20-letter words containing w, e, n
- western mountain ash — a mountain ash, Sorbus sitchensis, of western North America.
- western roman empire — the westernmost of the two empires created by the division of the later Roman Empire, esp after its final severance from the Eastern Roman Empire (395 ad)
- westminster assembly — a convocation that met at Westminster, London, 1643–49, and formulated the articles of faith (Westminster Confession of Faith) that are accepted as authoritative by most Presbyterian churches.
- weston standard cell — a primary cell used as a standard of emf, producing 1.018636 volts: consists of a mercury anode and a cadmium amalgam cathode in an electrolyte of saturated cadmium sulphate
- wheeling and dealing — the use of different methods and contacts, often dishonestly, to achieve one's ends
- wheels within wheels — a circular frame or disk arranged to revolve on an axis, as on or in vehicles or machinery.
- white elephant stall — a stall, usually at a fete or fundraising event, where unwanted possessions are sold
- white-fringed beetle — any of several weevils of the genus Graphognathus, native to South America and now of southeastern and mid-Atlantic U.S., whose larvae feed on roots and cause serious damage to a wide variety of plants.
- whole-life insurance — a type of insurance with a savings element that is guaranteed to pay out on death provided premiums have been paid as required by the policy
- whyte classification — a system for classifying steam locomotives according to the total number of wheels on the front trucks, drivers, and rear trucks, in that order. For example, a Pacific locomotive is designated as 4-6-2.
- wide-angle converter — a person or thing that converts.
- william westmoreland — William Childs [chahyldz] /tʃaɪldz/ (Show IPA), 1914–2005, U.S. army officer: commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam and Thailand 1964–68.
- wilson cloud chamber — cloud chamber.
- winter of discontent — the winter of 1978–1979, during which numerous strikes, esp by local authority workers, took place against a background of a government pay freeze
- winter olympic games — an international contest of winter sports, esp skiing, held every four years
- wintergreen barberry — a Chinese evergreen shrub, Berberis julianae, of the barberry family, having spiny leaves, dark green above, pale beneath, clusters of yellow flowers, and bluish-black fruit.
- wipe the slate clean — begin afresh
- with all one's heart — Anatomy. a hollow, pumplike organ of blood circulation, composed mainly of rhythmically contractile smooth muscle, located in the chest between the lungs and slightly to the left and consisting of four chambers: a right atrium that receives blood returning from the body via the superior and inferior vena cavae, a right ventricle that pumps the blood through the pulmonary artery to the lungs for oxygenation, a left atrium that receives the oxygenated blood via the pulmonary veins and passes it through the mitral valve, and a left ventricle that pumps the oxygenated blood, via the aorta, throughout the body.
- with all one's might — If you do something with all your might, you do it using all your strength and energy.
- with one's eyes open — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
- with one's eyes shut — with great ease, esp as a result of thorough familiarity
- with/in reference to — You use with reference to or in reference to in order to indicate what something relates to.
- without detriment to — If something happens without detriment to a person or thing, it does not harm or damage them.
- woman of easy virtue — a sexually available woman, esp a prostitute
- woman of the streets — a prostitute; streetwalker.
- woolly spider monkey — a rare related monkey, Brachyteles arachnoides, of SE Brazil
- worker participation — a process by which subordinate employees, either individually or collectively, become involved in one or more aspects of organizational decision making within the enterprises in which they work
- working relationship — a relationship with a colleague, boss or employee
- write-once read-many — (storage) (WORM) Any type of storage medium to which data can be written to only a single time, but can be read from any number of times. Typically this is an optical disk whose surface is permanently etched using a laser in order to record information. WORM media have a significantly longer shelf life than magnetic media and thus are used when data must be preserved for a long time.
- writer to the signet — (in Scotland) a member of an ancient society of solicitors, now having the exclusive privilege of preparing crown writs
- xerox network system — (networking) (XNS) A proprietary network architecture developed by the Xerox Office Systems Division of Xerox corporation at Xerox PARC in the late 1970s/early 1980s to run on LAN (Ethernet) and WAN networks. The XNS protocol stack provided routing and packet delivery. Implementations exist for 4.3BSD derived systems and the Xerox Star computers. Novell based much of the lower layers of their protocol suite IPX/SPX on XNS. The main components are: Internet datagram protocol (IDP), Routing information protocol (RIP), Packet Exchange protocol (PEP), and Sequences packet protocol (SPP). XNS has strong parellels to TCP/IP in that the network layer, IDP, is roughly equivalent to IP. RIP has the same functions (and obviously name) as the routing information protocol, RIP. SPP, a connectionless transport layer protocol, is similar to UDP. PEP is also in the transport layer but is connection-oriented and similar to TCP. XNS specifically is no longer in use due to the all pervasiveness of IP. XNS denotes not only the protocol stack, but also an architecture of standard programming interfaces, conventions, and service functions for authentication, directory, filing, e-mail, and remote procedure call. XNS is also the name of Xerox's implementation. Many PC networking companies, such as 3Com, Banyan, Novell, and Ungermann-Bass Networks used or use a variation of XNS as their primary transport protocol. XNS was desigined to be used across a variety of communication media, processors, and office applications. UB, (now a part of Tandem Computers) adopted XNS in developing its Net/One XNS routing protocol.
- you know what i mean — You can use expressions such as you know what I mean and if you know what I mean to suggest that the person listening to you understands what you are trying to say, and so you do not have to explain any more.
- yu-shiang whole fish — /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ An obsolete name for the Greek character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII code 9, Unicode glyph 0x0263) which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not parsed) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Used primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.