13-letter words containing w, e, l, a
- fare-you-well — a state of perfection: The meal was done to a fare-thee-well.
- fast follower — a company that is quick to pick up good new ideas from other companies
- father-in-law — the father of one's husband or wife.
- fellow inmate — sb in same prison
- field sparrow — a common North American finch, Spizella pusilla, found in brushy pasturelands.
- finagle's law — (humour) The generalised or "folk" version of Murphy's Law, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favoured among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends toward a maximum". The label "Finagle's Law" was popularised by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.
- final whistle — sport: whistle indicating end of match
- finback whale — rorqual
- firewall code — 1. The code you put in a system (say, a telephone switch) to make sure that the users can't do any damage. Since users always want to be able to do everything but never want to suffer for any mistakes, the construction of a firewall is a question not only of defensive coding but also of interface presentation, so that users don't even get curious about those corners of a system where they can burn themselves. 2. Any sanity check inserted to catch a can't happen error. Wise programmers often change code to fix a bug twice: once to fix the bug, and once to insert a firewall which would have arrested the bug before it did quite as much damage.
- flame-thrower — an implement that kills weeds by scorching them with a directed flow of flaming gas.
- flamethrowers — Plural form of flamethrower.
- flow cleavage — cleavage resulting from the parallel alignment of the mineral constituents of a rock when in a plastic condition.
- flower garden — plot for flowers
- flowering ash — a variety of ash tree that produces conspicuous flowers
- formal review — (project) A technical review conducted with the customer including the types of reviews called for in DOD-STD-2167A (Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review, etc.)
- forward delta — The delta which, when combined with a version, creates a child version. See change management
- fowler's toad — an eastern U.S. toad, Bufo woodhousii fowleri, having an almost patternless white belly.
- foxtail wedge — a wedge in the split end of a tenon, bolt, or the like, for spreading and securing it when driven into a blind mortise or hole.
- frank whittle — Sir Frank, 1907–96, English engineer and inventor.
- gallowglasses — Plural form of gallowglass.
- gallows frame — headframe.
- genital warts — a sexually transmitted disease caused by the human papilloma virus; the warts grow in the genital area
- get-well card — a greeting card sent to a person who is unwell, expressing a wish for a speedy recovery
- golden wattle — a broad-leaved, Australian acacia, Acacia pycnantha, of the legume family, having short clusters of yellow flowers and yielding tanbark and a useful gum.
- googlewhacker — One who searches for googlewhacks.
- gresham's law — the tendency of the inferior of two forms of currency to circulate more freely than, or to the exclusion of, the superior, because of the hoarding of the latter.
- guerrilla war — a war between an established army and a guerrilla group
- halfway house — an inn or stopping place situated approximately midway between two places on a road.
- homestead law — any law exempting homesteads from seizure or sale for debt.
- hot-swappable — (of devices, disks, etc) capable of being inserted or removed from a computer system that is running, without causing damage or affecting performance
- ideal gas law — the law that the product of the pressure and the volume of one gram molecule of an ideal gas is equal to the product of the absolute temperature of the gas and the universal gas constant.
- indecency law — the law relating to indecency
- indian yellow — Also called purree, snowshoe. an orange-yellow color.
- isolated pawn — a pawn without pawns of the same colour on neighbouring files
- japanese wolf — a wolf, Canis lupus hodophylax, of Japan.
- javelle water — sodium hypochlorite, NaOCl, dissolved in water, used as a bleach, antiseptic, etc.
- jigsaw puzzle — Also called picture puzzle. a set of irregularly cut pieces of pasteboard, wood, or the like that form a picture or design when fitted together.
- kepler's laws — any one of three laws governing planetary motion: each planet revolves in an ellipse, with the sun at one focus; the line connecting a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal periods of time (law of areas) or the square of the period of revolution of each planet is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of the planet's orbit (harmonic law)
- kerb-crawling — Kerb-crawling is the activity of driving slowly along the side of a road in order to find and hire a prostitute.
- knowledgeable — possessing or exhibiting knowledge, insight, or understanding; intelligent; well-informed; discerning; perceptive.
- knowledgeably — possessing or exhibiting knowledge, insight, or understanding; intelligent; well-informed; discerning; perceptive.
- knowledgebase — Alternative spelling of knowledge base.
- lake dwelling — a house, especially of prehistoric times, built on piles or other support over the water of a lake.
- lake winnipeg — a lake in S Canada, in Manitoba: drains through the Nelson River into Hudson Bay. Area: 23 553 sq km (9094 sq miles)
- lambert's law — the law that the luminous intensity of a perfectly diffusing surface in any direction is proportional to the cosine of the angle between that direction and the normal to the surface, for which reason the surface will appear equally bright from all directions.
- lancet window — a high, narrow window terminating in a lancet arch.
- landownership — an owner or proprietor of land.
- lantern wheel — a wheel, used like a pinion, consisting essentially of two parallel disks or heads whose peripheries are connected by a series of bars that engage with the teeth of another wheel.
- lantern-jawed — having a lantern jaw.
- laurel wreath — a wreath of interlocking laurel leaves and branches, which can be worn on the head to represent victory