17-letter words containing a, e, o
- homeopathic magic — magic that attempts to control the universe through the mimicking of a desired event, as by stabbing an image of an enemy in an effort to destroy him or her or by performing a ritual dance imitative of the growth of food in an effort to secure an abundant supply; a branch of sympathetic magic based on the belief that similar actions produce similar results.
- homogentisic acid — an intermediate compound in the metabolism of tyrosine and of phenylalanine, found in excess in the blood and urine of persons affected with alkaptonuria.
- honorable mention — a citation conferred on a contestant, exhibit, etc., having exceptional merit though not winning a top honor or prize.
- hope against hope — the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best: to give up hope.
- horatio kitchener — Horatio Herbert (1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and of Broome) 1850–1916, English field marshal and statesman.
- hormone treatment — any of several medical treatments using hormones
- horseradish sauce — a piquant sauce made from horseradish root, vinegar, etc, and traditionally eaten in Britain with roast beef
- hospital gangrene — Pathology. a contagious, often fatal gangrene, especially involving amputation stumps and war wounds, occurring usually in crowded, ill-kept hospitals, and caused by putrefactive bacteria.
- hospitality suite — a suite or room, as in a hotel or convention center, rented by a business firm, political candidate, or the like, to meet and entertain clients, potential customers, etc.
- hottentot's bread — elephant's-foot.
- house of assembly — the legislature or the lower house of the legislature in certain countries of the Commonwealth of Nations.
- house of ill fame — a house of prostitution; brothel
- household ammonia — diluted ammonia, often having a small quantity of detergent, used in the home for cleaning.
- household cavalry — (in Britain) cavalry units forming part of the ceremonial guard of the monarch.
- housekeeping cart — A housekeeping cart is a large metal basket on wheels which is used by a cleaner in a hotel to move clean bed linen, towels, and cleaning equipment.
- how the land lies — the prevailing conditions or state of affairs
- how's-your-father — sexual intercourse
- hubble's constant — the ratio of the recessional velocity of galaxies to their distance from the sun, with current measurements of its value ranging from 50 to 100 km/sec per megaparsec.
- hybrid fiber coax — (networking) (HFC) A kind of physical connection used in networks for audio, video, and data. DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) is used in Europe and DOCSIS is used in N America.
- hydroelectrically — Using hydroelectric power.
- hydrotherapeutics — hydrotherapy.
- hydrotherapy pool — a pool of water used for hydrotherapy
- hydrothermal vent — an opening on the floor of the sea from which hot, mineral-rich solutions issue. Compare vent1 (def 2).
- hydroxytryptamine — (organic compound) Any hydroxy derivative of tryptamine, but especially 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin).
- hyperalimentation — overfeeding.
- hyperbolic secant — a hyperbolic function that is the reciprocal of cosh; sech
- hyperbolic spiral — rθ = a, (where a is a constant)
- hyperchlorination — Chemistry. to combine or treat with chlorine. to introduce chlorine atoms into an organic compound by an addition or substitution reaction.
- hyperinflationary — (economics) Having very high levels of inflation.
- hyperpigmentation — coloration, especially of the skin.
- hyperpolarisation — Alternative spelling of hyperpolarization.
- hyperpolarization — The act or process of hyperpolarizing.
- hypocholesteremia — an abnormally low amount of cholesterol in the blood.
- hypoglossal nerve — either one of the twelfth pair of cranial nerves, consisting of motor fibers that innervate the muscles of the tongue.
- hypophrygian mode — a plagal church mode represented on the white keys of a keyboard instrument by an ascending scale from B to B, with the final on E.
- hyposensitization — The state or process of being reduced in sensitivity especially to an allergen.
- i beg your pardon — You say 'Pardon?' or 'I beg your pardon?' or, in American English, 'Pardon me?' when you want someone to repeat what they have just said because you have not heard or understood it.
- ice-cream parlour — a place where people go to eat ice cream
- icing on the cake — a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
- icosidodecahedron — A semiregular polyhedron with twelve faces that are regular pentagons and twenty that are equilateral triangles.
- icositetrahedrons — Plural form of icositetrahedron.
- ideogrammatically — In terms of, or by means of, ideograms.
- ignoratio elenchi — the fallacy of offering proof irrelevant to the proposition in question.
- illegal procedure — a penalty assessed against the offensive team for a technical rules violation, as in assuming an illegal formation.
- illinois waterway — a waterway system in N Illinois made up of canals and rivers connecting Lake Michigan in Chicago with the Mississippi River. 336 miles (541 km) long.
- image recognition — (graphics, artificial intelligence) The identification of objects in an image. This process would probably start with image processing techniques such as noise removal, followed by (low-level) feature extraction to locate lines, regions and possibly areas with certain textures. The clever bit is to interpret collections of these shapes as single objects, e.g. cars on a road, boxes on a conveyor belt or cancerous cells on a microscope slide. One reason this is an AI problem is that an object can appear very different when viewed from different angles or under different lighting. Another problem is deciding what features belong to what object and which are background or shadows etc. The human visual system performs these tasks mostly unconsciously but a computer requires skillful programming and lots of processing power to approach human performance.
- imitation doublet — a doublet formed entirely of glass.
- immediate version — child version
- immigrant workers — people who work in a country they arrived to in order to settle there
- immunosuppressant — (pharmacology) Capable of immunosuppression, immunosuppressive.