19-letter words containing s, u, o, l
- use the source luke — (humour, programming) (UTSL) (A pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Use the Force, Luke!" in "Star Wars") A more polite version of RTFS. This is a common way of suggesting that someone would be better off reading the source code that supports whatever feature is causing confusion, rather than making yet another futile pass through the manuals, or broadcasting questions on Usenet that haven't attracted wizards to answer them. Once upon a time in Elder Days, everyone running Unix had source. After 1978, AT&T's policy tightened up, so this objurgation was in theory appropriately directed only at associates of some outfit with a Unix source licence. In practice, bootlegs of Unix source code (made precisely for reference purposes) were so ubiquitous that one could utter it at almost anyone on the network without concern. Nowadays, free Unix clones are becoming common enough that almost anyone can read source legally. The most widely distributed is probably Linux. FreeBSD, NetBSD, 386BSD, jolix also have their followers. Cheap commercial Unix implementations with source such as BSD/OS from BSDI are accelerating this trend.
- vacuum distillation — a process of distillation employing a vacuum that by lowering the pressure on a liquid allows volatilization at a lower temperature than normal.
- vaginal intercourse — intercourse involving insertion of the penis into the vagina
- venus of willendorf — a village in NE Austria, near Krems: site of an Aurignacian settlement where a 4½ inches (11 cm) limestone statuette (Venus of Willendorf) was found.
- versa module europa — (hardware) (VME) A flexible open-ended bus system which makes use of the Eurocard standard. VME was introduced in 1981 by Motorola, Philips, Thompson, and Mostek. It was intended to be a flexible environment supporting a variety of computing intensive tasks, and has become a rather popular protocol in the computer industry. It is defined by the IEEE standard 1014-1987.
- volumetric analysis — determination of the concentration, by volume, of a substance in a solution, as by titration.
- vulvovaginal glands — the small gland on either side of the lower part of the vagina
- wage-push inflation — an inflationary trend caused by wage increases that in turn cause rises in production costs and prices.
- waste disposal unit — an electrically operated fitment in the plughole of a kitchen sink that breaks up food refuse so that it goes down the waste pipe
- welsh mountain pony — a small sturdy but graceful breed of pony used mostly for riding, originally from Wales
- with flying colours — If you pass a test with flying colours, you have done very well in the test.
- yablonovy mountains — a mountain range in Siberia. Highest peak: 1680 m (5512 ft)