21-letter words containing h, a, k
- ploughman's spikenard — a European plant, Inula conyza, with tubular yellowish flower heads surrounded by purple bracts: family Asteraceae (composites)
- protestant work ethic — work ethic.
- rap over the knuckles — to reprimand
- red-headed woodpecker — a black and white North American woodpecker, Melanerpes erythrocephalus, having a red head and neck.
- s-k reduction machine — An abstract machine defined by Professor David Turner to evaluate combinator expressions represented as binary graphs. Named after the two basic combinators, S and K.
- safe in the knowledge — If you do something safe in the knowledge that something else is the case, you do the first thing confidently because you are sure of the second thing.
- school of hard knocks — the experience gained from living, especially from disappointment and hard work, regarded as a means of education: The only school he ever attended was the school of hard knocks.
- share and share alike — with each having an equal share
- sick to one's stomach — afflicted with ill health or disease; ailing.
- skeleton at the feast — a person or event that brings gloom or sadness to an occasion of joy or celebration
- stick in one's throat — to be difficult, or against one's conscience, for one to accept, utter, or believe
- take off one's hat to — a shaped covering for the head, usually with a crown and brim, especially for wear outdoors.
- take one's hat off to — to salute or congratulate
- take sb at their word — If you take someone at their word, you believe what they say, when they did not really mean it or when they meant something slightly different.
- take sb/sth seriously — If you take someone or something seriously, you believe that they are important and deserve attention.
- take the consequences — to accept the results of one's actions
- tartarian honeysuckle — an Asian honeysuckle, Lonicera tatarica, having fragrant, white to pink flowers.
- the break of day/dawn — The break of day or the break of dawn is the time when it begins to grow light after the night.
- the corncracker state — a nickname for the state of Kentucky
- the fast track to sth — the quickest or most direct route or system
- the flickertail state — a name for the state of North Dakota
- the icing on the cake — If you describe something as the icing on the cake, you mean that it makes a good thing even better, but it is not essential.
- the joker in the pack — If you describe someone or something as the joker in the pack, you mean that they are different from the other people or things in their group, and can be unpredictable.
- the rock of gibraltar — a limestone promontory at the tip of S Spain
- the yellow brick road — the road to success or happiness (in the film the Wizard of Oz the yellow brick road leads to Oz)
- to be hard luck on sb — to be unfortunate or unlucky for someone
- to hit the bookstands — (of a book) to be published
- to look the other way — If you say that someone looks the other way, you are critical of them because they pay no attention to something unpleasant that is happening, when they should be dealing with it properly.
- to my way of thinking — You add to my way of thinking to a statement in order to indicate that you are giving your opinion.
- to sink without trace — If you say that someone or something sinks without trace or sinks without a trace, you mean that they stop existing or stop being successful very suddenly and completely.
- to take the high road — to take the course of action which is safest and most familiar
- to take the long view — If you take the long view, you consider what is likely to happen in the future over a long period, rather than thinking only about things that are going to happen soon.
- weak head normal form — (reduction, theory) (WHNF) A lambda expression is in weak head normal form (WHNF) if it is a head normal form (HNF) or any lambda abstraction. I.e. the top level is not a redex. The term was coined by Simon Peyton Jones to make explicit the difference between head normal form (HNF) and what graph reduction systems produce in practice. A lambda abstraction with a reducible body, e.g. \ x . ((\ y . y+x) 2) is in WHNF but not HNF. To reduce this expression to HNF would require reduction of the lambda body: (\ y . y+x) 2 --> 2+x Reduction to WHNF avoids the name capture problem with its need for alpha conversion of an inner lambda abstraction and so is preferred in practical graph reduction systems. The same principle is often used in strict languages such as Scheme to provide call-by-name evaluation by wrapping an expression in a lambda abstraction with no arguments: D = delay E = \ () . E The value of the expression is obtained by applying it to the empty argument list:
- whistling in the dark — If you say that someone is whistling in the dark, you mean that they are trying to remain brave and convince themselves that the situation is not as bad as it seems.
- white-knuckle paddler — an inexpert and timid canoeist.