18-letter words containing w, r, i

fulminating powder — powder that explodes by percussion.
give someone a row — to scold someone; tell someone off
go down in history — If someone or something goes down in history, people in the future remember them because of particular actions that they have done or because of particular events that have happened.
go with the stream — to conform to the accepted standards
good samaritan law — a law that exempts from legal liability persons, sometimes only physicians, who give reasonable aid to strangers in grave physical distress.
gravitational wave — (in general relativity) a propagating wave of gravitational energy produced by accelerating masses, especially during catastrophic events, as the gravitational collapse of massive stars.
great white father — the president of the U.S.
greater periwinkle — a Eurasian apocynaceous evergreen plant of the genus Vinca, V. major, having trailing stems and blue flowers
greenhouse warming — the increase in the mean temperature of the earth attributed to the greenhouse effect
growing degree-day — a degree-day above 41°F (5°C), used in relation to plant growth.
hardy-weinberg law — a principle stating that in an infinitely large, randomly mating population in which selection, migration, and mutation do not occur, the frequencies of alleles and genotypes do not change from generation to generation.
have words with sb — If one person has words with another, or if two or more people have words, they have a serious discussion or argument, especially because one has complained about the other's behaviour.
hawksbill (turtle) — a medium-sized marine turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata, family Cheloniidae) having a hawklike beak and a horny shell from which tortoise shell is obtained
hell or high water — whatever difficulties may arise
herring bone weave — a pattern consisting of adjoining vertical rows of slanting lines, any two contiguous lines forming either a V or an inverted V , used in masonry, textiles, embroidery, etc.
homeowner's policy — a form of home insurance that provides compensation for damage, loss, or injury of property, personal belongings, or persons due to fire, theft, accidents, etc.
hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
in accordance with — conforming to
in comparison with — when compared to
in complete flower — a flower without one or more of the normal parts, as carpels, sepals, petals, pistils, or stamens.
in one's own right — in accordance with what is good, proper, or just: right conduct.
in one's own words — If you say something in your own words, you express it in your own way, without copying or repeating someone else's description.
in someone's power — under the control or sway of someone
interest rate swap — An interest rate swap is a contract where two parties exchange the cash flow from interest rates.
intimate borrowing — the borrowing of linguistic forms by one language or dialect from another when both occupy a single geographical or cultural community.
inverse square law — one of several laws relating two quantities such that one quantity varies inversely as the square of the other, as the law that the illumination produced on a screen by a point source varies inversely as the square of the distance of the screen from the source.
iridescent seaweed — a red alga, Irideae cordata, found on the Pacific coast of North America, having broad, leathery, iridescent blades.
james baird weaver — James Baird, 1833–1912, U.S. politician: congressman 1879–81, 1885–89.
jewel in the crown — the most valuable, esteemed, or successful person or thing of a number
junior heavyweight — a boxer weighing up to 190 pounds (85.5 kg), between light heavyweight and heavyweight.
junior lightweight — a boxer weighing up to 130 pounds (58.5 kg), between featherweight and lightweight.
keyword in context — (algorithm, information science) (KWIC) A document search method that creates indexes of document text or titles. Each keyword is stored in the resulting index along with some surrounding text, usually the word or phrase that precedes or follows the keyword in the text or title.
king william's war — the war (1689–97) in which England and its American colonies and Indian allies opposed France and its Indian allies and which constituted the American phase of the War of the Grand Alliance.
kirtland's warbler — a wood warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, breeding only in north-central Michigan and wintering in the Bahamas, bluish gray above, striped with black and pale yellow below: an endangered species.
law of gravitation — a law stating that any two masses attract each other with a force equal to a constant (constant of gravitation) multiplied by the product of the two masses and divided by the square of the distance between them.
law of segregation — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
lawrence of arabia — D(avid) H(erbert) 1885–1930, English novelist.
lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
light welterweight — an amateur boxer weighing 60–63.5 kg (132–140 pounds)
long hundredweight — a hundredweight of 112 pounds (50.8 kg), the usual hundredweight in Great Britain, but now rare in the U.S.
lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
lyophilized powder — Lyophilized powder is a freeze-dried powder.
magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
marine underwriter — an underwriter who specializes in marine insurance
mechanical drawing — drawing, as of machinery, done with the aid of rulers, scales, compasses, etc.
medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
mendel's first law — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that during the production of gametes the two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent.
microsloth windows — (abuse, operating system) /mi:'kroh-sloth" win"dohz/ (Or "Windoze", /win'dohz/) A derogatory term for Microsoft Windows which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonisingly slow on anything less than a fast 486. Also called just "Windoze", with the implication that you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term is extremely common on Usenet. Compare X, sun-stools.
microwave detector — a device for recording the speed of a motorist
microwave spectrum — a spectrum of electromagnetic radiations whose wavelengths fall in the microwave range.

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