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18-letter words containing c, y, t, o, h

  • hidalgo y costillaMiguel [mee-gel] /miˈgɛl/ (Show IPA), 1753–1811, Mexican priest, patriot, and revolutionist.
  • histocompatibility — the condition of having antigenic similarities such that cells or tissues transplanted from one (the donor) to another (the recipient) are not rejected.
  • historical geology — the branch of geology dealing with the history of the earth.
  • honorary secretary — a unpaid person who is one of the managers of an organization
  • 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
  • hydrogen electrode — a standard reference electrode with a potential of zero, used in pH measurements, consisting of a platinum-black surface covered with hydrogen bubbles.
  • hydroxyacetic acid — glycolic acid.
  • hyper-metaphorical — a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”. Compare mixed metaphor, simile (def 1).
  • hypercholesteremia — Alternative spelling of hypercholesteraemia.
  • hyperconcentration — the act of concentrating; the state of being concentrated.
  • hypernationalistic — a person devoted to nationalism.
  • hypogastric artery — iliac artery (def 3).
  • 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 company with sb — If you feel, believe, or know something in company with someone else, you both feel, believe, or know it.
  • in the vicinity of — near to, in the area around
  • john birch society — an ultraconservative organization, founded in December 1958 by Robert Welch, Jr., chiefly to combat alleged Communist activities in the U.S.
  • johnny-come-lately — a late arrival or participant; newcomer: the Johnny-come-latelies producing space-war films after the trend had ended.
  • lincoln's birthday — February 12, a legal holiday in some states of the U.S., in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
  • lonely hearts club — a club for people who are trying to find a lover or a friend
  • 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".
  • methylcyclohexanol — a colorless, aromatic, viscous liquid mixture, chiefly of the ortho and para forms of CH 3 C 6 H 1 0 OH, derived from cresol by hydrogenation: used chiefly as a solvent for rubber, cellulose, esters, and phenols.
  • methylene chloride — a colorless, volatile liquid, CH 2 Cl 2 , used chiefly as a solvent, as a refrigerant, and as a local anesthetic in dentistry.
  • muscular dystrophy — a hereditary disease characterized by gradual wasting of the muscles with replacement by scar tissue and fat, sometimes also affecting the heart.
  • octachlorobiphenyl — (organic compound) Either of twelve isomers of the polychlorinated biphenyl containing eight chlorine atoms.
  • officer of the day — an officer who has charge of the guard and prisoners on an assigned day at a military installation. Abbreviation: OD, O.D., O.O.D.
  • old curiosity shop — a novel (1840–41) by Dickens.
  • ophthalmologically — In an ophthalmological manner.
  • orthopedic surgery — corrective operation on bones or joints
  • ovariohysterectomy — Surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus.
  • pathologic anatomy — the branch of pathology dealing with the morphologic changes in tissues.
  • peter tschaikowsky — Peter Ilyich [il-yich] /ˈɪl yɪtʃ/ (Show IPA), Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich.
  • phanerocrystalline — (of a rock) having the principal constituents in the form of crystals visible to the naked eye.
  • phantasmagorically — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
  • physical education — systematic instruction in sports, exercises, and hygiene given as part of a school or college program.
  • physical inventory — To carry out a physical inventory is to count all the stock on hand.
  • polychromatophilic — having an affinity for more than one kind of stain, especially for acid, neutral, and basic stains, as polychromatophilic erythroblasts characteristic of pernicious anemia.
  • positively charged — having a positive charge
  • preparatory school — a private or parochial secondary school, especially one boarding its students and providing a college-preparatory education.
  • processionary moth — a moth of the family Thaumetopoeidae, esp the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea), the larvae of which leave the communal shelter nightly for food in a V-shaped procession
  • proton synchrotron — a synchrotron used for accelerating protons.
  • psychogalvanometer — a type of galvanometer for detecting and measuring psychogalvanic currents.
  • psychopathological — the science or study of mental disorders.
  • psychotechnologist — a specialist in psychotechnology
  • psychotherapeutics — psychotherapy.
  • quite the contrary — not at all, the very opposite
  • rhondda cynon taff — a county borough in S Wales, created from part of Mid Glamorgan in 1996. Pop: 231 600 (2003 est). Area: 558 sq km (215 sq miles)
  • rhyming dictionary — a specialist dictionary organized by the final sounds of words, used to write poetry
  • root canal therapy — endodontics.
  • rotary clothesline — an apparatus of radiating spokes that support lines on which clothes are hung to dry
  • scottish secretary — the Secretary of State for Scotland, head of the Scotland Office, a UK government department with responsibility for some Scottish affairs
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