21-letter words containing a, c, h, i, r
- gastrohepatic omentum — lesser omentum.
- gram-molecular weight — gram molecule. Abbreviation: GMW.
- greenwich observatory — the national astronomical observatory of Great Britain, housed in a castle in E Sussex; formerly located at Greenwich.
- ground-effect machine — ACV (def 2).
- guaranteed scheduling — (algorithm) A scheduling algorithm used in multitasking operating systems that guarantees fairness by monitoring the amount of CPU time spent by each user and allocating resources accordingly.
- harriet beecher stowe — Harriet (Elizabeth) Beecher, 1811–96, U.S. abolitionist and novelist.
- have the inside track — If you say that someone has the inside track, you mean that they have an advantage, for example special knowledge about something.
- hawaiian honeycreeper — any small to medium-sized finches of the subfamily Drepanidinae, native to the Hawaiian Islands and including many rare and extinct species.
- hazard warning device — an appliance fitted to a motor vehicle that operates the hazard lights
- heliocentric parallax — the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in the position of the observer.
- hierarchical database — (database) A kind of database management system that links records together like a family tree such that each record type has only one owner, e.g. an order is owned by only one customer. Hierarchical structures were widely used in the first mainframe database management systems. However, due to their restrictions, they often cannot be used to relate structures that exist in the real world.
- highest common factor — greatest common divisor. Abbreviation: H.C.F.
- hindu-arabic numerals — Arabic numeral.
- historic places trust — (in New Zealand) the statutory body concerned with the conservation of historic buildings, esp with ancient Māori sites
- human rights activist — a person who campaigns for human rights
- hydraulic accumulator — an apparatus in which gas, usually air, is used as a cushion or shock absorber in a hydraulic system.
- hyperbolic paraboloid — a paraboloid that can be put into a position such that its sections parallel to one coordinate plane are hyperbolas, with its sections parallel to the other two coordinate planes being parabolas.
- hypercholesterolaemia — the condition of having a high concentration of cholesterol in the blood
- in co-ordination with — If you do something in co-ordination with someone else, you both organize your activities so that you work together efficiently.
- in the first instance — You say in the first instance to mention something that is the first step in a series of actions.
- indicated horse-power — the horsepower of a reciprocating engine as shown by an indicator record. Abbreviation: ihp, IHP.
- industrial psychology — the application of psychological principles and techniques to business and industrial problems, as in the selection of personnel or development of training programs.
- insulin shock therapy — a former treatment for mental illness, especially schizophrenia, employing insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a method for producing convulsive seizures.
- irish republican army — an underground Irish nationalist organization founded to work for Irish independence from Great Britain: declared illegal by the Irish government in 1936, but continues activity aimed at the unification of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Abbreviation: IRA, I.R.A.
- joseph-marie jacquard — (person) /zhoh-zef' mah-ree' zhah-kar'/ (1752-07-07 to 1834-08-07) The inventor of the Jacquard loom.
- korsakoff's psychosis — a mental illness involving severe confusion and inability to retain recent memories, usually caused by alcoholism
- laboratory technician — sb who assists in a laboratory
- large hadron collider — a particle accelerator at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, containing a circular underground tunnel 27km (16.8 miles) in circumference, around which two streams of hadrons are sent in opposite directions before being brought together in a high-energy collision
- law of thermodynamics — any of three principles variously stated in equivalent forms, being the principle that the change of energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the heat transferred minus the work done (first law of thermodynamics) the principle that no cyclic process is possible in which heat is absorbed from a reservoir at a single temperature and converted completely into mechanical work (second law of thermodynamics) and the principle that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations (third law of thermodynamics)
- leave sb in the lurch — If someone leaves you in the lurch, they go away or stop helping you at a very difficult time.
- light armored vehicle — an eight-wheeled armored reconnaissance car with a 25mm cannon, in service with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in the 1980s.
- like a shag on a rock — abandoned and alone
- main-topsail schooner — a two-masted or three-masted schooner having square topsails on the foremast and mainmast: a jackass brig or jackass bark.
- mechanical instrument — a musical instrument, such as a barrel organ or music box, that plays a preselected piece of music by mechanical means
- mechanical metallurgy — the branch of metallurgy dealing with the response of metals to applied forces.
- mechanical solidarity — social cohesiveness that is based on shared activities, beliefs, and experiences and is characteristic of simple traditional societies.
- mechanical weathering — any of the various weathering processes that cause physical disintegration of exposed rock without any change in the chemical composition of the rock: Collision between rock surfaces can cause mechanical weathering.
- modern apprenticeship — an arrangement that allows a school leaver to gain vocational qualifications while being trained in a job
- monochloroacetic acid — chloroacetic acid.
- motivational research — the application of the knowledge and techniques of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology, to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior: used as a guide in advertising and marketing.
- mucopolysaccharidoses — Plural form of mucopolysaccharidosis.
- mucopolysaccharidosis — Any of a group of metabolic disorders caused by the absence or malfunction of lysosomal enzymes needed to break down glycosaminoglycans.
- multichannel analyser — an electronic instrument, such as a pulse height analyser, that splits an input waveform into a large number of channels in accordance with a particular parameter of the input
- near-death experience — A near-death experience is a strange experience that some people who have nearly died say they had when they were unconscious.
- north atlantic treaty — the treaty (1949) signed by 12 countries, providing for the establishment of NATO.
- north pacific current — a warm current flowing eastward across the Pacific Ocean.
- nothing in particular — not anything specific
- old spanish practices — irregular practices among a group of workers to gain increased financial allowances, reduced working hours, etc
- open graphics library — (graphics, library) (OpenGL) A multi-platform software interface to graphics hardware, supporting rendering and imaging operations. The OpenGL interface was developed by Silicon Graphics, who license it to other vendors. The OpenGL graphics interface consists of several hundred functions operating on 2D and 3D objects, supporting basic techniques, such as modelling and smooth shading, and advanced techniques, such as texture mapping and motion blur. Many operations require a frame buffer. OpenGL is network-transparent, and a common extension to the X Window System allows an OpenGL client to communicate across a network with a different vendor's OpenGL server. OpenGL is based on Silicon Graphics' proprietary IRIS GL.
- ortho-phosphoric acid — a colorless, crystalline solid, H 3 PO 4 , the tribasic acid of pentavalent phosphorus: used chiefly in fertilizers, as a source of phosphorus salts, and in soft drinks as an acidulant and flavoring agent.