18-letter words containing a, y, r, s
- hydrofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrofluorocarbon.
- hydroxytryptamines — Plural form of hydroxytryptamine.
- hyperaldosteronism — aldosteronism.
- hypercholesteremia — Alternative spelling of hypercholesteraemia.
- hypernationalistic — a person devoted to nationalism.
- hyperphosphorylate — To phosphorylate fully.
- 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.
- 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.
- hypophosphorylated — (biochemistry) phosphorylated to a less than normal extent, or less than fully.
- hyposulfurous acid — an acid, H 2 S 2 O 4 , next in a series below sulfurous acid, known only in solution or in the form of its salts.
- 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.
- in praise of folly — Latin Moriae Encomium. a prose satire (1509) by Erasmus, written in Latin and directed against theologians and church dignitaries.
- incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
- indiscriminatingly — In an indiscriminating manner.
- industrial hygiene — the science that assesses, controls, and prevents occupational factors or sources of stress in the workplace that may significantly affect the health and well-being of employees or of the community in general
- information system — a computer system or set of components for collecting, creating, storing, processing, and distributing information, typically including hardware and software, system users, and the data itself: the use of information systems to solve business problems.
- infrared astronomy — the study of infrared radiation emitted by celestial objects.
- interface analysis — (testing) A software test which checks the interfaces between program elements for consistency and adherence to predefined rules or axioms.
- involuntary muscle — muscle: contracts involuntarily
- james-lange theory — a theory that emotions are caused by bodily sensations; for example, we are sad because we weep
- jerusalem syndrome — a delusive condition affecting some visitors to Jerusalem in which the sufferer identifies with a major figure from his or her religious background
- kansas gay-feather — prairie button snakeroot.
- kentucky bluegrass — a grass, Poa pratensis, of the Mississippi valley, used for pasturage and lawns.
- known lazy bastard — (abuse) (KLB) A term, used among technical support staff, for a user who repeatedly asks for help with problems whose solutions are clearly explained in the documentation, and persists in doing so after having been told to RTFM. KLBs are singled out for special treatment (i.e. ridicule), especially if they have been heard to say "It's so boring to read the manual! Why don't you just tell me?". The deepest pit in Hell is reserved for KLBs whose questions reveal total ignorance of the basic concepts (e.g., "How do I make a font in Excel?", "Where do I turn on my RAM?"), and who refuse to accept that their questions are neither simple nor well-formed.
- lay down your arms — If soldiers lay down their arms, they stop fighting and give up their weapons.
- lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- lipopolysaccharide — any of a class of polysaccharides to which lipids are attached.
- literary criticism — study and review of literature
- lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
- long-stay car park — a car park (eg at an airport) where cars can be left for a long time
- loosestrife family — the plant family Lythraceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees having usually opposite or whorled, simple leaves, clusters of flowers, and fruit in the form of a capsule, and including the crape myrtle, loosestrifes of the genus Lythrum, and the henna shrub.
- lowell observatory — the astronomical observatory, situated in Flagstaff, Arizona, at which Pluto was discovered in 1930.
- 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".
- magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
- many happy returns — When it is someone's birthday, people sometimes say 'Many happy returns' to them as a way of greeting them.
- marketing strategy — a general plan or set of plans dealing with marketing, especially over a long period
- maternity hospital — birthing facility
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
- methyl transferase — any of a class of enzymes that catalyze the transfer of methyl groups from one molecule to another.
- methylated spirits — ethyl alcohol denatured with methyl alcohol for the purpose of preventing its use as an alcoholic beverage.
- microcrystallinity — The condition of being microcrystalline.
- monophosphorylated — (biochemistry) phosphorylated with a single unit of phosphoric acid.
- mucopolysaccharide — (formerly) glycosaminoglycan.
- muscular dystrophy — a hereditary disease characterized by gradual wasting of the muscles with replacement by scar tissue and fat, sometimes also affecting the heart.
- music to your ears — If something that you hear is music to your ears, it makes you feel very happy.
- mutually recursive — recursion