13-letter words containing w, a, n
- law and order — strict control of crime and repression of violence, sometimes involving the possible restriction of civil rights.
- law of motion — any of three laws of classical mechanics, either the law that a body remains at rest or in motion with a constant velocity unless an external force acts on the body (first law of motion) the law that the sum of the forces acting on a body is equal to the product of the mass of the body and the acceleration produced by the forces, with motion in the direction of the resultant of the forces (second law of motion) or the law that for every force acting on a body, the body exerts a force having equal magnitude and the opposite direction along the same line of action as the original force (third law of motion or law of action and reaction)
- law of nature — an empirical truth of great generality, conceived of as a physical (but not a logical) necessity, and consequently licensing counterfactual conditionals
- law stationer — a stationer selling articles used by lawyers
- law-and-order — strict control of crime and repression of violence, sometimes involving the possible restriction of civil rights.
- leibniz's law — the principle that two expressions satisfy exactly the same predicates if and only if they both refer to the same subject
- low churchman — a person who advocates or follows Low Church practices.
- low-bandwidth — [communication theory] Used to indicate a talk that, although not content-free, was not terribly informative. "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what can you expect for an audience of suits!" Compare zero-content, bandwidth, math-out.
- lower abdomen — lowest part of the belly
- lowerclassman — underclassman.
- lowerclassmen — underclassman.
- lunar rainbow — moonbow.
- lying-in ward — a room where women were confined in childbirth
- machine screw — a threaded fastener, either used with a nut or driven into a tapped hole, usually having a diameter of about 1/4 inch (6.4 mm) or less and a slotted head for tightening by a screwdriver.
- mackinaw boat — a flat-bottomed boat with sharp prow and square stern, propelled by oars and sometimes sails, formerly widely used on the upper Great Lakes.
- mackinaw coat — a short double-breasted coat of a thick woolen material, commonly plaid.
- made-down bed — a makeshift bed, as a pallet, placed on the floor for sleeping.
- magnetic wire — a fine wire made from a magnetizable metal and used for wire recording.
- magnetic wood — wood containing fine particles of nickel-zinc ferrite which absorb microwave radio signals, used to line rooms where mobile phone use is undesirable
- mangel-wurzel — a variety of the beet Beta vulgaris, cultivated as food for livestock.
- manual worker — a person whose job involves working with the hands
- maxwell demon — a hypothetical agent or device of arbitrarily small mass that is considered to admit or block selectively the passage of individual molecules from one compartment to another according to their speed, constituting a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
- measuringworm — the larva of any geometrid moth, which progresses by bringing the rear end of the body forward and then advancing the front end.
- melvin conway — (person) An early proto-hacker who wrote an assembler for the Burroughs 220 called SAVE and (probably) formulated Conway's Law.
- mend o's ways — If someone who has been behaving badly mends their ways, they begin to behave well.
- mendel's laws — law of segregation.
- milne-edwards — Henri [ahn-ree] /ɑ̃ˈri/ (Show IPA), 1800–85, French zoologist.
- mineral water — water containing dissolved mineral salts or gases, especially such water considered healthful to drink.
- mineral wells — a city in N central Texas.
- morning watch — the watch from 4 a.m. until 8 a.m.
- mother-in-law — the mother of one's husband or wife.
- mountain view — city in WC Calif., near San Jose: pop. 71,000
- mouthwatering — very appetizing in appearance, aroma, or description: a mouth-watering dessert.
- mulligan stew — a stew made of odd bits of meat and vegetables, esp. as prepared by hobos
- murder weapon — the weapon that was used in a murder
- naples yellow — a yellow pigment, used by artists; lead antimonate
- narrow squeak — an escape only just managed
- narrow-bodied — (of a jet aircraft) having a narrow fuselage and a single aisle with seats on either side.
- narrow-fisted — tight-fisted.
- narrow-minded — having or showing a prejudiced mind, as persons or opinions; biased.
- narrowcasting — Present participle of narrowcast.
- negative glow — the luminous region between the Crookes dark space and the Faraday dark space in a vacuum tube, occurring when the pressure is low.
- neo-darwinism — the theory of evolution as expounded by later students of Charles Darwin, especially Weismann, holding that natural selection accounts for evolution and denying the inheritance of acquired characters.
- nervewracking — Alternative form of nerve-wracking.
- network layer — (networking) (communications subnet layer) The third lowest layer in the OSI seven layer model. The network layer determines routing of packets of data from sender to receiver via the data link layer and is used by the transport layer. The most common network layer protocol is IP.
- new age music — a type of gentle melodic popular music originating in the US in the late 1980s, which takes in elements of jazz, folk, and classical music and is played largely on synthesizers and acoustic instruments
- new amsterdam — a Dutch colony in North America (1613–64), comprising the area along the Hudson River and the lower Delaware River. By 1669 all of the land comprising this colony was taken over by England. Capital: New Amsterdam.
- new australia — the colony on socialist principles founded by William Lane in Paraguay in 1893
- new ball game — a new or changed situation: Once we're out of debt it'll be a whole new ball game.
- new braunfels — a city in S Texas, near San Antonio.