20-letter words containing w, e, r, o
- webster's dictionary — Informal. a dictionary of the English language, especially American English, such as Dictionary.com.
- western civilization — European culture, thought
- 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)
- 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
- wet-bulb thermometer — a thermometer having a bulb that is kept moistened when humidity determinations are being made with a psychrometer.
- white people problem — a fairly minor problem, complaint, etc., associated with a relatively high standard of living; a first world problem.
- white-flowered gourd — the hard-shelled fruit of any of various plants, especially those of Lagenaria siceraria (white-flowered gourd or bottle gourd) whose dried shell is used for bowls and other utensils, and Cucurbita pepo (yellow-flowered gourd) used ornamentally. Compare gourd family.
- 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
- 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
- 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/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.
- without prejudice to — If you take an action without prejudice to an existing situation, your action does not change or harm that situation.
- 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
- woolsorters' disease — pulmonary anthrax in humans, caused by inhaling the spores of Bacillus anthracis, which may contaminate wool fleece.
- worcestershire sauce — a sharp sauce made with soy, vinegar, spices, etc., originally made in Worcester, England.
- 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.
- yellow-breasted chat — an American warbler, Icteria virens, having a yellow throat and breast and greenish-brown upper parts and noted for imitating the songs of other species.