18-letter words containing g, n, a
- granulated surface — a roughened surface
- 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.
- grass-of-parnassus — any plant belonging to the genus Parnassia, of the saxifrage family, growing in marshy areas, having broad, smooth leaves and a single, pale flower.
- 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.
- gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
- gray manganese ore — manganite.
- great expectations — a novel (1861) by Charles Dickens.
- great pastern bone — the part of the foot of a horse, cow, etc., between the fetlock and the hoof.
- great sandy desert — a desert in NW Australia. About 300 miles (485 km) long; 500 miles (800 km) wide; about 160,000 sq. mi. (414,400 sq. km).
- greater manchester — a metropolitan county in central England, with the city of Manchester as its center. 498 sq. mi. (1290 sq. km).
- greater periwinkle — a Eurasian apocynaceous evergreen plant of the genus Vinca, V. major, having trailing stems and blue flowers
- greater roadrunner — either of two large terrestrial cuckoos of the genus Geococcyx of arid regions of the western U.S., Mexico, and Central America, especially G. californianus (greater roadrunner)
- green-backed heron — a small, American heron, Butorides striatus, having glossy green wings.
- 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.
- grumbling appendix — a condition in which the appendix causes intermittent pain but appendicitis has not developed
- guidance counselor — advisor in schools
- gulf of california — an arm of the Pacific Ocean, between Sonora and Lower California
- gulf saint vincent — a shallow inlet of SE South Australia, to the east of the Yorke Peninsula: salt industry
- gyromagnetic ratio — the ratio of the magnetic moment of a rotating charged particle to its angular momentum.
- 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.
- hash house slinger — a person who serves in a cheap cafe
- haulage contractor — a person or firm that transports goods by lorry
- have a thing about — If you have a thing about someone or something, you have very strong feelings about them.
- hearing impairment — partial deafness
- heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.
- heating degree-day — a degree-day below the standard temperature of 65°F or 19°C, used in estimating fuel consumption.
- hedge fund manager — a person in charge of managing a hedge fund and making its investments
- 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)
- hepatosplenomegaly — Enlargement of both the liver and spleen.
- 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.
- high-grade mineral — a mineral fulfilling certain conditions as regards purity or other physical properties
- highbush cranberry — a shrub, Viburnum trilobum, of northern North America, having broad clusters of white flowers and edible scarlet berries.
- highlight halftone — dropout (def 7).
- horizontal tasting — a tasting of wines from the same year but from different vineyards, producers, etc.
- 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.
- hungry programmers — (body) A group of programmers producing free software.
- huntington station — a town on W Long Island, in SE New York.
- identification tag — either of two oblong metal tags, issued to armed forces personnel, on which are impressed the serial number, name, etc., of the person to whom it is issued, and carried on or about the person at all times.
- ignatius of loyola — Loyola, Saint Ignatius.
- imaginary operator — An imaginary operator is the part of a complex number that defines the magnitude of the part of the complex number at right angles to the real number part.
- immunohistological — the microscopic study of tissues with the aid of antibodies that bind to tissue components and reveal their presence.
- immunopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology concerned with the immune system