intruder replaying an intercepted password. OTP generates passwords using either the MD4 or MD5 hashing algorithms. The equivalent term "S/Key", developed by Bellcore, is a trademark of Telcordia Technologies, so the name OTP is used increasingly. See RFC 1760 - "The S/KEY One-Time Password System" and RFC 1938 - "A One-Time Password System".
- pacific northwest — the region of North America lying north of the Columbia River and west of the Rockies
- pay someone's way — to pay someone's share of the expenses
- peloponnesian war — a war between Athens and Sparta, 431–404 b.c., that resulted in the transfer of hegemony in Greece from Athens to Sparta.
- pincushion flower — scabious2 (def 1).
- play with oneself — a dramatic composition or piece; drama.
- pointer swizzling — swizzle
- poison-arrow frog — a small, bright-colored terrestrial frog of the family Dendrobatidae, of Central and South American rain forests, that secretes a virulent poison from its skin, once used on the tips of Indian hunting arrows.
- power supply unit — (hardware) (PSU) An electronic module that converts high voltage (110 or 240 VAC) alternating current mains electricity into smoothed direct current at the various differnt voltages required by the motherboard; internal peripheral devices, cheifly storage devices: hard disks, CD or DVD, floppy disks and external connections such as USB. A PSU needs a high enough power output rating to supply all the devices connected to it and should output as little as possible electrical noise, both on the output wires and as electromagnetic radiation. See also uninterruptable power supply.
- pressure drawdown — Pressure drawdown is the difference between the reservoir pressure and the flowing wellbore pressure, which drives fluids from the reservoir into the wellbore.