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18-letter words that end in y

  • jump discontinuity — a discontinuity of a function at a point where the function has finite, but unequal, limits as the independent variable approaches the point from the left and from the right. Compare jump (def 52).
  • launching ceremony — a ceremony that celebrates the launch of a ship for the first time into the water
  • lily of the valley — a plant, Convallaria majalis, having an elongated cluster of small, drooping, bell-shaped, fragrant white flowers.
  • lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
  • lone-parent family — a family in which there is only one parent
  • 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.
  • 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".
  • magnetoelectricity — electricity developed by the action of magnets.
  • management company — a company that manages a unit trust
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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
  • milkweed butterfly — monarch butterfly.
  • money of necessity — temporary coinage, as siege pieces, issued in areas where regular coinage is unavailable: sometimes of unusual materials, as leather or wood.
  • mountain cranberry — cowberry
  • multifunctionality — The condition of being multifunctional.
  • muscular dystrophy — a hereditary disease characterized by gradual wasting of the muscles with replacement by scar tissue and fat, sometimes also affecting the heart.
  • mutual aid society — A mutual aid society is an organization that provides benefits or other help to its members when they are affected by things such as death, sickness, disability, old age, or unemployment.
  • naberezhnye chelny — a port in the Tatar Autonomous Republic, in the Russian Federation in Asia,e of Kazan, on the Kama River.
  • natural philosophy — natural science.
  • needlestick injury — an injury that is caused by accidentally pricking the skin with a hypodermic needle
  • neuroendocrinology — the study of the anatomical and physiological interactions between the nervous and endocrine systems.
  • neuroophthalmology — the branch of ophthalmology that deals with the optic nerve and other nervous system structures involved in vision.
  • neutrino astronomy — the branch of astronomy dealing with the detection and measurement of neutrinos emitted by the sun and other celestial objects.
  • non-accountability — the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.
  • non-responsibility — the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management.
  • nonvolatile memory — computer memory that can retain stored information even when not powered, for example read-only memory
  • northern territory — an administrative division of N central Australia, on the Timor and Arafura Seas: the Arunta Desert lies in the east, the Macdonnell Ranges in the south, and Arnhem Land in the north (containing Australia's largest Aboriginal reservation); the Ashmore and Cartier Islands constitute a separate Australian External Territory. Capital: Darwin. Pop: 233 300 (2012 est). Area: 1 347 525 sq km (520 280 sq miles)
  • nuclear capability — If a country has nuclear capability, it is able to produce nuclear power and usually nuclear weapons.
  • numerical identity — the relation that holds between two relata when they are the selfsame entity, that is, when the terms designating them have the same reference
  • numerical taxonomy — classification of organisms by a comparison of large numbers of observable characteristics that are given equal value instead of being weighted according to possible evolutionary significance.
  • officer of the day — an officer who has charge of the guard and prisoners on an assigned day at a military installation. Abbreviation: OD, O.D., O.O.D.
  • offset lithography — offset (def 6).
  • open heart surgery — surgery performed on the exposed heart while a heart-lung machine pumps and oxygenates the blood and diverts it from the heart.
  • open-heart surgery — surgery performed on the exposed heart while a heart-lung machine pumps and oxygenates the blood and diverts it from the heart.
  • ophthalmologically — In an ophthalmological manner.
  • organic solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on division of labor and interdependence and is characteristic of complex, industrial societies.
  • orthopedic surgery — corrective operation on bones or joints
  • oscillographically — By means of oscillography.
  • ovariohysterectomy — Surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus.
  • overdraft facility — a facility (of a bank or building-society cheque account) that allows a withdrawal of money in excess of the account's credit balance
  • palaeoanthropology — the branch of anthropology concerned with primitive man
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