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20-letter words containing a, h, r

  • attachment parenting — a style of child rearing aimed at developing a strong emotional bond between the child and primary caregiver. See also attachment (def 3a).
  • axiomatic set theory — (theory)   One of several approaches to set theory, consisting of a formal language for talking about sets and a collection of axioms describing how they behave. There are many different axiomatisations for set theory. Each takes a slightly different approach to the problem of finding a theory that captures as much as possible of the intuitive idea of what a set is, while avoiding the paradoxes that result from accepting all of it, the most famous being Russell's paradox. The main source of trouble in naive set theory is the idea that you can specify a set by saying whether each object in the universe is in the "set" or not. Accordingly, the most important differences between different axiomatisations of set theory concern the restrictions they place on this idea (known as "comprehension"). NBG (von Neumann-Bernays-Goedel) set theory sort of allows comprehension for all formulae without restriction, but distinguishes between two kinds of set, so that the sets produced by applying comprehension are only second-class sets. NBG is exactly as powerful as ZF, in the sense that any statement that can be formalised in both theories is a theorem of ZF if and only if it is a theorem of ZFC. MK (Morse-Kelley) set theory is a strengthened version of NBG, with a simpler axiom system. It is strictly stronger than NBG, and it is possible that NBG might be consistent but MK inconsistent. ML ("Modern Logic") is to NF as NBG is to ZF. (Its name derives from the title of the book in which Quine introduced an early, defective, form of it). It is stronger than ZF (it can prove things that ZF can't), but if NF is consistent then ML is too.
  • back the wrong horse — to bet on a horse that loses the race
  • bacteriochlorophylls — Plural form of bacteriochlorophyll.
  • balanced three-phase — A balanced three-phase voltage or current is one in which the size of each phase is the same, and the phase angles of the three phases differ from each other by 120 degrees.
  • baptism for the dead — the baptism of a living person in the place of and for the sake of one who has died unbaptized: now practiced chiefly by Mormons.
  • barking and dagenham — a borough of E Greater London. Pop: 165 900 (2003 est). Area: 34 sq km (13 sq miles)
  • barothermohygrograph — an automatic instrument for recording pressure, temperature, and humidity.
  • be called to the bar — to become a barrister
  • be hard pushed to do — If you are hard pushed to do something, you find it very difficult to do it.
  • be in the market for — to wish to buy or acquire
  • beat around the bush — to talk around a subject without getting to the point
  • beaverhead mountains — a mountain range on the border of E Idaho and SW Montana, in the Bitterroot Range. 10,961 feet (3343 meters).
  • been-there done-that — an exclamation expressing familiarity and boredom with a situation, experience, etc
  • beggar-your-neighbor — a children's card game for two, played with 52 cards, that is won when a player captures all of the cards.
  • belgian shepherd dog — a medium-sized well-proportioned dog of a breed that resembles an Alsatian in appearance and is often used as a sheepdog or a guard dog
  • benzene hexachloride — a compound, C6H6Cl6, used as an insecticide
  • benzyl isoamyl ether — a colorless liquid, C 12 H 18 O, used in soap perfumes.
  • bismarck archipelago — a group of over 200 islands in the SW Pacific, northeast of New Guinea: part of Papua New Guinea. Main islands: New Britain, New Ireland, Lavongai, and the Admiralty Islands. Chief town: Rabaul, on New Britain. Pop: 566 610 (2000). Area: 49 658 sq km (19 173 sq miles)
  • black-throated diver — a diving bird, Gavia arctica, found in Europe and Asia, and a rare summer visitor to the UK
  • blending inheritance — the blending of characteristics of the parents in the offspring, as in a pink flower that results from the mating of a red flower with a white one
  • blue screen of death — (humour)   (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when Microsoft Windows crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as Windows 3.1, but also on Windows 95 and apparently even under Windows NT 4. It is most likely to be caused by a GPF, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required CD-ROM from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "Windoze just keeps BSODing on me today".
  • born-again christian — person: evangelical
  • bottom of the barrel — poor quality
  • brachiocephalic vein — either of two major veins, formed by the merger of the subclavian and internal jugular veins, that drain blood from the head and arms.
  • branch target buffer — (processor)   (BTB) A register used to store the predicted destination of a branch in a processor using branch prediction?
  • breadth-first search — (algorithm)   A graph search algorithm which tries all one-step extensions of current paths before trying larger extensions. This requires all current paths to be kept in memory simultaneously, or at least their end points. Opposite of depth-first search. See also best first search.
  • break the glass plan — a plan that is put into operation in an emergency when all other options have been exhausted
  • bring home the bacon — If you bring home the bacon, you achieve what you needed to achieve.
  • british thermal unit — a unit of heat in the fps system equal to the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1°F. 1 British thermal unit is equivalent to 1055.06 joules or 251.997 calories
  • broaden o's/the mind — If an experience broadens your mind, it makes you more willing to accept other people's beliefs and customs.
  • buck's horn plantain — a Eurasian plant, Plantago coronopus, having leaves resembling a buck's horn: family Plantaginaceae
  • bureau of the census — the division of the Department of Commerce that gathers, tabulates, and correlates census statistics.
  • butterfly-shell clam — coquina.
  • by their own account — If you say that something concerning a particular person is true by his or her own account, you mean that you believe it because that person has said it is true.
  • calcium hypochlorite — a white, crystalline compound, Ca(OCl) 2 , used as a disinfectant and bleaching agent.
  • carbohydrate loading — the practice of eating high amounts of carbohydrates, sometimes after a period of low carbohydrate intake, for several days immediately before competing in an athletic event, especially a marathon, in order to store glycogen in the body, thereby providing greater reserves of energy.
  • carbon tetrachloride — a colourless volatile nonflammable sparingly soluble liquid made from chlorine and carbon disulphide; tetrachloromethane. It is used as a solvent, cleaning fluid, and insecticide. Formula: CCl4
  • carl friedrich gauss — (person)   A German mathematician (1777 - 1855), one of all time greatest. Gauss discovered the method of least squares and Gaussian elimination. Gauss was something of a child prodigy; the most commonly told story relates that when he was 10 his teacher, wanting a rest, told his class to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss did it in seconds, having noticed that 1+...+100 = 100+...+1 = (101+...+101)/2. He did important work in almost every area of mathematics. Such eclecticism is probably impossible today, since further progress in most areas of mathematics requires much hard background study. Some idea of the range of his work can be obtained by noting the many mathematical terms with "Gauss" in their names. E.g. Gaussian elimination (linear algebra); Gaussian primes (number theory); Gaussian distribution (statistics); Gauss [unit] (electromagnetism); Gaussian curvature (differential geometry); Gaussian quadrature (numerical analysis); Gauss-Bonnet formula (differential geometry); Gauss's identity (hypergeometric functions); Gauss sums (number theory). His favourite area of mathematics was number theory. He conjectured the Prime Number Theorem, pioneered the theory of quadratic forms, proved the quadratic reciprocity theorem, and much more. He was "the first mathematician to use complex numbers in a really confident and scientific way" (Hardy & Wright, chapter 12). He nearly went into architecture rather than mathematics; what decided him on mathematics was his proof, at age 18, of the startling theorem that a regular N-sided polygon can be constructed with ruler and compasses if and only if N is a power of 2 times a product of distinct Fermat primes.
  • carpathian mountains — a mountain system of central and E Europe, extending from Slovakia to central Romania: mainly forested, with rich iron ore resources. Highest peak: Gerlachovka, 2663 m (8788 ft)
  • casing head pressure — The casing head pressure is the pressure on the casing, which is measured at the wellhead.
  • cast a pall over sth — If something unpleasant casts a pall over an event or occasion, it makes it less enjoyable than it should be.
  • cast the first stone — the hard substance, formed of mineral matter, of which rocks consist.
  • catastrophic failure — Catastrophic failure is sudden and complete failure which cannot be put right.
  • catastrophic illness — A catastrophic illness is a major health event that takes place during a particular period of time, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.
  • catherine de medicis — (Caterina de' Medici) 1518–89, queen of Henry II of France (mother of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III).
  • catherine de' medici — 1519–89, queen of Henry II of France; mother of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III of France; regent of France (1560–74). She was largely responsible for the massacre of Protestants on Saint Bartholomew's Day (1572)
  • cavendish experiment — the experiment, conducted by Henry Cavendish, that determined the constant of gravitation by using a torsion balance and measuring the torsion produced by two masses placed at given distances from the masses on the balance.
  • central bedfordshire — a unitary authority of S central England. Pop: 252 100 (2007 est). Area: 712 sq km (275 sq miles)
  • centre three-quarter — either of two middle players on the three-quarter line
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