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20-letter words containing w

  • common yellow throat — a widely distributed wood warbler, Geothlypis trichas, of North America and Mexico, in the male having a black facial mask and yellow underparts.
  • commonwealth hackish — (jargon)   Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in newsgroup names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix meta may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred metasyntactic variables include blurgle, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", fish, and so on and on (see foo). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for bang is common outside the United States. See also attoparsec, calculator, chemist, console jockey, fish, go-faster stripes, grunge, hakspek, heavy metal, leaky heap, lord high fixer, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, raster blaster, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, terminal junkie, tick-list features, weeble, weasel, YABA, and notes or definitions under Bad Thing, barf, bum, chase pointers, cosmic rays, crippleware, crunch, dodgy, gonk, hamster, hardwarily, mess-dos, nibble, proglet, root, SEX, tweak and xyzzy.
  • commune with oneself — to think; ponder
  • conventional weapons — weapons which are not nuclear
  • covenant of warranty — warranty (def 2b).
  • covenant-of-warranty — warranty (def 2b).
  • crossword dictionary — a dictionary that lists common clues found in crossword puzzles with potential answer words. In books, the lists are usually sorted by the number of letters in the answer, while an online crossword dictionary, such as the Dictionary.com Crossword Solver, is able to analyze queries electronically, examining either the clue or the number and pattern of letters already filled in to arrive at suggested answers.
  • curry favour with sb — If one person tries to curry favour with another, they do things in order to try to gain their support or co-operation.
  • cut one's own throat — to be the means of one's own ruin
  • defense data network — (DDN) A global communications network serving the US Department of Defense. Composed of MILNET, other portions of the Internet, and classified networks which are not part of the Internet. The DDN is used to connect military installations and is managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency.
  • dependency allowance — an allowance paid by a government to a person who cares for dependants
  • dewey decimal system — a frequently used system of library book classification and arrangement with ten main subject classes
  • dickless workstation — (abuse)   Extremely pejorative hackerism for "diskless workstation".
  • disability allowance — an amount of money paid by the government to people who are unable to work because of a disability. This is a general term or, in the UK, a shorter way of referring to what is officially called the Disability Living Allowance
  • discounted cash flow — a technique for appraising an investment that takes into account the different values of future returns according to when they will be received
  • diskless workstation — (computer, networking)   A personal computer or workstation which has neither a hard disk nor floppy disk drive and which performs all file access via a local area network connection to a file server. The lowest level bootstrap code is stored in non-volatile storage. This uses a simple protocol such as BOOTP to request and download more sophisticated boot code and eventually, the operating system. The archtypal product was the 3Station developed by Bob Metcalfe at 3Com. Another example was the Sun 3/50. Diskless workstations are ideal when many users are running the same application. They are small, quiet, more reliable than products with disks, and help prevent both the theft of data and the introduction of viruses since the software and data available on them is controlled by the network administrator or system administrator. They do however rely on a server which becomes a disadvantage if it is heavily loaded or down. See also breath-of-life packet.
  • draw close/draw near — If an event or period of time is drawing closer or is drawing nearer, it is approaching.
  • draw the short straw — to be the person (as in drawing lots) to whom an unwelcome task or fate falls
  • drink with the flies — to drink alone
  • due process (of law) — the course of legal proceedings established by the legal system of a nation or state to protect individual rights
  • early warning system — Military. a network of radar installations designed to detect enemy aircraft or missiles in time for the effective deployment of defense systems.
  • early-warning system — Military. a network of radar installations designed to detect enemy aircraft or missiles in time for the effective deployment of defense systems.
  • edward the confessor — Saint, 1002?–66, English king 1042–66: founder of Westminster Abbey.
  • electromagnetic wave — a wave of energy propagated in an electromagnetic field
  • fight fire with fire — a state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame.
  • first world problems — If you say that someone has First World problems, you mean that their problems are not really very important.
  • for all one is worth — good or important enough to justify (what is specified): advice worth taking; a place worth visiting.
  • for better for worse — whatever the subsequent events or changes may be
  • frederick william ii — 1744–97, king of Prussia 1786–97.
  • frederick william iv — 1795–1861, king of Prussia 1840–61 (brother of William I of Prussia).
  • friend with benefits — (used as a euphemism) a friend with whom one has sex without a romantic relationship or commitment.
  • full to the gunwales — completely full; full to overflowing
  • gentleman-in-waiting — a man who comes from a family of high social standing and who is attached to a royal household or to the household of a person of high rank
  • get away from it all — If you get away from it all, you have a holiday in a place that is very different from where you normally live and work.
  • get away with murder — Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)
  • get someone in wrong — to bring someone into disfavor
  • give a wide berth to — to keep clear of; avoid
  • go from bad to worse — worsen
  • greatest lower bound — a lower bound that is greater than or equal to all the lower bounds of a given set: 1 is the greatest lower bound of the set consisting of 1, 2, 3. Abbreviation: glb.
  • greenwich hour angle — hour angle measured from the meridian of Greenwich, England.
  • grey-crowned babbler — an insect-eating Australian bird, Pomatostomus temporalis of the family Timaliidae
  • group of twenty-four — a group of twenty-four rich and industrialized countries of the world, whose heads of government meet regularly to coordinate the position of developing countries on monetary and development issues
  • hail-fellow-well-met — friendly but insincere
  • hardware handshaking — (communications)   A technique for regulating the flow of data across an interface by means of signals carried on separate wires. A common example is the RTS (Request to Send) and CTS (Clear to Send) signals on an EIA-232 serial line. The alternative, software handshaking, uses two special characters inserted into the data stream to carry the same information.
  • have come a long way — If you say that someone or something has come a long way, you mean that they have developed, progressed, or become very successful.
  • hawaii-standard-time — Alaska-Hawaii time.
  • hazard warning lamps — Hazard warning lamps are flashing lamps on each corner of a vehicle that are used to show the position of the vehicle if there has been a breakdown or an accident.
  • helmeted guinea fowl — the common guinea fowl in its wild state.
  • heston and isleworth — a former borough, now part of Hounslow, in SE England, near London.
  • holy water sprinkler — morning star (def 2).
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