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18-letter words containing y

  • lone-parent family — a family in which there is only one parent
  • lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
  • long-stay car park — a car park (eg at an airport) where cars can be left for a long time
  • look the other way — look in the opposite direction
  • loosestrife family — the plant family Lythraceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees having usually opposite or whorled, simple leaves, clusters of flowers, and fruit in the form of a capsule, and including the crape myrtle, loosestrifes of the genus Lythrum, and the henna shrub.
  • lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
  • luminous intensity — the luminous flux in lumens emitted per unit solid angle by a light source, measured in candles.
  • lyophilized powder — Lyophilized powder is a freeze-dried powder.
  • madeira embroidery — broderie anglaise.
  • 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".
  • magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
  • magnetoelectricity — electricity developed by the action of magnets.
  • magnetogasdynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
  • make heavy weather — to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc.: to make a dress; to make a channel; to make a work of art.
  • management company — a company that manages a unit trust
  • many happy returns — When it is someone's birthday, people sometimes say 'Many happy returns' to them as a way of greeting them.
  • marine archaeology — the branch of archaeology that deals with the recovery of ancient objects found beneath the sea, as shipwrecks or remains from submerged islands, and with the techniques of underwater exploration, excavation, and retrieval.
  • market opportunity — a situation in which a company can meet an unsatisfied customer need before its competitors
  • marketing strategy — a general plan or set of plans dealing with marketing, especially over a long period
  • maternity hospital — birthing facility
  • may flower compact — an agreement to establish a government, entered into by the Pilgrims in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620.
  • medical dictionary — a specialized dictionary covering terms used in the health professions by doctors, nurses, and others involved in allied health care services. A dictionary with authoritative spellings and definitions is a particularly crucial resource in medicine, where a misspelling or misunderstanding can have unfortunate consequences for people under care. Print dictionaries in this field may be sorted alphabetically or may be categorized according to medical specializations or by the various systems in the body, as the immune system and the respiratory system. The online Medical Dictionary on Dictionary.com allows alphabetical browsing in the combined electronic versions of more than one authoritative medical reference, insuring access to correct spellings, as well as immediate, direct access to a known search term typed into the search box on the site: A medical dictionary reveals that large numbers of medical terms are formed from the same Latin and Greek parts combined and recombined.
  • melt in your mouth — to require little or no chewing
  • meniere's syndrome — a disease of the labyrinth of the ear, characterized by deafness, ringing in the ears, dizziness, and nausea.
  • mercury delay line — (storage, history)   An archaic first-in first-out fixed time period data storage device using acoustic transducers to transmit data as waves in a trough or tube of mercury. EDSAC (Cambridge) and UNIVAC I used delay lines.
  • mercury-vapor lamp — a lamp producing a light with a high actinic and ultraviolet content by means of an electric arc in mercury vapor.
  • metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
  • methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
  • methyl transferase — any of a class of enzymes that catalyze the transfer of methyl groups from one molecule to another.
  • methylated spirits — ethyl alcohol denatured with methyl alcohol for the purpose of preventing its use as an alcoholic beverage.
  • methylcyclohexanol — a colorless, aromatic, viscous liquid mixture, chiefly of the ortho and para forms of CH 3 C 6 H 1 0 OH, derived from cresol by hydrogenation: used chiefly as a solvent for rubber, cellulose, esters, and phenols.
  • methylene chloride — a colorless, volatile liquid, CH 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent, as a refrigerant, and as a local anesthetic in dentistry.
  • methylprednisolone — A synthetic glucocorticoid drug, with chemical formula C22H30O5.
  • methyltestosterone — a synthetic androgenic steroid drug, C 2 0 H 3 0 O 2 , used for its anabolic properties in males in the treatment of hypogonadism and other androgen-deficiency disease states, and in females in the treatment of breast cancer.
  • mexican gold poppy — an annual wildflower, Eschscholzia mexicana, having orange-gold, cup-shaped flowers, found in dry, mountainous regions of western North America.
  • microcrystallinity — The condition of being microcrystalline.
  • micropalaeontology — the branch of palaeontology concerned with the study of microscopic fossils
  • military policeman — A military policeman is a member of the military police.
  • milkweed butterfly — monarch butterfly.
  • minimally invasive — (of medical treatments or procedures) requiring only a small incision or the insertion of an instrument into a body cavity; involving minimal damage of body tissue: minimally invasive endoscopy.
  • minority president — (in the US) a president who has been elected by the largest number of votes cast but not by a majority of the electorate
  • minority programme — a programme that appeals to a minority of the available audience
  • mobile data system — a system consisting of a client computer requesting information and a server supplying this information
  • mobility allowance — an allowance paid by the government to help people who have limited mobility
  • monetary aggregate — a measure of the money in circulation.
  • money for old rope — If you describe a payment as money for old rope, you are emphasizing that it is earned very easily, for very little effort.
  • money is no object — If you say that money is no object or distance is no object, you are emphasizing that you are willing or able to spend as much money as necessary or travel whatever distance is required.
  • money of necessity — temporary coinage, as siege pieces, issued in areas where regular coinage is unavailable: sometimes of unusual materials, as leather or wood.
  • monochlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of three isomers of a chlorinated derivative of biphenyl containing one chlorine atom.
  • monophosphorylated — (biochemistry) phosphorylated with a single unit of phosphoric acid.
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