18-letter words containing a, l, e
- grease the palm of — to influence by giving money to; bribe
- great-circle track — the route of a ship following the arc of a great circle, appearing as a curved line on a Mercator chart and as a straight line on a gnomonic chart.
- greater periwinkle — a Eurasian apocynaceous evergreen plant of the genus Vinca, V. major, having trailing stems and blue flowers
- greater yellowlegs — either of two American shorebirds having yellow legs, Tringa melanoleuca (greater yellowlegs) or T. flavipes (lesser yellowlegs)
- gregorian calendar — the reformed Julian calendar now in use, according to which the ordinary year consists of 365 days, and a leap year of 366 days occurs in every year whose number is exactly divisible by 4 except centenary years whose numbers are not exactly divisible by 400, as 1700, 1800, and 1900.
- grumbling appendix — a condition in which the appendix causes intermittent pain but appendicitis has not developed
- guidance counselor — advisor in schools
- gulf saint vincent — a shallow inlet of SE South Australia, to the east of the Yorke Peninsula: salt industry
- gulf stream system — a major ocean-current system consisting of the Gulf Stream and the Florida and North Atlantic currents.
- gulliver's travels — a social and political satire (1726) by Jonathan Swift, narrating the voyages of Lemuel Gulliver to four imaginary regions: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms.
- ha ha only serious — (SF fandom, originally as mutation of HHOK, "Ha Ha Only Kidding") A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS) that aptly captures the flavour of much hacker discourse. Applied especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. The Jargon File contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a wannabee, or in larval stage. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See also AI koan.
- half-open interval — a set of numbers between two given numbers but including only one endpoint.
- hamilton's problem — Hamiltonian problem
- handkerchief table — corner table.
- handlebar mustache — A handlebar mustache is a long thick mustache with curled ends.
- handyman's special — fixer-upper.
- hardy-weinberg law — a principle stating that in an infinitely large, randomly mating population in which selection, migration, and mutation do not occur, the frequencies of alleles and genotypes do not change from generation to generation.
- harnessed antelope — any African antelope of the genus Tragelaphus, especially the bushbuck, having the body marked with white stripes and spots that resemble a harness, and, in the male, long, gently spiraling horns.
- hash house slinger — a person who serves in a cheap cafe
- haulage contractor — a person or firm that transports goods by lorry
- have a screw loose — a metal fastener having a tapered shank with a helical thread, and topped with a slotted head, driven into wood or the like by rotating, especially by means of a screwdriver.
- have a slate loose — to be eccentric or crazy
- have eyes only for — the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
- have two left feet — to be very clumsy
- hawksbill (turtle) — a medium-sized marine turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata, family Cheloniidae) having a hawklike beak and a horny shell from which tortoise shell is obtained
- head and shoulders — If you say that someone or something stands head and shoulders above other people or things, you mean that they are a lot better than them.
- head disk assembly — (hardware, storage) (HDA) A sealed, high capacity mainframe hard disk with integral heads, as opposed to a removable disk.
- health care worker — A health care worker is someone who works in a hospital or health centre.
- heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.
- hearts and flowers — maudlin sentimentality: The play is a period piece, full of innocence abused and hearts and flowers.
- heavy middleweight — a professional wrestler weighing 177–187 pounds (81–85 kg)
- hebdomadal council — the governing council or senate of Oxford University
- hegelian dialectic — an interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis) the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis)
- heimlich manoeuvre — a technique in first aid to dislodge a foreign body in a person's windpipe by applying sudden upward pressure on the upper abdomen
- helicopter station — a place where helicopters are kept in readiness for use
- hell or high water — whatever difficulties may arise
- hepatosplenomegaly — Enlargement of both the liver and spleen.
- hexachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of forty-two isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing six chlorine atoms.
- hexaphosphorylated — (biochemistry) phosphorylated with six units of phosphoric acid.
- high-grade mineral — a mineral fulfilling certain conditions as regards purity or other physical properties
- highlight halftone — dropout (def 7).
- hilary of poitiers — Saint, a.d. c300–368, French bishop and theologian.
- historical geology — the branch of geology dealing with the history of the earth.
- historical present — the present tense used in narrating a past event as if happening at the time of narration.
- hold a reservation — If a hotel holds a reservation, it keeps a room for someone, and does not give it to someone else.
- hold up one's head — to be unashamed
- homelands movement — the programme to resettle native Australians on their tribal lands
- honeysuckle family — the plant family Caprifoliaceae, typified by shrubs and woody vines having opposite leaves, clusters of usually flaring, narrow, tubular flowers, and various types of fruit, and including the elder, honeysuckle, snowberry, twinflower, and viburnum.
- honorable ordinary — any of the ordinaries believed to be among those that are oldest or that were the source of the other ordinaries, as the chief, pale, fess, bend, chevron, cross, and saltire.
- honourable mention — If something that you do in a competition is given an honourable mention, it receives special praise from the judges although it does not actually win a prize.