18-letter words containing a, h, i, t, o
- hypersexualization — The act or process of hypersexualizing.
- hypogastric artery — iliac artery (def 3).
- hypoparathyroidism — Diminished concentration of parathyroid hormone in the blood, which causes deficiencies of calcium and phosphorus compounds in the blood and results in muscular spasms.
- hysterical reasons — (Or "hysterical raisins") A variant on the stock phrase "for historical reasons", indicating specifically that something must be done in some stupid way for backward compatibility, and moreover that the feature it must be compatible with was the result of a bad design in the first place. "All IBM PC video adaptors have to support MDA text mode for hysterical reasons." Compare bug-for-bug compatible.
- i'll give you that — You say I'll give you that to indicate that you admit that someone has a particular characteristic or ability.
- immunohistological — the microscopic study of tissues with the aid of antibodies that bind to tissue components and reveal their presence.
- in accordance with — conforming to
- in another's shoes — in another's position
- in company with sb — If you feel, believe, or know something in company with someone else, you both feel, believe, or know it.
- in comparison with — when compared to
- in compliance with — in accordance with
- in the face of sth — If you take a particular action or attitude in the face of a problem or difficulty, you respond to that problem or difficulty in that way.
- in the last resort — You use in the last resort when stating the most basic or important fact that will still be true in a situation whatever else happens.
- in the name of sth — If you do something in the name of an ideal or an abstract thing, you do it in order to preserve or promote that thing.
- in with a shout of — If you say that someone is in with a shout of achieving or winning something, you mean that they have a chance of achieving or winning it.
- indecent behaviour — the offence of committing indecent acts
- information theory — the mathematical theory concerned with the content, transmission, storage, and retrieval of information, usually in the form of messages or data, and especially by means of computers.
- inner automorphism — an automorphism that maps an element x into an element of the form axa −1 where a −1 is the inverse of a.
- inter-relationship — reciprocal relation.
- interrelationships — Plural form of interrelationship.
- ionization chamber — a device for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation, consisting of a tube containing a low pressure gas and two electrodes between which a high voltage is maintained. The current between the electrodes is a function of the intensity of the radiation
- iron (ii) sulphate — an iron salt with a saline taste, usually obtained as greenish crystals of the heptahydrate, which are converted to the white monohydrate above 100°C: used in inks, tanning, water purification, and in the treatment of anaemia. Formula: FeSO4
- isolation hospital — a hospital used to isolate or quarantine people with a contagious disease
- isothermal process — a process that takes place without change in temperature.
- japanese artichoke — Chinese artichoke.
- junior heavyweight — a boxer weighing up to 190 pounds (85.5 kg), between light heavyweight and heavyweight.
- king of the castle — most powerful figure
- king-of-the-salmon — a ribbonfish, Trachypterus altivelis, of northern parts of the Pacific Ocean.
- knight of the bath — a member of a knightly order founded by George I of England in 1725.
- knight of the road — a tramp
- knights of pythias — a fraternal order founded in Washington, D.C., in 1864.
- lactogenic hormone — prolactin.
- lake pontchartrain — a shallow lagoon in SE Louisiana, linked with the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow channel, the Rigolets: resort and fishing centre. Area: 1620 sq km (625 sq miles)
- lay it on the line — a mark or stroke long in proportion to its breadth, made with a pen, pencil, tool, etc., on a surface: a line down the middle of the page.
- lesser whitethroat — an Old World warbler, Sylvia curruca, having a greyish-brown plumage with a white throat and underparts
- 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.
- liqueur chocolates — chocolates containing liqueur
- literae humaniores — (at Oxford University) the faculty concerned with Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and philosophy; classics
- lithostratigraphic — Of or pertaining to lithostratigraphy.
- logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
- logarithmus dualis — (mathematics) (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2". Roughly the number of bits required to represent an integer.
- logical shift left — logical shift
- lower palaeolithic — the earliest of the three sections of the Palaeolithic, beginning about 3 million years ago and ending about 70 000 bc with the emergence of Neanderthal man
- 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".
- magnetorheological — (physics) describing a substance whose rheological properties are modified by a magnetic field.
- make a night of it — to cause an activity to last a night
- maternity hospital — birthing facility
- mathematical error — a mistake in a mathematical calculation, etc
- mathematical logic — symbolic logic.