16-letter words containing u, n, s, a, r
- vancouver island — an island of SW Canada, off the SW coast of British Columbia: separated from the Canadian mainland by the Strait of Georgia and Queen Charlotte Sound, and from the US mainland by Juan de Fuca Strait; the largest island off the W coast of North America. Chief town: Victoria. Pop: 706 243 (2001). Area: 32 137 sq km (12 408 sq miles)
- vapor combustion — Vapor combustion is a closed burn system used for treating liquid waste which contains volatile organic compounds.
- vauxhall gardens — a public garden at Vauxhall, laid out in 1661; a fashionable meeting place and site of lavish entertainments. Closed in 1859
- vestibular nerve — the part of the auditory nerve in the inner ear that carries sensory information related to body equilibrium.
- victorian values — qualities considered to characterize the Victorian period, including enterprise and initiative and the importance of the family
- video journalism — the techniques, methods, etc., of preparing and broadcasting informational, social, political, and other nonfiction subjects via news and documentary programs.
- visual interface — (tool, text) (vi) /V-I/, /vi:/, *never* /siks/ A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early BSD release. vi became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favourite outside of MIT until the rise of Emacs after about 1984. It tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even some Emacs fans resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of Emacs). See holy wars.
- vitruvian scroll — a scroll forming a stylized wave pattern.
- voluntary muscle — muscle whose action is normally controlled by an individual's will; mainly skeletal muscle, composed of parallel bundles of striated, multinucleate fibers.
- voluntary school — a school that promotes specific religious beliefs and which is funded by a local education authority but was not established by the authority
- voluntary sector — the part of the economy that consists of non-profit-making organizations, as opposed to the public and private sectors
- washing-up water — water used for washing dishes
- women's suffrage — right of adult females to vote
- writ of subpoena — a legal document commanding the attendance in court, as a witness, of the person on whom it is served, under a penalty
- zagros mountains — a mountain range in S Iran: has Iran's main oilfields in its W central foothills. Highest peak: Zard Kuh, 4548 m (14 920 ft)
- zygosporangium's — a sporangium that bears a zygospore.