18-letter words containing a, r, o, n, i
- good samaritan law — a law that exempts from legal liability persons, sometimes only physicians, who give reasonable aid to strangers in grave physical distress.
- grains of paradise — Usually, grains of paradise. one of the pungent, peppery seeds of an African plant, Aframomum melegueta, of the ginger family, used to strengthen cordials and in veterinary medicine.
- grampian mountains — a mountain system of central Scotland, extending from the southwest to the northeast and separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. Highest peak: Ben Nevis, 1344 m (4408 ft)
- grand council fire — a formal gathering of camp fire members requiring a minimum attendance of three troops.
- granulation tissue — tissue formed in ulcers and in early wound healing and repair, composed largely of newly growing capillaries and so called from its irregular surface in open wounds; proud flesh.
- grasshopper engine — a steam engine having a piston attached to one end of a beam that is hinged to an upright at the other end, the connecting rod being suspended from near the center of the beam.
- gravitational lens — a heavy, dense body, as a galaxy, that lies along our line of sight to a more distant object, as a quasar, and whose gravitational field refracts the light of that object, splitting it into multiple images as seen from the earth.
- gravitational mass — the mass of a body as measured by its gravitational attraction for other bodies.
- gravitational pull — force of gravity
- gravitational wave — (in general relativity) a propagating wave of gravitational energy produced by accelerating masses, especially during catastrophic events, as the gravitational collapse of massive stars.
- great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
- greenhouse warming — the increase in the mean temperature of the earth attributed to the greenhouse effect
- 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.
- grosse pointe park — a city in SE Michigan, near Detroit.
- growing degree-day — a degree-day above 41°F (5°C), used in relation to plant growth.
- guidance counselor — advisor in schools
- gulf of california — an arm of the Pacific Ocean, between Sonora and Lower California
- gyromagnetic ratio — the ratio of the magnetic moment of a rotating charged particle to its angular momentum.
- 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
- hash house slinger — a person who serves in a cheap cafe
- heart-rate monitor — a machine that monitors or records a person's heart rate
- 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
- herring bone weave — a pattern consisting of adjoining vertical rows of slanting lines, any two contiguous lines forming either a V or an inverted V , used in masonry, textiles, embroidery, etc.
- hexachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of forty-two isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing six chlorine atoms.
- historical fiction — the genre of literature, film, etc., comprising narratives that take place in the past and are characterized chiefly by an imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages.
- 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.
- home entertainment — the aggregate of appliances, as stero systems, television, videocassette recorders, or computers, used for diversion in the home.
- 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.
- honour moderations — (at Oxford University) the first public examination, in which candidates are placed into one of three classes of honours
- 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.
- horizontal tasting — a tasting of wines from the same year but from different vineyards, producers, etc.
- hot-water cylinder — a vertical cylindrical tank for storing hot water, esp an insulated one made of copper used in a domestic hot-water system
- human rights group — a group that campaigns for human rights
- hungarian notation — (language, convention) A linguistic convention requiring one or more letters to be added to the start of variable names to denote scope and/or type. Hungarian Notation is mainly confined to Microsoft Windows programming environments, such as Microsoft C, C++ and Visual Basic. It was originally devised by Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian, who was a senior programmer at Microsoft for many years. He disliked the way that names in C programs gave no clue as to the type, leading to frequent programmer errors. According to legend, fellow programmers at Microsoft, on seeing the convoluted, vowel-less variable names produced by his scheme, said, "This might as well be in Greek - or even Hungarian!". They made up the name "Hungarian notation" (possibly with "reverse Polish notation" in mind). Hungarian Notation is not really necessary when using a modern strongly-typed language as the compiler warns the programmer if a variable of one type is used as if it were another type. It is less useful in object-oriented programming languages such as C++, where many variables are going to be instances of classes and so begin with "obj". In addition, variable names are essentially only comments, and thus are just as susceptible to becoming out-of-date and incorrect as any other comment. For example, if a signed short int becomes an unsigned long int, the variable name, and every use of it, should be changed to reflect its new type. A variable's name should describe the values it holds. Type and scope are aspects of this, but Hungarian Notation overemphasises their importance by allocating so much of the start of the name to them. Furthermore, type and scope information can be found from the variable's declaration. Ironically, this is particularly easy in the development environments in which Hungarian Notation is typically used.
- hydrocinnamic acid — a white crystalline compound, C 9 H 10 O 2 , with a floral odor, used in perfumes and flavoring.
- hydroxytryptamines — Plural form of hydroxytryptamine.
- hyperaldosteronism — aldosteronism.
- hyperconcentration — the act of concentrating; the state of being concentrated.
- hypernationalistic — a person devoted to nationalism.
- hyperproliferation — (biology) An abnormally high rate of proliferation of cells by rapid division.
- hypersensitization — Photography. to treat (a film or emulsion) so as to increase its speed.
- hypersexualisation — Alternative spelling of hypersexualization.
- hypersexualization — The act or process of hypersexualizing.
- hypochromic anemia — an anemia characterized by an abnormally low concentration of hemoglobin in the red blood cells, often due to iron deficiency.
- 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.
- ideas of reference — a schizophrenic symptom in which the patient thinks that things completely disconnected from him are influencing him or conveying messages to him