20-letter words containing a, l, e, s, u, n
- supplemental plumage — the third plumage assumed by certain birds having three different plumages in their annual cycle of molts.
- supplementary angles — either of two angles that added together produce an angle of 180°.
- surveillance society — a society where surveillance technology is widely used to monitor people's everyday activities
- systemic circulation — the circulatory system in general.
- terrestrial guidance — a method of missile or rocket guidance in which the flight path is controlled by reference to the strength and direction of the earth's gravitational or magnetic field
- the canterbury tales — an uncompleted sequence of tales by Chaucer, written for the most part after 1387.
- thomas of erceldoune — Thomas of, Thomas of Erceldoune.
- three-quarter nelson — a hold in which a wrestler, from a kneeling position behind a prone opponent, applies a half nelson with one arm, passes the other arm under the opponent's body on the near side, and locks the arms at the fingers or wrist on the back of the opponent's neck.
- to burst into flames — If something bursts into flames or bursts into flame, it suddenly starts burning strongly.
- troilus and cressida — a satiric comedy (1598–1602?) by Shakespeare.
- tropical disturbance — a very weak, or incipient, tropical cyclone.
- twelve-string guitar — an acoustic guitar having twelve strings instead of six, with each pair tuned an octave apart, and more difficult to play than the standard guitar.
- ultimate constituent — an element of a construction that cannot be further divided into grammatical constituents: the morphemes of an utterance are usually considered to be its ultimate constituents.
- uncharacteristically — Also, characteristical. pertaining to, constituting, or indicating the character or peculiar quality of a person or thing; typical; distinctive: Red and gold are the characteristic colors of autumn.
- universal quantifier — a quantifier indicating that the sentential function within its scope is true for all values of any variable included in the quantifier.
- universal serial bus — (hardware, standard) (USB) An external peripheral interface standard for communication between a computer and external peripherals over an inexpensive cable using biserial transmission. USB is intended to replace existing serial ports, parallel ports, keyboard, and monitor connectors and be used with keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, and possibly some low-speed scanners and removable hard drives. For faster devices existing IDE, SCSI, or emerging FC-AL or FireWire interfaces can be used. USB works at 12 Mbps with specific consideration for low cost peripherals. It supports up to 127 devices and both isochronous and asynchronous data transfers. Cables can be up to five metres long and it includes built-in power distribution for low power devices. It supports daisy chaining through a tiered star multidrop topology. A USB cable has a rectangular "Type A" plug at the computer end and a square "Type B" plug at the peripheral end. Before March 1996 Intel started to integrate the necessary logic into PC chip sets and encourage other manufacturers to do likewise. It was widely available by 1997. Later versions of Windows 95 included support for it. It was standard on Macintosh computers in 1999. The USB 2.0 specification was released in 2000 to allow USB to compete with Firewire etc. USB 2.0 is backward compatible with USB 1.1 but works at 480 Mbps.
- unsaddling enclosure — the area at a racecourse where horses are unsaddled after a race and often where awards are given to owners, trainers, and jockeys
- visual merchandising — Visual merchandising is the use of attractive displays and floor plans to increase customer numbers and sales volumes.
- visually handicapped — unable to carry out normal activities because of defects of vision, including blindness
- voluntary euthanasia — the act of killing someone painlessly, esp to relieve suffering from an incurable illness, with their consent
- whole-life insurance — a type of insurance with a savings element that is guaranteed to pay out on death provided premiums have been paid as required by the policy
- wilson cloud chamber — cloud chamber.
- yu-shiang whole fish — /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ An obsolete name for the Greek character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII code 9, Unicode glyph 0x0263) which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not parsed) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Used primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.