12-letter words starting with v
- variety show — vaudeville performance
- variety turn — an act in a variety show
- variocoupler — a transformer having coils with a self-impedance that is essentially constant but a mutual impedance that can be varied by moving one coil with respect to the other.
- varnish tree — any of various trees yielding sap or other substances used for varnish, as Rhus verniciflua, of Japan.
- varying hare — snowshoe hare.
- vas deferens — the duct that transports the sperm from the epididymis to the penis.
- vas efferens — any of a number of short ducts that carry sperm from the testis to the epididymis.
- vascular ray — a radiate band of parenchyma in the secondary xylem extending into the secondary phloem of the stems of certain vascular plants, formed by the cambium and serving for the storage of food and the conduction of nutriments.
- vascularised — (of a tissue or embryo) to develop or extend blood vessels or other fluid-bearing vessels or ducts; become vascular.
- vascularized — rendered vascular by the formation of new blood vessels.
- vasoactivity — activity that affects the diameter of blood vessels
- vasodilation — dilatation of the blood vessels, as by the action of a nerve.
- vasodilatory — of or relating to the dilation of blood vessels
- vasoligation — ligation of the vas deferens.
- vasoligature — vasoligation.
- vatican city — an independent state within the city of Rome, on the right bank of the Tiber. Established in 1929, it is ruled by the pope and includes St. Peter's Church and the Vatican. 109 acres (44 hectares).
- vaticination — an act of prophesying.
- vaudevillian — Also, vaudevillist. a person who writes for or performs in vaudeville.
- vaudevillist — a person who writes for vaudeville
- vax document — A document preparation system from DEC.
- vector boson — one of the three particles that are believed to transmit the weak force: the positively charged W particle, the negatively charged W particle, and the neutral Z 0 particle.
- vector field — a region, domain, set, etc., with a vector assigned at each point; vector function.
- vector space — an additive group in which addition is commutative and with which is associated a field of scalars, as the field of real numbers, such that the product of a scalar and an element of the group or a vector is defined, the product of two scalars times a vector is associative, one times a vector is the vector, and two distributive laws hold.
- vedette boat — a small patrol vessel
- vegetal pole — the relatively inactive part of an ovum opposite the animal pole, containing much yolk and little cytoplasm.
- vegetational — all the plants or plant life of a place, taken as a whole: the vegetation of the Nile valley.
- velarization — to pronounce with velar articulation.
- velcro strip — a strip or roll of Velcro, able to be cut to the required length
- vellum paper — a creamy coloured heavy paper resembling vellum
- velo binding — a technique for binding books or documents that uses a narrow plastic strip along the length of the front and back binding edges and plastic pegs to attach the strips through holes punched in the pages.
- velocipedean — someone who rides a velocipede
- velociraptor — a small carnivorous dinosaur of the genus Velociraptor , from the late Cretaceous period, capable of leaping, and growing to a length of about 6 feet (2 meters), having feathers, a flat snout, short forelimbs with large handlike talons, and a large sickle-shaped claw on each foot.
- velvet glove — an outwardly gentle or friendly manner used to disguise one's firm or ruthless determination.
- velvet plant — a composite plant, Gynura aurantiaca, native to the Old World tropics, having leaves and stems covered with dense, velvety, purple hairs and often cultivated as a houseplant. Compare purple passion.
- velvet shank — a bright yellow edible basidiomycetous fungus, Flammulina velutipes, common on trunks, stumps, or branches of broad-leaved trees in winter
- veneer patch — a patch made in one of the veneers of a sheet of plywood before layup.
- venepuncture — the puncture of a vein for surgical or therapeutic purposes or for collecting blood specimens for analysis.
- venerability — commanding respect because of great age or impressive dignity; worthy of veneration or reverence, as because of high office or noble character: a venerable member of Congress.
- venetian red — a red pigment, originally prepared from a natural oxide of iron, now usually made by calcining a mixture of lime and ferrous sulfate.
- vengefulness — desiring or seeking vengeance; vindictive: a vengeful attitude.
- venipuncture — the puncture of a vein for surgical or therapeutic purposes or for collecting blood specimens for analysis.
- venn diagram — a diagram that uses circles to represent sets and their relationships.
- ventana cave — a Paleo-Indian archaeological site near Tucson, Arizona.
- ventnor city — a town in SE New Jersey.
- ventral root — a nerve fiber bundle that emerges from either side of the spinal cord and joins with a complementary bundle to form each spinal nerve in the series of spinal nerves: the root at the rear of the spinal cord (dorsal root or sensory root) conveys sensations to the central nervous system, and the root at the front (ventral root or motor root) conveys impulses to the muscles.
- ventripotent — having a large belly
- ventrodorsal — pertaining to the ventral and dorsal aspects of the body; extending from the ventral to the dorsal side.
- ventromedial — relating to both the ventral and medial surfaces, or to the front and to the middle
- venturi tube — a device for measuring the flow of a fluid, consisting of a tube with a short, narrow center section and widened, tapered ends, so that a fluid flowing through the center section at a higher velocity than through an end section creates a pressure differential that is a measure of the flow of the fluid.
- venus figure — Venus (def 3).