9-letter words containing w, o, l
- holy wars — [Usenet, but may predate it] flame wars over religious issues. The paper by Danny Cohen that popularised the terms big-endian and little-endian was entitled "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace". Other perennial Holy Wars have included Emacs vs. vi, my personal computer vs. everyone else's personal computer, ITS vs. Unix, Unix vs. VMS, BSD Unix vs. USG Unix, C vs. Pascal, C vs. Fortran, etc., ad nauseam. The characteristic that distinguishes holy wars from normal technical disputes is that in a holy wars most of the participants spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. See also theology.
- holy week — the week preceding Easter Sunday.
- holy writ — the Scriptures.
- honeywell — (company) A US company known for its mainframes and operating systems. The company's history is long and tortuous, with many mergers, acquisitions and name changes. A company formed on 1886-04-23 to make furnace regulators eventually merged in 1927 with another company formed in 1904 by a young plumbing and heating engineer named Mark Honeywell who was perfecting the heat generator. A 1955 joint venture with Raytheon Corp., called Datamatic Corporation, marked Honeywell's entry into the computer business. Their first computer was the D-1000. In 1960 Honeywell bought out Raytheon's interest and the name changed to Electronic Data Processing (EDP) then in 1963 it was officially renamed Honeywell Inc. In 1970 Honeywell merged its computer business with General Electric's to form Honeywell Information Systems. In 1986 a joint venture with the french company Bull and japanese NEC Corporation created Honeywell Bull. By 1991 Honeywell had withdrawn from the computer business, focussing more on aeropspace. See also: brain-damaged.
- howl down — to utter a loud, prolonged, mournful cry, as that of a dog or wolf.
- howlingly — producing or uttering a howling noise: a howling mob.
- howlround — the condition, resulting in a howling noise, when sound from a loudspeaker is fed back into the microphone of a public-address or recording system
- hull down — the hollow, lowermost portion of a ship, floating partially submerged and supporting the remainder of the ship.
- in flower — When a plant is in flower or when it has come into flower, its flowers have appeared and opened.
- inflowing — Flowing inward.
- inglewood — a city in SW California, near Los Angeles.
- interflow — to flow into each other; intermingle.
- iron will — stubbornness, determination
- jane cowl — Jane, 1884–1950, U.S. actress and playwright.
- jewel box — jewel case.
- jobernowl — a stupid person; blockhead
- jowliness — the feature of having large jowls or a prominent jaw
- kahoolawe — an island in central Hawaii, S of Maui: uninhabited. 45 sq. mi. (117 sq. km).
- kilowatts — Plural form of kilowatt.
- knowingly — affecting, implying, or deliberately revealing shrewd knowledge of secret or private information: a knowing glance.
- knowledge — acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things.
- kollywood — the Tamil-language film industry, based at Kodambakkam in S India
- lamb down — to persuade (someone) to spend all his money
- lambswool — Fine wool from a young sheep, used to make knitted garments, blankets, etc., with a soft texture.
- lancewood — the tough, elastic wood of any of various trees, especially Oxandra lanceolata, of tropical America, used for carriage shafts, cabinetwork, etc.
- landowner — an owner or proprietor of land.
- landowska — Wanda [won-duh;; Polish vahn-dah] /ˈwɒn də;; Polish ˈvɑn dɑ/ (Show IPA), 1879–1959, Polish harpsichordist, in the U.S. after 1940.
- lansdowne — Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice [pet-ee-fits-mawr-is,, -mor-] /ˈpɛt i fɪtsˈmɔr ɪs,, -ˈmɒr-/ (Show IPA), 5th Marquis of, 1845–1927, British statesman: viceroy of India 1888–94, foreign secretary 1900–05.
- laserwort — the name given to several umbelliferous woodland plants of the genus Laserpitium, such as Laserpitium latifolium, whose roots are used as a flavouring
- last word — the closing remark or comment, as in an argument: By the rules of debate she would have the last word.
- late wood — summerwood.
- lava flow — liquid or solidified lava which has erupted from a volcano onto the Earth's surface
- law court — court of law.
- law lords — (in Britain) members of the House of Lords who sit as the highest court of appeal, although in theory the full House of Lords has this role
- lawmonger — an inferior lawyer
- lawnmower — a hand-operated or motor-driven machine for cutting the grass of a lawn.
- leadworks — a factory that makes things out of lead
- leadworts — Plural form of leadwort.
- leibowitz — René [ruh-ney] /rəˈneɪ/ (Show IPA), 1913–1972, French conductor and composer, born in Poland.
- lemon law — a law that requires manufacturers to replace, repair, or refund the cost of automobiles that prove to be defective.
- lemonwood — a tropical American tree, Calycophyllum candidissimum, of the madder family, having flowers with conspicuous white calyx lobes.
- levittown — a town on W Long Island, in SE New York.
- lifeworld — All the immediate experiences, activities, and contacts that make up the world of an individual or corporate life.
- lightwood — Also called fatwood. kindling.
- live down — to have life, as an organism; be alive; be capable of vital functions: all things that live.
- liverwort — any mosslike plant of the class Hepaticae, growing chiefly on damp ground, rocks, or on tree trunks and helping the decay of logs and the disintegration of rocks.
- load down — If you load someone down with things, especially heavy things, you give them a large number of them or put a large number of them on them.
- loan word — a word in one language that has been borrowed from another language and usually naturalized, as wine, taken into Old English from Latin vinum, or macho, taken into Modern English from Spanish.
- loanwords — Plural form of loanword.
- lock away — put in prison