14-letter words containing v, a
- auxiliary verb — a verb used to indicate the tense, voice, mood, etc, of another verb where this is not indicated by inflection, such as English will in he will go, was in he was eating and he was eaten, do in I do like you, etc
- availabilities — suitable or ready for use; of use or service; at hand: I used whatever tools were available.
- avalanche lily — a wildflower (Erythronium montanum) of the lily family, native to the mountain meadows of Washington and Oregon and blooming in June among the melting snowbanks
- avalanche wind — the wind that is created in front of an avalanche.
- avalokitesvara — a male Bodhisattva, widely revered and identified with various persons and gods.
- avariciousness — The state or quality of being avaricious.
- ave atque vale — hail and farewell: from an ode of Catullus in commemoration of his dead brother
- average clause — a clause in an insurance policy that distributes the insurance among several items, usually in proportion to their value
- aviation badge — wings.
- aviation cadet — one who trains to become an officer in an air force.
- aviation-badge — Also called aviation badge. Military Informal. a badge bearing the image of a spread pair of bird's wings with a distinctive center design, awarded to an aircrewman on completion of certain requirements.
- avogadro's law — the principle that equal volumes of all gases contain the same number of molecules at the same temperature and pressure
- avoidance play — a play by the declarer designed to prevent a particular opponent from taking the lead.
- backflow valve — a valve for preventing flowing liquid, as sewage, from reversing its direction.
- backing vocals — a vocal accompaniment for a pop singer
- balanced valve — a valve designed so that pressure-induced forces from the fluid being controlled oppose one another so that resistance to opening and closing the valve is negligible.
- balloon sleeve — a sleeve fitting tightly from wrist to elbow and becoming fully rounded from elbow to shoulder
- balto-slavonic — a hypothetical subfamily of Indo-European languages consisting of Baltic and Slavonic. It is now generally believed that similarities between them result from geographical proximity rather than any special relationship
- baptismal vows — the solemn promises made during baptism, either by the person baptized or by his or her sponsors
- barbara liskov — (person) Professor Barbara Liskov was the first US woman to be awarded a PhD in computing, and her innovations can be found in every modern programming language. She currently (2009) heads the Programming Methodology Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Liskov's design innovations have, over the decades, made software more reliable and easier to maintain. She has invented two computer progamming languages: CLU, an object-orientated language, and Argus, a distributed programming language. Liskov's research forms the basis of modern programming languages such as Java, C# and C++. One of the biggest impacts of her work came from her contributions to the use of data abstraction, a method for organising complex programs. See Liskov substitution principle. In June 2009 she will receive the A. M. Turing Award.
- baseball glove — a padded glove with webbing between the thumb and index finger, worn by baseball players
- batwing sleeve — a sleeve of a garment with a deep armhole and a tight wrist
- bavarian cream — a cold dessert consisting of a rich custard set with gelatine and flavoured in various ways
- belaya tserkov — city in WC Ukraine: pop. 204,000
- belgian endive — endive (def 2).
- belgian-endive — endive (def 2).
- belvoir castle — a castle in Leicestershire, near Grantham (in Lincolnshire): seat of the Dukes of Rutland; rebuilt by James Wyatt in 1816
- beveridge plan — the plan for comprehensive social insurance, proposed by Sir William Beveridge in Great Britain in 1941.
- bicuspid valve — mitral valve
- bioequivalence — the equality of strength, bioavailability, and dosage of various drug products
- bitter cassava — a species of cassava (Manihot esculenta) whose poisonous roots when processed yield tapioca starch
- bokhara clover — white melilot.
- bound variable — (in the functional calculus) a variable occurring in a quantifier and in a sentential function within the scope of the quantifier.
- boundary value — boundary value analysis
- break of serve — the act or instance of breaking an opponent's service
- break-up value — the value of an organization assuming that it will not continue to trade
- bush, vannevar — Vannevar Bush
- by the vanload — in very large quantities
- cabeza de vaca — ˈÁl‧ˈvar Núñez (ˈɑlvɑʀˈnunjɛθ) ; älˈvärno̅oˈnyet h) 1490?-1557?; Sp. explorer in the Americas
- cadaverousness — of or like a corpse.
- calamata olive — a purplish-black, almond-shaped olive with a fruity flavor and meaty texture, often split and cured in brine and packed in vinegar.
- camillo cavour — Camillo Benso di [kah-meel-law ben-saw dee] /kɑˈmil lɔ ˈbɛn sɔ di/ (Show IPA), 1810–61, Italian statesman: leader in the unification of Italy.
- canadian river — a river in the southern US, rising in NE New Mexico and flowing east to the Arkansas River in E Oklahoma. Length: 1458 km (906 miles)
- canes venatici — a small faint constellation in the N hemisphere near Ursa Major that contains the globular cluster M3 and the spiral whirlpool galaxy M51
- canicola fever — an acute febrile disease of humans and dogs, characterized by inflammation of the stomach and intestines and by jaundice: caused by a spirochete, Leptospira canicola.
- cape canaveral — a cape on the E coast of Florida: site of the US Air Force Missile Test Centre, from which the majority of US space missions have been launched
- captive market — a group of consumers who are obliged through lack of choice to buy a particular product, thus giving the supplier a monopoly
- cardinal vowel — any one of eight primary, purportedly invariant, sustained vowel sounds that constitute a reference set for describing the vowel inventory of a language.
- cardiovascular — of the heart and the blood vessels as a unified body system
- carnarvonshire — Caernarvon.