15-letter words containing w, a, l
- cold-water flat — (formerly) an apartment provided with only cold running water, often in a building with no central heating.
- coldwater-river — a river in NW Mississippi, flowing S to the Tallahatchie River. 220 miles (354 km) long.
- 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.
- contraclockwise — Counterclockwise.
- contraflow lane — a traffic lane whose normal direction is reversed temporarily
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- daffodil yellow — a bright yellow colour
- daily newspaper — A daily newspaper is a newspaper that is published every day of the week except Sunday.
- daughter-in-law — Someone's daughter-in-law is the wife of their son.
- de broglie wave — a hypothetical wave associated with the motion of a particle of atomic or subatomic size that describes effects such as the diffraction of beams of particles by crystals.
- delaware jargon — a jargon based on Unami Delaware, now extinct but formerly used as a lingua franca in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.
- distilled water — water from which impurities, as dissolved salts and colloidal particles, have been removed by one or more processes of distillation; chemically pure water.
- downward closed — closure
- draft-mule work — drudgery
- draw oneself up — to assume a straighter posture; stand or sit straight
- east longmeadow — a city in SW Massachusetts.
- edwards plateau — a highland area in SW Texas. 2000–5000 feet (600–1500 meters) high.
- emotional wreck — a person who is feeling very sad, confused, or desperate because of something bad that has happened to them
- english sparrow — a small Eurasian weaverbird, Passer domesticus, now established in North America and Australia. It has a brown streaked plumage with grey underparts
- ennerdale water — a lake in NW England, in Cumbria in the Lake District. Length: 4 km (2.5 miles)
- 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)
- falling weather — wet weather, as rain or snow.
- false miterwort — foamflower.
- fellow creature — a kindred creature, especially a fellow human being.
- fellow traveler — a person who supports or sympathizes with a political party, especially the Communist Party, but is not an enrolled member.
- first world war — World War I.
- flamingo-flower — a central American plant, Anthurium scherzeranum, of the arum family, having a red, coiled spadix and a bright red, shiny, heart-shaped spathe, grown as an ornamental.
- flock wallpaper — a type of wallpaper with a raised pattern
- flowering maple — any of various shrubs belonging to the genus Abutilon, of the mallow family, having large, bright-colored flowers.
- flowering plant — a plant that produces flowers, fruit, and seeds; angiosperm.
- fly-on-the-wall — A fly-on-the-wall documentary is made by filming people as they do the things they normally do, rather than by interviewing them or asking them to talk directly to the camera.
- forward echelon — (in a military operation) the troops and officers in a combat zone or in a position to engage the enemy.
- forward-looking — planning for or anticipating possible future events, conditions, etc.; progressive.
- fraternal twins — one of a pair of twins, not necessarily resembling each other, or of the same sex, that develop from two separately fertilized ova.
- free throw lane — the rectangular area, 19 feet (5.7 meters) long and usually 12 or 16 feet (3.6 m or 4.8 meters) wide, extending from the end line behind each backboard to the foul line and along the sides of which players line up during a foul shot.
- fundamental law — the organic law of a state, especially its constitution.
- gale-force wind — a wind of force seven to ten on the Beaufort scale or from 45 to 90 kilometres per hour
- get a wiggle on — to hurry up
- giant sunflower — a composite plant, Helianthus giganteus, of eastern North America, growing nearly 12 feet (4 meters) high and having very large yellow flower heads.
- gibson, william — William Gibson
- gila woodpecker — a dull-colored woodpecker, Melanerpes uropygialis, of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
- give it a whirl — If you decide to give an activity a whirl, you do it even though it is something that you have never tried before.
- greenland whale — an arctic right whale, Balaena mysticetus, that is black with a cream-coloured throat