17-letter words containing am
- steamship company — a company which has a fleet of steamships
- stratified sample — a sample that is not drawn at random from the whole population, but separately from a number of disjoint strata of the population in order to ensure a more representative sample
- sunbury-on-thames — a town in SE England, in N Surrey. Pop: 27 415 (2001)
- superaerodynamics — the branch of aerodynamics that deals with gases at very low densities.
- sword of damocles — Damocles (def 2).
- sydenham's chorea — a form of chorea affecting children, often associated with rheumatic fever
- telescopic damper — a device with telescopic parts that reduce vibration in a motor vehicle
- the lower mammals — relatively simple or primitive mammals
- the metamorphosis — a short story (1915) by Franz Kafka.
- the olympic flame — the flame that is symbolically lit at the site of the ancient Olympics in Olympia and transported by relay to the place where the Olympic Games are to be held. It is used to ignite a fire in a cauldron that will burn throughout the Games
- the-metamorphosis — a short story (1915) by Franz Kafka.
- to fan the flames — If someone or something fans the flames of a situation or feeling, usually a bad one, they make it more intense or extreme in some way.
- trouble came back — (jargon) (TCB) An IBM term for an intermittent or difficult-to-reproduce problem that has failed to respond to neglect or shotgun debugging. Compare heisenbug.
- twelfth amendment — an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1804, providing for election of the president and vice president by the electoral college: should there be no majority vote for one person, the House of Representatives (one vote per state) chooses the president and the Senate the vice president.
- ultrametamorphism — metamorphism during which the temperature of a rock exceeds its melting point.
- ultramicrobalance — a balance for weighing precisely, to a hundredth of a microgram or less, minute quantities of material.
- universal grammar — a grammar that attempts to establish the properties and constraints common to all possible human languages.
- unix brain damage — Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as "Unix brain damage" if the program conforms to published standards and the Unix program in question does not. Unix brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behaviour than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out there. An example of Unix brain damage is a kluge in a mail server to recognise bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened jock weep.
- user brain damage — (humour) (UBD) A description (usually abbreviated) used to close a trouble report obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare pilot error; opposite: PBD; see also brain-damaged, PEBCAK.
- vale of glamorgan — a county borough of S Wales, created in 1996 from parts of South Glamorgan and Mid Glamorgan. Administrative centre: Barry. Pop: 121 200 (2003 est). Area: 295 sq km (114 sq miles)
- velaric airstream — a current of mouth air produced by the action of the tongue, operant in forming click sounds.
- vitamin b complex — an important group of water-soluble vitamins containing vitamin B 1 , vitamin B 2 , etc.
- water lily family — the plant family Nymphaeaceae, characterized by aquatic herbaceous plants having usually broad leaves, solitary, often showy flowers, and fruit in a variety of forms, and including the lotus (genus Nelumbo), spatterdock, water lily, and water shield.
- william shoemaker — William Lee ("Willie") 1931–2003, U.S. jockey.
- williams syndrome — an abnormality in the genes involved in calcium metabolism, resulting in learning difficulties
- x-ray examination — an examination of part of the body, using an X-ray machine
- youth programming — the creation and scheduling of television programmes specifically aimed at young people