15-letter words containing w, o, d, l, a
- old wives' tale — a traditional belief, story, or idea that is often of a superstitious nature.
- orange milkweed — butterfly weed (def 1).
- outline drawing — a drawing consisting only of external lines
- outward-looking — looking beyond oneself; open-minded and reaching out to other people, organizations, etc
- paradise flower — a prickly vine, Solanum wendlandii, of the nightshade family, native to Costa Rica, having branched clusters of showy lilac-blue flowers.
- privately owned — owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body
- red sandal wood — the fragrant heartwood of any of certain Asian trees of the genus Santalum, used for ornamental carving and burned as incense.
- rolling meadows — a city in NE Illinois, near Chicago.
- rowland heights — a city in SW California, near Los Angeles.
- sewage disposal — waste processing
- short-eared owl — a streaked, buffy brown, cosmopolitan owl, Asio flammeus, having very short tufts of feathers on each side of the head.
- shoulder weapon — a firearm that is fired while being held in the hands with the butt of the weapon braced against the shoulder.
- southeastwardly — toward the southeast
- southwestwardly — toward the southwest
- sword swallower — performer who puts swords in throat
- sword-swallower — a performer who simulates the swallowing of swords
- take lying down — to be in a horizontal, recumbent, or prostrate position, as on a bed or the ground; recline. Antonyms: stand.
- talcum (powder) — a powder for the body and face made of powdered, purified talc, usually perfumed
- tall meadow rue — a meadow rue, Thalictrum polygamum.
- thorndike's law — the principle that all learnt behaviour is regulated by rewards and punishments, proposed by Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949), US psychologist
- titius-bode law — Bode's law.
- to draw a blank — If you draw a blank when you are looking for someone or something, you do not succeed in finding them.
- to lead the way — If you lead the way along a particular route, you go along it in front of someone in order to show them where to go.
- troubled waters — a confused or chaotic state of affairs: The situation was terrible, but like many politicians he was attracted by troubled waters.
- two-dimensional — having the dimensions of height and width only: a two-dimensional surface.
- unknowledgeable — possessing or exhibiting knowledge, insight, or understanding; intelligent; well-informed; discerning; perceptive.
- upward mobility — movement from one social level to a higher one (upward mobility) or a lower one (downward mobility) as by changing jobs or marrying.
- upwardly mobile — See under vertical mobility (def 1).
- völkerwanderung — the migration of peoples, esp of Germanic and Slavic peoples into S and W Europe from 2nd to 11th centuries
- walking holiday — a holiday on which you walk a lot, esp in the countryside
- walking wounded — casualties, as of a military conflict, who are wounded but ambulatory.
- waterfall model — (programming) A software life-cycle or product life-cycle model, described by W. W. Royce in 1970, in which development is supposed to proceed linearly through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration and maintenance. The Waterfall Model is considered old-fashioned or simplistic by proponents of object-oriented design which often uses the spiral model instead. Earlier phases are sometimes called "upstream" and later ones "downstream". Compare: iterative model.
- waterford glass — fine cut or gilded glass made in Waterford, Ireland, having a slight blue cast due to the presence of cobalt.
- well-accustomed — customary; usual; habitual: in their accustomed manner.
- well-elaborated — worked out with great care and nicety of detail; executed with great minuteness: elaborate preparations; elaborate care. Synonyms: perfected, painstaking. Antonyms: simple.
- well-formulated — to express in precise form; state definitely or systematically: He finds it extremely difficult to formulate his new theory.
- wheelchairbound — Confined to a wheelchair.
- wild and woolly — unrestrained; lawless: a wild-and-woolly frontier town.
- wild-and-woolly — unrestrained; lawless: a wild-and-woolly frontier town.
- wilderness road — a 300-mile (500-km) route from eastern Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, explored by Daniel Boone in 1769 and marked as a trail by him and other pioneers in 1775: a major route for early settlers moving west.
- wind-pollinated — being pollinated by airborne pollen.
- windfall profit — a profit that arises thanks to an external event over which the person profiting had no control
- window cleaning — the task of washing and shining windows
- winter holidays — a period of rest from work or studies taken in winter
- withholding tax — that part of an employee's tax liability withheld by the employer from wages or salary and paid directly to the government.
- working holiday — trip combining vacation with job experience
- world-wide wait — (humour) A pejorative expansion of WWW reflecting on the slowness of some network connections and sites.
- wreathed column — a column having a twisted or spiral form.
- yellow lead ore — wulfenite.
- yellow mandarin — (in the Chinese Empire) a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button worn on the cap.