15-letter words containing w, a, c
- common-law wife — a woman considered to be a man's wife after the couple have cohabited for several years
- commutative law — a law asserting that the order in which certain logical operations are performed is indifferent.
- conestoga wagon — a large heavy horse-drawn covered wagon used in the 19th century
- confederate war — the American Civil War.
- continuous wave — an electromagnetic wave, esp. a radio wave, with a constant amplitude and frequency
- contraclockwise — Counterclockwise.
- contraflow lane — a traffic lane whose normal direction is reversed temporarily
- corkscrew grass — a variety of spear grass, Austrostipa scabra, native to Australia, having very fine foliage, an erect seed head, and awns that twist up the seed head: family Poaceae
- coromandel work — lacquer work popular in England c1700 and marked by an incised design filled in with gold and color.
- cowper's glands — two small yellowish glands near the prostate that secrete a mucous substance into the urethra during sexual stimulation in males
- crack down (on) — to become strict or stricter (with)
- craftswomanship — The body of skills, techniques, and expertise of (a) feminine craft(s).
- crashworthiness — the ability of a vehicle structure to withstand a crash
- crawler tractor — a tractor with a continuous roller belt over cogged wheels on each side, for moving over rough or muddy ground
- crawling horror — (jargon) Ancient crufty hardware or software that is kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site. Like dusty deck or gonkulator, but connotes that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but they pay us to maintain one big Fortran II application from nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror." Compare WOMBAT.
- criminal lawyer — a lawyer who deals with criminal rather than civil cases
- crisis software — A small UK company producing software for the Acorn Archimedes range of computers.
- curie-weiss law — the principle that the magnetic susceptibility of a paramagnetic substance is inversely proportional to the difference between its temperature and its Curie point
- d. c. power lab — The former site of SAIL. This name was very funny because the obvious connection to electrical engineering was nonexistent - the lab was named after a Donald C. Power. Compare Marginal Hacks.
- downward closed — closure
- drawing account — an account used by a partner or employee for cash withdrawals.
- dwarf poinciana — royal poinciana.
- emotional wreck — a person who is feeling very sad, confused, or desperate because of something bad that has happened to them
- every which way — Every which way and any which way are used to emphasize that something happens, or might happen, in a lot of different ways, or using a lot of different methods.
- ewing's sarcoma — a form of malignant bone tumour most commonly found in children and young people
- ex-servicewoman — a woman who has served in the army, navy, or air force
- fall cankerworm — the striped, green caterpillar of any of several geometrid moths: a foliage pest of various fruit and shade trees, as Paleacrita vernata (spring cankerworm) and Alsophila pometaria (fall cankerworm)
- fellow creature — a kindred creature, especially a fellow human being.
- flock wallpaper — a type of wallpaper with a raised pattern
- forward echelon — (in a military operation) the troops and officers in a combat zone or in a position to engage the enemy.
- gale-force wind — a wind of force seven to ten on the Beaufort scale or from 45 to 90 kilometres per hour
- gila woodpecker — a dull-colored woodpecker, Melanerpes uropygialis, of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
- graveyard watch — graveyard shift.
- have a whack at — to aim a blow at
- hebrew calendar — the lunisolar calendar used by Jews, as for determining religious holidays, that is reckoned from 3761 b.c. and was established by Hillel II in the 4th century a.d., the calendar year consisting of 353 days (defective year) 354 days (regular year) or 355 days (perfect year or abundant year) and containing 12 months: Tishri, Heshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, and Elul, with the 29-day intercalary month of Adar Sheni added after Adar seven times in every 19-year cycle in order to adjust the calendar to the solar cycle. The Jewish ecclesiastical year begins with Nisan and the civil year with Tishri.
- hewlett-packard — (HP) Hewlett-Packard designs, manufactures and services electronic products and systems for measurement, computation and communications. The company's products and services are used in industry, business, engineering, science, medicine and education in approximately 110 countries. HP was founded in 1939 and employs 96600 people, 58900 in the USA. They have manufacturing and R&D establishments in 54 cities in 16 countries and approximately 600 sales and service offices in 110 countries. Their revenue (in 1992/1993?) was $20.3 billion. The Chief Executive Officer is Lewis E. Platt. HP's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Pacific, Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, Zurich and Paris exchanges. Quarterly sales $6053M, profits $347M (Aug 1994).
- hyperweak force — a hypothetical force that transforms quarks into leptons and vice versa at high energies.
- identical twins — one of a pair of twins who develop from a single fertilized ovum and therefore have the same genotype, are of the same sex, and usually resemble each other closely.
- jewish calendar — the lunisolar calendar used by the Jews, in which time is reckoned from 3761 bc: regarded as the year of the Creation. The months, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Elul, Tishri, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, and Adar, have either 29 or 30 days. Originally a new month was declared when the new moon was sighted in Jerusalem, but when this became impossible, a complex formula was devised to keep Rosh Chodesh near to the new moon. In addition, to keep the harvest festivals in the right seasons, there is a Metonic cycle of 14 years, in five of which an additional month is added after Shevat. The year according to biblical reckoning begins with Nisan, and the civil year begins with Tishri; the years are numbered from Tishri
- judicial review — the power of a court to adjudicate the constitutionality of the laws of a government or the acts of a government official.
- kirchhoff's law — the law that the algebraic sum of the currents flowing toward any point in an electric network is zero.
- label switching — (networking) A routing technique that uses information from existing IP routing protocols to identify IP datagrams with labels and forwards them to a modified switch or router, which then uses the labels to switch the datagrams through the network. Label switching combines the best attributes of data link layer (layer two) switching (as in ATM and Frame Relay) with the best attributes of network layer (layer three) routing (as in IP). Prior to the formation of the MPLS Working Group in 1997, a number of vendors had announced and/or implemented proprietary label switching.
- law-enforcement — of police, anti-crime
- legacy software — legacy system
- level two cache — secondary cache
- low archipelago — a group of French islands in the S Pacific. 332 sq. mi. (860 sq. km).
- low-maintenance — requiring little attention or upkeep
- mad cow disease — BSE: bovine spongiform encephalopathy
- make allowances — to take mitigating circumstances into account in consideration (of)
- make sb welcome — If you make someone welcome or make them feel welcome, you make them feel happy and accepted in a new place.