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economics

  labor : a factor of production; the term not only includes the number of people available for or engaged in the production of goods or services but also their physical and intellectual skills and effort.

geology

  landslide : the perceptible downward sliding or falling of a relatively dry amount of earth, rock, or combination of the two under the influence of gravity; also known as landslip.
    language : the words, their pronunciation, and the methopds of combining them used and understood by a community.

science & technique    acronym

  LASER : Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation : an optical source that emits photons in a coherent beam; it was proposed as a variation of the MASER principle in the late 1950s, and the first laser was demonstrated in 1960.

MASER

science & technique

  laser : a source of coherent photons, i.e. light or other electromagnetic radiation. As the MASER/LASER principle was applied over a broad portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, the term (acronym) 'LASER' has entered English language as a standard word 'laser', losing the capitalization in the process. The back-formed verb 'lase' means 'to produce laser light' or 'to apply laser light to'. Also, in analogy with optical lasers, a device which produces any particles or electromagnetic radiation in a coherent state is also called a 'laser', usually with indication of type of particle as prefix (for example, 'atom laser').

maser

abbreviation

  Lat. : Latin

botany & gardening

  leaflet : one of the separate blades or divisions of a compound leaf; a small leaflike part of a structure.

botany & gardening

  legume : any of a large group of plants of the pea family, characterized by true pods enclosing seeds; because of their ability to store up nitrates, legumes are often plowed under to fertilize the soil. The term 'legume' is also used for the fruit of any plant of the pea family, pod, often used as food, and a seed of such a plant, contained in the pod.

botany & gardening

  lemma : the lower of two bracts enclosing the flower of the grasses.

botany & gardening

  lenticel : a lenticular cluster of cells in the periderm of plants, functioning as a breathing  pore on the young bark of the stem to allow air to reach the underlying tissue, especially during the winter; often the color contrasts with the bark.
    lenticular : shaped like a lentil or double-convex lens.

botany & gardening

  lentil (Lens esculenta) : an annual plant belonging to the pea family, with small, edible seeds shaped like double-convex lenses.

math : function             symbol

lg : common or Briggsian logarithm : logarithm on base 10 :  lg(a) = log10a

economics

  liabilities : sums of money for which account has to be made; for example, the liabilities of a company include its bank loans and overdraft, short term debts for goods and services received and its loan capital and the capital subscribed by shareholders.
    lime (also called: burnt lime, calcium oxide, caustic lime, calx, quicklime) : a white or grayish-white, odorless, lumpy, very slightly water-soluble solid, CaO, that when combined with water form calcium hydroxide (slaked lime); obtained from calcium carbonate, limestone or oyster shells; used chiefly in mortars, plasters, and cements, in bleaching powder, and in the manufacture of steel, paper, glass, and various chemicals of calcium.
    limestone : a sedimentary rock consisting predominantly of calcium carbonate, varieties of which are formed from the skeletons of marine microorganisms and coral; used as a building stone and in the manufacture of lime,

abbreviation

  ling. : linguistics

informal

  lingo : foreign language, jargon.

jargon

    linguistics : the science of languages and their structure.

math : function             symbol

ln : natural or Napierian logarithm : logarithm on base e :  ln(a) = logea

economics

  loan : the borrowing of a sum of money by one economic agent (person, company, government or other organization) from another; loans may be secured or unsecured, interest-bearing or interest-free, long-term or short-term, redeemable or irredeemable.

Latin                    abbreviation

  loc. cit. : loco citato : in the place cited

science & technique

  locomotion : progressive movement, as of an animal or a vehicle.

math : function             symbol

log : logarithmic function (logarithm) : the logarithm (c) of a number (a) is the exponent of that power (c) to which another number (b), the base, must be raised to give the number first named (a):

logba = c                        a = bc

Any positive number greater than 1 might serve as a base. Two traditionally and widely used bases are b=10 (common or Briggsian logarithms) and b=e=2.718... (natural or Napierian logarithms) while base b=2 is recently catching up, thanks to electronic computing.

Internet lingo

  LOL : laughing out loud

botany & gardening

  loment : the seed pod of the indehiscent legumes, which separates at the constrictions between the seeds when ripe.

Latin                    abbreviation

  loq. : loquitur : he or she speaks

games : tennis

  love : zero in tennis language; love-thirty is 0-30.

acoustic : hearing

loudness (level of sound) : an apparent, subjective acoustic scale which takes account of the variable human sensitivity to different sound frequencies; there are two loudness units of measurement: phon and sone. Phon is defined as loudness of 1000 Hz sound at the sound pressure level of 20 µPa; see [HANDBOOK]. Loudness level of a sound, expressed in phons, is numerically equal to the sound pressure level, expressed in decibels, of the 1000 Hz sound judged by listeners to be equivalent in loudness. Sone is defined as loudness of 1000 Hz sound, 40 dB above a listener’s threshold. Loudness level of a sound, expressed in sones, measures a loudness level above threshold for a particular listener; for that reason, the threshold (measured or assumed) should be always specified.

decibel (dB)

games : tennis

  lucky loser : in some knockout tournaments, one defeat does not automatically result in elimination. Beaten players have the chance to play again, if, for instance a player withdrew; these beaten players are known as 'lucky losers'.
luminous flux (also called: luminous power): the time rate of flow of light; the time rate of flow of electromagnetic radiant energy evaluated according to its capacity to produce visual sensation. The visible spectrum is usually considered to extend from 380 to 760 nm; therefore, luminous flux is radiant flux in that region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The SI unit of luminous flux is the lumen (lm), equal to candela×steradian (cd sr), as luminous flux is the intensity of light from a source multiplied by the solid angle.
 
 

UPDATED : 2008-01-30

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