21-letter words containing v, e, s, l
- nonrestrictive clause — a relative clause that describes or supplements but is not essential in establishing the identity of the antecedent and is usually set off by commas in English. In This year, which has been dry, is bad for crops the clause which has been dry is a nonrestrictive clause.
- nonviolent resistance — passive resistance, peaceful protest
- observation satellite — an unmanned satellite that observes the earth and gathers data
- of one's own volition — If you do something of your own volition, you do it because you have decided for yourself that you will do it and not because someone else has told you to do it.
- personality inventory — a questionnaire designed to measure personality types or characteristics.
- phillips screw-driver — a screw head having two partial slots crossed at right angles, driven by a special screwdriver (Phillips screwdriver)
- pressure-vacuum valve — a valve for relieving a sealed tank of any pressure or vacuum exceeding acceptable limits.
- private member's bill — In Britain, a Private Member's Bill is a law that is proposed by a Member of Parliament acting as an individual rather than as a member of his or her political party.
- professional services — (job) A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products.
- projection television — a television picture display system consisting of a special receiver and an optical system that projects an enlarged picture on a screen.
- public health service — the agency that is responsible for the health of the general public
- quantitative analysis — Chemistry. the analysis of a substance to determine the amounts and proportions of its chemical constituents. Compare qualitative analysis.
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- real-estate developer — a person who buys and develops houses, buildings, and land in order to sell them and make a profit from them
- reverse polish syntax — postfix notation
- revillagigedo islands — an uninhabited island group belonging to Mexico, in the Pacific Ocean, SSW of the Baja California peninsula: Socorro is the largest island. 320 sq. mi. (830 sq. km).
- roll up one's sleeves — to prepare oneself for work, a fight, etc
- saint valentine's day — February 14, observed in honor of St. Valentine as a day for the exchange of valentines and other tokens of affection.
- sentential connective — any of several words or their equivalent symbols used in logical formulas to connect propositions, as “or,” “not,” “and,” “if and only if.”.
- seven-segment display — (electronics) (SSD) A kind of display element consisting of seven independently controllable lines arranged as a rectangular figure eight. A seven-segment display is the simplest device that can display any of the digits zero to nine (and some other characters) by lighting different combinations of lines. They are often seen in electronic calculators or measuring equipment.
- seventeen-year locust — a cicada, Magicicada septendecim, of the eastern U.S., having nymphs that live in the soil, usually emerging in great numbers after 17 years in the North or 13 years in the South.
- sir roger de coverley — Sir Roger de, a literary figure representing the ideal of the early 18th-century squire in The Spectator, by Addison and Steele.
- sovereign wealth fund — an investment fund created using the financial assets of a national government
- sport utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- sport-utility vehicle — a rugged vehicle with a trucklike chassis and four-wheel drive, designed for occasional off-road use. Abbreviation: SUV.
- subjective complement — subject complement.
- surface of revolution — a surface formed by revolving a plane curve about a given line.
- television evangelist — a Christian minister who devotes time to preaching on television
- the barber of seville — Italian Il barbiere di Siviglia. a comic opera (1816) by Gioacchino Rossini based on a comedy (1775) by Beaumarchais.
- the central provinces — the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec
- the household cavalry — a group of British soldiers on horseback who have the job of protecting the king or queen and their family
- the lower vertebrates — relatively simple and primitive vertebrates
- throw sb a curve ball — If someone throws you a curve or throws you a curve ball, they surprise you by doing something that you do not expect.
- to move the goalposts — If you accuse someone of moving the goalposts, you mean that they have changed the rules in a situation or an activity, in order to gain an advantage for themselves and to make things difficult for other people.
- total recoverable gas — Total recoverable gas is the amount of gas which is still left in the ground in gas fields that have already been worked.
- toussaint l'ouverture — François Dominique [frahn-swa dawmee-neek] /frɑ̃ˈswa dɔmiˈnik/ (Show IPA), 1743–1803, Haitian patriot and leader of the Haitian Revolution slave rebellion.
- traveling salesperson — a representative of a business firm who travels in an assigned territory soliciting orders for a company's services.
- ultraviolet astronomy — the branch of astronomy that deals with celestial objects emitting electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet range.
- universal affirmative — a proposition of the form “All S is P.” Symbol: A, a.
- universal disk format — (storage, standard) (UDF) A CD-ROM file system standard that is required for DVD ROMs. UDF is the OSTA's replacement for the ISO 9660 file system used on CD-ROMs, but will be mostly used on DVD. DVD multimedia disks use UDF to contain MPEG audio and video streams. To read DVDs you need a DVD drive, the kernel driver for the drive, MPEG video support, and a UDF driver. DVDs containing both UDF filesystems and ISO 9660 filesystems can be read without UDF support. UDF can also be used by CD-R and CD-RW recorders in packet writing mode.
- university of iceland — (body, education) The Home of Fjolnir.
- vacation bible school — a religious school conducted by some churches during the summer for students on vacation.
- vasco nunez de balboa — Vasco Núñez de [bahs-kaw noo-nyeth th e] /ˈbɑs kɔ ˈnu nyɛθ ðɛ/ (Show IPA), 1475?–1517, Spanish adventurer and explorer who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513.
- ventriloquist's dummy — a puppet which is operated by a ventriloquist and made to appear to talk
- venus's flower basket — a glass sponge of the genus Euplectella, inhabiting deep waters off the Philippines and Japan, having a cylindrical skeleton formed of an intricate latticework of siliceous spicules.
- venus's looking glass — a purple-flowered campanulaceous plant, Legousia hybrida, of Europe, W Asia, and N Africa
- virtual memory system — (operating system) (VMS) DEC's proprietary operating system originally produced for its VAX minicomputer. VMS V1 was released in August 1978. VMS was renamed "OpenVMS" around version 5.5. The first version of VMS on DEC Alpha was known as OpenVMS for AXP V1.0, and the correct way to refer to the operating system now is OpenVMS for VAX or OpenVMS for Alpha. The renaming also signified the fact that the X/Open consortium had certified OpenVMS as having a high support for POSIX standards. VMS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market (making it popular in financial institutions). It currently (October 1997) has the best clustering capability (both number and distance) and is very scalable with binaries portable from small desktop workstations up to huge mainframes. Many Unix fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favourite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.
- vladivostok agreement — a preliminary arms control accord concluded by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford in Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., in December 1974.
- voice-stress analyzer — a machine purported to detect stress in a human voice and to ascertain a person's truthfulness.
- volunteers of america — a religious reform and relief organization, similar to the Salvation Army, founded in New York City in 1896 by Ballington Booth, son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Abbreviation: VOA.