15-letter words containing a, n
- astronavigation — celestial navigation
- at arm's length — If you hold something at arm's length, you hold it away from your body with your arm straight.
- at first glance — If you say that something is true or seems to be true at first glance, you mean that it seems to be true when you first see it or think about it, but that your first impression may be wrong.
- at pistol point — being under or using the threat of being shot
- at right angles — If two things are at right angles, they are situated so that they form an angle of 90° where they touch each other. You can also say that one thing is at right angles to another.
- at sb's bidding — If you do something at someone's bidding, you do it because they have asked you to do it.
- at sbs instance — If you do something at someone's instance, you do it because they have ordered or requested you to do it.
- at short notice — Notice is used in expressions such as 'at short notice', 'at a moment's notice' or 'at twenty-four hours' notice', to indicate that something can or must be done within a short period of time.
- at the controls — If someone is at the controls of a machine or other piece of equipment, they are operating it.
- at the hands of — If someone experiences a particular kind of treatment, especially unpleasant treatment, at the hands of a person or organization, they receive it from them.
- at the point of — very close to; on the verge of
- atlantic puffin — any of several alcidine sea birds of the genera Fratercula and Lunda, having a short neck and a large, compressed, grooved bill, as F. arctica (Atlantic puffin) of the North Atlantic.
- atlantic ridley — ridley (def 1).
- atlantic salmon — a valuable food and game fish, Salmo salar, mainly of northern coastal Atlantic waters or, when spawning, in freshwater streams tributary to the ocean.
- atlantic-ridley — ridley (def 1).
- atlas mountains — a mountain system of N Africa, between the Mediterranean and the Sahara. Highest peak: Mount Toubkal, 4165 m (13 664 ft)
- atrabiliousness — The state or quality of being characterized by melancholy or glumness.
- attorney-at-law — a lawyer qualified to represent in court a party to a legal action
- audience appeal — the quality of being attractive to an audience
- audience rating — a figure based on statistical sampling indicating what proportion of the total listening and viewing audience tune in to a specific programme or network
- audio equipment — electrical devices used to play or record sound
- audio frequency — a frequency in the range 20 hertz to 20 000 hertz. A sound wave of this frequency would be audible to the human ear
- audio recording — an electronic recording of sound
- auditor general — (in Canada) a federal official responsible for auditing government departments and making an annual report
- audubon society — a North American organization devoted to the conservancy of birds
- auf wiedersehen — goodbye, until we see each other again
- augmented roman — a writing system based on an expanded English alphabet, consisting of 43 characters representing different phonemes of spoken English, used for teaching beginners to read. Abbreviation: I.T.A., i.t.a.
- augmented sixth — an interval greater than a major sixth by a chromatic half step.
- australian alps — a mountain range in SE Australia, in E Victoria and SE New South Wales. Highest peak: Mount Kosciuszko, 2195 m (7316 ft)
- australian mist — a breed of medium-sized cat with a short spotted or marbled coat
- australian pine — casuarina
- austria-hungary — the Dual Monarchy established in 1867, consisting of what are now Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and parts of Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and Italy. The empire was broken up after World War I
- authenticatable — to establish as genuine.
- authentications — Plural form of authentication.
- autocannibalism — The eating of part of one's own body.
- autocollimation — the process used in an autocollimator.
- autocorrelation — the condition occurring when successive items in a series are correlated so that their covariance is not zero and they are not independent
- autofluorescent — Of, pertaining to, or exhibiting autofluorescence.
- autoinoculation — the inoculation of microorganisms (esp viruses) from one part of the body into another, usually in the form of a vaccine
- autotransformer — a transformer in which part of the winding is common to both primary and secondary circuits
- autotransfusion — a process in which a patient receives some of his or her own blood in a transfusion rather than a donor's blood
- autotransplants — Plural form of autotransplant.
- avant la lettre — before the (specified) concept, word, person, etc. existed
- average revenue — the total receipts from sales divided by the number of units sold, frequently employed in price theory in conjunction with marginal revenue.
- avian influenza — an acute, usually fatal viral disease of chickens and other domestic and wild birds except pigeons, characterized by sudden onset of symptoms including fever, swollen head and neck, bluish-black comb and wattle, and difficult respiration.
- away-going crop — a crop planted by a tenant that matures after the expiration of the tenancy and is rightfully the tenant's to harvest.
- babinski effect — the reflex curling upwards of the toes (instead of inwards) when the sole of the foot is stroked, normal in infants below the age of two but a pathological condition in adults
- bacchanalianism — the practice of bacchanalian behaviour; drunken revelry
- back plastering — the introduction of partitions of lath and plaster between the inner and outer surfaces of a stud wall in order to improve the insulating properties of the wall.
- back projection — a method of projecting pictures onto a translucent screen so that they are viewed from the opposite side, used esp in films to create the illusion that the actors in the foreground are moving