12-letter words containing t, o, w, a
- meteor swarm — any large number of meteoroids moving in parallel paths.
- midwife toad — a European toad, Alytes obstetricans (family Discoglossidae), noted for its unusual breeding habits, in which mating occurs on land and the male broods the egg strings by wrapping them around his legs.
- militiawoman — A female member of a militia.
- militiawomen — Plural form of militiawoman.
- mountain dew — moonshine; whisky that has been illegally distilled
- mountainward — Towards a mountain or mountains.
- naughty word — a word that is considered to be rude
- network card — network interface controller
- new covenant — (sometimes initial capital letters) (in Christian exegesis) the promises of salvation made by God to humans individually, based on divine grace rather than Mosaic Law.
- newport east — a town in SE Rhode Island.
- newtownabbey — a town in Northern Ireland, in Newtownabbey district, Co Antrim on Belfast Lough: the third largest town in Northern Ireland, formed in 1958 by the amalgamation of seven villages; light industrial centre, esp for textiles. Pop: 62 056 (2001)
- nonnewtonian — Not Newtonian.
- now and then — occasionally
- off the wall — of or relating to a wall: wall space.
- off-the-wall — markedly unconventional; bizarre; oddball: an unpredictable, off-the-wall personality.
- on the wagon — any of various kinds of four-wheeled vehicles designed to be pulled or having its own motor and ranging from a child's toy to a commercial vehicle for the transport of heavy loads, delivery, etc.
- on the watch — to be alertly on the lookout, look attentively, or observe, as to see what comes, is done, or happens: to watch while an experiment is performed.
- out and away — away from, or not in, the normal or usual place, position, state, etc.: out of alphabetical order; to go out to dinner.
- out at elbow — ragged or impoverished
- out of whack — to strike with a smart, resounding blow or blows.
- owen stanley — a mountain range on New Guinea in SE Papua New Guinea. Highest peak, Mt. Victoria, 13,240 feet (4036 meters).
- packed tower — A packed tower is a tall distillation vessel which uses packing.
- patrol wagon — an enclosed truck or van used by the police to transport prisoners.
- phonetic law — a statement of some regular pattern of sound change in a specific language, as Grimm's law or Verner's law.
- piltdown man — a hypothetical early modern human, assigned to the genus Eoanthropus, whose existence was inferred from skull fragments that were allegedly found at Piltdown, England, in 1912 but were exposed as fraudulent through chemical analysis in 1953.
- plastic flow — deformation of a material that remains rigid under stresses of less than a certain intensity but that behaves under severer stresses approximately as a Newtonian fluid.
- polish wheat — a wheat, Triticum polonicum, grown chiefly in S Europe, N Africa, and Turkestan.
- poll watcher — a representative of a political party or of an organization running a candidate who is assigned to the polls on an election day to watch for violations of the laws that regulate voting, campaigning, etc.
- positive law — customary law or law enacted by governmental authority (as distinguished from natural law).
- post-weaning — to accustom (a child or young animal) to food other than its mother's milk; cause to lose the need to suckle or turn to the mother for food.
- postcardware — Shareware that borders on freeware, in that the author requests only that satisfied users send a postcard of their home town or something. (This practice, silly as it might seem, serves to remind users that they are otherwise getting something for nothing, and may also be psychologically related to real estate "sales" in which $1 changes hands just to keep the transaction from being a gift.)
- pot-walloper — (in some boroughs before the Reform Bill of 1832) a man who qualified as a householder, and therefore a voter, by virtue of ownership of his own fireplace at which to boil pots.
- power assist — a procedure for supplementing or replacing the manual effort needed to operate a device or system, often by hydraulic, electrical, or mechanical means.
- power factor — (in an electrical circuit) the ratio of the power dissipated to the product of the input volts times amps
- power-stream — to stream and watch (multiple videos, episodes of a TV show, etc.) in one sitting or over a short period of time.
- powerboating — a boat propelled by mechanical power.
- praiseworthy — deserving of praise; laudable: a praiseworthy motive.
- property law — the branch of law dealing with issues relating to land and houses
- quo warranto — (formerly, in England) a writ calling upon a person to show by what authority he or she claims an office, franchise, or liberty.
- randallstown — a city in N Maryland, near Baltimore.
- raoult's law — the principle that the fraction by which the vapor pressure of a solvent is lowered by the addition of a nonvolatile, nonelectrolytic solute is equal to the mole fraction of the solute in the solution.
- ratchet down — If something ratchets down or is ratcheted down, it decreases by a fixed amount or degree, and seems unlikely to increase again.
- rate of flow — the rate at which a liquid or other substance flows through a particular channel, pipe etc
- reality show — A reality show is a type of television program that aims to show how ordinary people behave in everyday life, or in situations, often created by the program makers, which are intended to represent everyday life.
- right of way — a common law or statutory right granted to a vehicle, as an airplane or boat, to proceed ahead of another.
- satin-flower — a Californian plant, Clarkia amoena, of the evening primrose family, having cup-shaped pink or purplish flowers blotched with red.
- saw palmetto — a shrublike palmetto, Serenoa repens, of the palm family, native to the southern U.S., having green or blue leafstalks set with spiny teeth.
- saw-whet owl — a very small North American owl, Aegolius acadicus, having streaked, brown plumage and lacking ear tufts.
- say the word — If someone says the word, they give their approval as a sign that something should start to happen.
- sea lungwort — a plant, Mertensia maritima, of the borage family, growing on northern seacoasts and having leaves with an oysterlike flavor.